Guangzhou and the journey here

I've told a lot of people that I'm going to have a blog while in China, so I guess I darn well better start one. I had a blog on tumblr.com all ready to go that I was pretty excited about using (just trust me, it was going to be all minimalist and typographically slick), but access to Tumblr is mysteriously un-possible here, and so I give you this.

As I write this, a dubbed episode of Lilo and Stitch is playing on my apartment TV to my right. Despite the fact that I didn't even really like the movie and can't see myself ever making an effort to watch the small screen version back home, I am somehow convinced that this is helping my Chinese. Plus, it's very colorful. Anyway, if you were unlike me and able to avert your gaze from the screen and look around the apartment, you would see where I have been living for two days. I reckon it's a fairly decent size "pad" for a Chinese dormitory, with a couch and coffee table, dinner table, adjoining kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a room with a lot of bookshelves. It should also be mentioned that those bookshelves have a lot of books on them. Books about teaching, about English, about Asia, books about books.... I get the impression that PiA fellows have inhabited this same room for some time, adding to it as they pass through. Oh that's the other thing: I'm home alone. The other PiA fellow (and, as I understand it, the only other native English speaker in a 5-mile radius), David, is not here yet. He's on vacation, having taught here last year as well. Though at the moment I am waiting for a visit from Thomas, the teacher I am replacing, who is coming by to collect some belongings before moving on.

Since arriving, I've met one representative of the school, Lisa, who led me around to register me at various places, including the police department, the department of "entry and exit" (at which I donated a small amount of blood for future scrutiny), and the school cafeteria. That was my first day, after which I slept for almost 13 hours. Lisa had left me with a task to complete on my own for the second day, a task which seemed simple enough: open a bank account a bank across the street and place 1 yuan inside. This account, as I understand it, is not for my salary (I get paid in cash) but for the school to collect insurance should I be killed in action. Explaining this to the teller at the bank was something of an ordeal, but in the end my bumbling (vocal and physical; I almost knocked over the stool while attempting to sit) attracted enough sympathy from the staff to help me through the red tape, and the small success of the morning left me feeling like a million RMB. The rest of the day I spent promenading down the most interesting street I could spot from the gates of the school, shopping, eating a chicken wing on a stick (seriously, like the whole wing, up to the shoulder), and collapsing of exhaustion upon arrival. Oh, and watching "The Rock" on DVD. Honestly, I don't know why that was my choice out of the hundreds of better ones in the apartment's impressive collection. But as far as movies with exploding trolleys, it could be worse.

The day before that was air day. I went from Lexington to Detroit to Tokyo to Guangzhou. Nice day for a flight. Except for a sore throat that made eating solid food an experience akin to swallowing tiny pineapples, it was a gosh-darned PLEASANT day. I've always liked being a passenger, mostly because you can read, and that day I finished "Watchmen" which is probably the best graphic novel I've ever read. How many graphic novels have I read? That's not important. I am now completely ready to wait six months for the totally awesome movie adaptation. What else did I write in my hip new impulse-buy Moleskine cahier that day? Oh yes, that I fulfilled a lifelong dream of pooping in a Japanese toilet. Check. The hotel I stayed in when I arrived at Baiyun airport in Guangzhou is probably the nicest place I'll even enter for a long time. I did my best to relish it, but I also looked forward to the taxi ride to my new home, and a place where a Coke does not cost 25 yuan.

Some of you may know that I photograph my food. By no means have I stopped doing so, but it occurred to me that using this shared computer is going to make uploading the photos a bit difficult. I think it's going to have to involve a USB drive, which I don't have yet, so until then, any interested parties will just have to anticipate the Bruce Lee-themed "True Kung Fu" meal, 4 bananas, chicken-on-a-stick, sesame bread and peanut butter that I've been chowing down on thus far.

I also promise to relate my first really bone-shatteringly awkward experience in Guangzhou as soon as humanly possible. That is, after all, why I'm here.