Pre visit Day 1

Well, I made it! For the first time flying by myself, I think I did pretty good with the 18 hour flight. It also helped knowing that Chad would be waiting for me!!

Day 1

We both had to get medical screenings to live in the country. It was an interesting process to say the least. It involved robes, EKG (with suction cups!), chest xray, ultrasound, bloodwork, general exam, and ENT exam with about 8 other strangers all waiting in line. Thankfully, it only lasted an hour and we were done.

We are staying at the Sheraton Hotel, which is right across the street from Chad's office at 3M.

We spent the afternoon at his office going over some paperwork and then went to the bank to get our accounts set up. The exchange rate is about 7 RMB to 1 Us dollar. Interesting fact- the largest bill here is 100RMB which is only about $13.. Makes for having to carry a big wad of cash!

The weather here is HOT and HUMID. It was about 95 degrees today, with earlier this week over 100! The temperature readings are in Celcius, so need to work on learning those :)Observation- there are a lot of umbrellas around. No sunglasses, just a lot people using umbrellas. We didn't explore too much until the evening when it was a little cooler out.

Traffic- EEK! I'm so glad we are not driving.. It's pretty much a free for all, not really paying too much attention to the pedestrians. Definitely need to be observant at all times :)

We went out for a walk and found a great little restaurant, McDonald's! LOL.. It was cheap and tasted the same, woohoo for us! We took a gamble eating the lettuce on the Big Mac, but didn't drink the Coke because of the water. Probably would've been ok, but didn't want to risk it. . Thankfully, I had a can of diet coke earlier in the lounge.. (Raina, this is for you!)

Duck anyone?

Went to a mall and looked around, saw a DQ and Subway... YAY! Also, went into a supermarket and feel A LOT better about the food and prices.. I really think we'll be able to do this!

On the way back, we walked past a park playing music and a ton of people all dancing.. It was pretty cool and different.

Aside from being a little tired still, it was a good day.. I'm feeling better about going to live here for the next couple of years :) Tomorrow is a city tour which should be fun. More to come after that...