The obligatory inaugural blog post

I've been a diehard Xanga fan for the past 5 years, from the era when it was super-cool to its subsequent "ohmigosh, it's soooo, like, 2006" fall from popularity to its recent zombie revival. However, the Chinese government has had its eye on me and my insurgencies for a while now, so I arrived here last night to find my reliable ol' X 100% blocked by The Great Firewall.

No worries. I think it would be cool to have a separate space documenting my simplified character vagaries anyhow. The corny blog name is because I am absolutely abysmal at coming up with witty, catchy titles for... anything, really.

I'm currently sitting in an adorable little Internet cafe with most of my team members. We don't have very reliable Internet in our guesthouse rooms, so we have fled here to touch base with the rest of the world as we know it (America, family, friends, Facebook, Twitter, you know). We had orientation this morning and got ourselves hooked up with some cellphones - if you want to reach me, it's ... well, you can just go ahead and email me for that info. ;)

I've been keeping copious notes on experiences and thought processes since I left Austin two days ago; I've already filled up 30 pages. I'm a bit worried about whether or not I'll have enough pages for my stay here. I'll start typing up some of it when I get a chance and blog it up.

I had xiao long bao for breakfast this morning, and they were delicious (and cheap - $5 RMB for a basketful of 10). I bought two basketfuls to share with classmates. Unfortunately, I am an idiot and dug in before I took any pictures. D'oh. Don't worry - I'm sure I'll be back for more, and will let you voyeurs have a peek before I eat it all next time.

I feel like... I'm going to be one of the students who gets the most out of this trip. Since I speak the language (more fluently than I thought I did - it's all coming back to me ;p), can shoot my own images and am a writer by nature, it's going to go really well for me - as well as I allow it to, actually. Knowing that "the sky" (or my own ambition and drive) is my only limit is really exciting, I guess. I'm glad I'm here and I want to make the most of it.

Hello, China, I like you very much so far. I'm in a really quiet neighborhood, I think - despite the fact that we're pretty much smack-dab in the heart of Beijing, I have a hard time not comparing and contrasting my experience to the only other Asian city I know well - Taipei. I think thus far, I would sum it up thus: Singapore/Hong Kong/Taipei are all much more... geographically crowded cities. There are many people here, but somehow it's just not as squishy as I was expecting. The traffic is rather atrocious by American standards, but it doesn't faze me very much. Honestly, it feels a lot like a Taiwan CI trip. :P

At the risk of sounding like an Amy Tan novel, I feel like I'm coming home to my roots. :P We ran into a bunch of old people with horrible teeth and excited faces while walking to this Internet cafe. I asked them what they were doing (since they were all wearing bright red caps and vests like campaigners in Taiwan). They said they were a tour group from Fujian. I think Dad's family is from there. Seeing and hearing about these places in person for the first time gives me a weird, exciting sense of belonging. It's novel and I love it. I want to explore more.

K, I'm a little distracted by everyone else so I'm going to end this stupid post, and come up with something more coherent later on. :)