First Adventures in Beijing

1 June


I’ve spent my first night in Beijing. I arrived yesterday morning at 5:30 to a very quiet airport, which made customs and passport control very empty. All went smoothly until I was waiting at baggage claim and only one of my bags showed up. After 3 visits to the baggage people who said I should keep waiting, my bag finally arrived, and I went to meet the driver who brought me to the China Agricultural University Campus. As we drove through Beijing, I was surprised at how spread out everything is. I was anticipating something denser- more like New York, or even A Coruna, but that’s not how Beijing is set up- it is a big city, but not as dense as Hong Kong.


Yesterday I met some of the other teachers here, particularly Chris Willford, and his wife Sarah, who are members of the branch here. Sarah took us shopping at the grocery store, and I have the basics set up in my dorm room.
This morning we ventured out into the city to get to church, and after taking 1 bus and two subways, we arrived! The bus cost 1 yuan (about 6 to a dollar), and the subway 2 yuan, but once you are inside the subway system you don’t have to buy another ticket, so it will be about $1 round trip to church. I purchased a travel card, that I can scan and saves me a small amount on public transportation, so this amount will be just a bit lower.


Sarah and Chris have 4 kids between age 10 and 1.5, and all of them manage living in Beijing better than we do. Often the 5 year old will help us getting on and off the bus, tell us where our stop is, and direct us on getting where we are going. They are small and blonde, and cheerfully ignore all of the Chinese people who stop and point at them. They are pros at getting around, and I’m grateful to have the Willfords around to help me navigate!


I went to lunch with the singles at the Branch president's house, and had a nice time. They have very high turnover here, with lots of people out for a month or a few months for school and internships. The fun part of the afternoon was the way home! We took a bus and two different subway lines to get to church, so I had to navigate that backwards. The first subway line was easy as there were several other singles heading that way, so we all went together. They made sure I got my public transportation card, and I got onto the second subway line by myself. Things went well, and I got off at the correct stop (the subway is actually pretty standard, there are a lot of lines, but all the signs are also in English, so it is pretty easy to navigate.)
After getting off the subway, I headed outside to discover a downpour! There were also 4 exits to the subway station, and I didn't know which one to use. I then dashed from the exit of the subway that I first happened upon to the bus stop a block away. I stood there waiting for the bus, only to realize that I didn't know exactly which bus line went back to campus. There was no sign anywhere that indicated anything, and Sarah had just said that there were a lot of them. Finally I asked a young guy standing near me for help. He told me I should just give up and take a taxi. This was not in my plans, but in telling me that, he told me I would need to cross the street to get a taxi going the other direction, so I crossed the street in the pouring rain, and made my way to the bus stop there.


In an effort to get out of the rain, I just got on the first bus that came, knowing that they'd have a schedule with stop names inside, and discovered that it did not go to my stop. I got off, and walked back to the main road. Still in the pouring rain. The next bus I got on did go to the stop Sarah told me to get off at, and we went past the one landmark I knew about- a mall on the corner of campus, so I knew we were set, but when I got off at what I was supposed to be the correct stop, there were none of the landmarks I recognized. I walked around a bit in the rain, and finally decided to start walking back towards the mall, because I could find my way from there, even though it was a bit of a walk. I walked through huge puddles of water a good 6 inched deep, past construction zones, near motorcycles driven by people holding umbrellas, and finally got to the mall where I wrung out my hair and decided to go in and buy and umbrella before I went home.


I found a stand in the mall that sold them, and we agreed on a price 40% of what the sticker price was (someone near me haggled them down to that, so I just made them give me the same price). I got out money to pay, and they kept my umbrella, and waved me away after handing me a piece of paper. I just looked around and couldn't figure out what to do, so I walked in the general direction of their gesture, and whenever I passed another booth, I held up my paper and looked lost and they pointed. Finally I found someone taking money, gave them my paper and the money, and they gave me my change and some other papers. After making my way back among the booths to the umbrella booth, they took my papers, gave me the umbrella, and I left to walk home. All in all, it was a highly successful, if wet, outing. I am exaggerating neither the downpour nor the waves of water flooding the sidewalks when cars drove by. I was utterly drippin and utterly happy at several successful parts of my outing!