First Impressions...

First impressions are a hard thing to judge people on.  It is equally, if not harder to judge a place, city or Country on first impressions as well!  I landed in Beijing today...Damp, warm and of course Smog....but I find the people seem to be hard working and active.  As I was riding, silently (due to the driver didn't speak English) to my apartment, I notice folks weed-eating this huge park.  I thought to myself "why don't they just use a tractor?"  I still wonder, but haven't come up with the answer yet.  Another thing I noticed was all the Pinying...I was under the impression that the city would be filled with English; after all the Olympics were here just 5 years ago...not quiet the case.  My thoughts, "This should be interesting!"

Finally getting to my apartment, I was of course expecting a really nice place in the middle of a bunch of ex-pats.  Well, that again wasn't really the case.  Being here only a few hours, it seems as though I'm in the middle of a Chinese community with very little ex-pats.  The apartment is 3 bedrooms and one bath with a living room and a kitchen.  I was given the biggest room, and not sure why, but ok-I'll take it.  After a couple hours trying to get settled in it was time to go to the school which is literally a 5 minute walk from the complex I live in.  There I met the Athletic and Activities Director and another coach.  We were to go have dinner together as well.  I was given a phone and some magazines to peruse; the magazines are ex-pat friendly.  Dinner was at a traditional Chinese place closer to town.  We had many basic Chinese dishes from Kung Pao Chicken to Sweet and Sour Pork and some kind of sizzling beef.  Most was good, but there was one thing that wasn't....some type of mushroom.  They were served cold and it tasted as though I was eating rubber and pig skin (and I don't mean the fried pork rinds either!)  Needless to say, I won't be having them again.  We finished dinner off with a desert of Toffee bananas.  This was an interesting dish.  It was chopped pieces of banana cooked in a toffee, or almost like a caramel.  It was served with a bowl of water.  One eats this by pulling the banana from the pile on the central plate, dunking it in the water to cool it off, then carefully placing the banana in your mouth.  Carefully because though the toffee isn't hot any longer, the banana is still very hot on the inside.  This was a pretty good dish, though I think it needed a little something extra and I am not quiet sure what that is.

After dinner we stopped by a little grocery store and I picked up some necessities.  Milk, cereal, OJ, razors, laundry detergent and water.  From there it was back to the apartment with the roommate and I was off to bed.

One thing of note, I will have to get used to being hot....I see most folks around here don't really like to use the AC.  Being a boy from the south, this may be the hardest thing to get used to.  LOL.

(These are not my photos, they were taken from google!)