First Blog from China

Hey everyone!!!

     In case some of you weren't sure, I safely arrived in Shanghai late on September 3rd, everything went surprisingly smooth; my flight, the transfer in Hong Kong and the taxi to SUFE all had no problems. The only rough time was when I arrived at campus at 8 pm and I was trying to find out where I had to go but no one spoke english so I had to use my limited Chinese to find out where I had to bring my things... eventually I met the director of the program and she helped me put my suitcase in my room and go to a restaurant where my orientation group (who arrived earlier that day) was just finishing dinner. 

      Thursday morning was the first day of orientation where, for the most part we were busy all day with information sessions and being shown around the city. On Saturday our roommates moved in and that night we had a "jiaozi" making competition (boiled dumplings) which are extremely common here. Sunday, the day before classes started we had a scavenger hunt, where we were put in to groups of 6 (3 of us and our roommates), and we had to answer questions about various  famous places throughout the city by taking the metro (or taxis) and visiting them. I had fun, there are some really nice places, although the more into the city you go, like most cities the more touristy it becomes. I'm uploading my pictures onto my computer right now, I didn't have enough space on my hard drive to do it before so they should be up soon.

     I'm taking 4 classes here, 12 hours of Chinese language a week (four 3 hr classes a week... that's a lot) I'm on my way to my Finance class right now though. Zaijian!!