Safe and Sound

After about 40 hours of traveling, I made it to Nanjing, China! 

Here is the Reader's Digest condensed version: Salt Lake Express from Idaho Falls to Salt Lake City, not-so-nice American Airlines plane from SLC to LA, super fancy Korean Air plane from LA to Seoul South Korea, Korean Air again from Seoul to Shanghai China, then 4 hours crazy bus ride from Shanghai to Nanjing. The school here is HUGE, like a college campus huge. I guess it's like a regular school where the kids (4-9 year olds) stay day and night to learn all subjects including English (that's where I come in ;D). The faculty dorms, where we're staying (19 American ILP teachers) are surprisingly nice. Basically we are spoiled because we are staying in the nicest place out of all of the ILP School in every country. We all have a mini fridge, a flat screen TV, and newly wooded floors in our dorm rooms.

These first days the cafeteria wasn't open so we took the Metro into more main parts of the city for brunch and dinner. I come from a small town, so even just the big-city feel is an adventure for me. KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants are everywhere! McDonalds is also prevalent but not quite as much as the other two. I have also been in a Subway and a Starbucks. The western type restaurants like the ones I've listed have about the same prices as America, but the China specific restaurants are super cheap! I got this huge plate of Teriyaki chicken over rice for 14 yuan, or $2.54.

Things I've learned so far:

• Chinese drivers LOVE honking. They honk about everything, literally.
• Everybody smokes. All the time. Everywhere.
• Pointing or charades is an accepted type of communication.
• Cars, especially buses, don't stop for pedestrians.
• Nihao is Hello, Xia Xia is Thank you, and Dau Bo Chi is Sorry
• If all else fails, order a Boutza (dumpling) at restaurants, those are safe.

There was a random Hello Kitty store in the Korean Airport.

This is my very first meal in China: Rice, chicken stuff, tofu, warm lettuce in oil,  and this soup stuff. I guess the soup is just for drinking the broth and you aren't actually supposed to eat the nasty stuff in it like I did.

This is just the very first building of the Nanjing Foreign Language School. It's as big as like half of BYUI's entire campus.

This is a meal card for all the students and teachers. They put an allotted amount on it each month so we can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the cafeteria.

When you first walk into the dorms, this is what you see.