First day of class and Mystery Beijing

I started class today! I only had one class and that was Chinese from 8 AM until 11:30 AM. Pretty hardcore. Class begins at 8 AM every morning; something I am not used to. In fact, I don't think anyone is really used to waking up so early for school. We're all lazy, American college students who like to roll out of bed around 10:55 AM to go to their 11 AM class ... or in some people's case, they wake up in the afternoon for their afternoon class. Not here though, class starts promptly at 8 AM, and if you're more than 5 minutes late, you get points taken off your grade. There is no room for horseplay at IES. I'm starting to get used to waking up around 6:30, 7 in the morning now. I've been doing it for the past 5 days I've been here. Being in China makes me want to wake up early. Chinese people don't really sleep in ... ever. Not even on the weekends.. My dad wakes up around 8:30 on Saturdays and Sundays ... and he wakes up around 7 on the weekdays. 8:30 AM is like sleeping in to him.

So. My first Chinese class was good; a bit intimidating because I am in the highest level here (level 5) and I feel like I don't know as much as I should. We had a quiz this morning (Yeah, on the first day of class. That's China for you) and I totally bombed it. Luckily, my teacher (Li laoshi) is not counting today or tomorrow's quizzes. They're just "trial runs", hah. I have homework to do too. And a lot of new vocab to memorize ... and a passage to read. They are really serious about learning the language here. Last night, we signed a language pledge after dinner, which basically means that everyone in the program has to speak Mandarin Chinese 24/7, with the exception of talking to family and friends. I don't have too much of a problem with the language pledge since my speaking is decent, but I know a lot of other people are having some troubles. This program really strives to challenge us.

Anyhoo, the past couple of days have been pretty busy. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had two activities called, "Mystery Beijing." Tuesday, we all had to pair up with someone, was given a destination (just the name, no address) and had to use public transportation to get there. I paired up with this girl, Jackie and our destination was the Temple of Confucius. We got a little lost at first, but once we figured out where to go and how to get there, it was a lot of fun. I really like the subways here; they're so much cleaner, nicer, newer, more technologically advanced, etc.

For Wednesday's Mystery Beijing, we got into groups of 5 and did our own version of The Amazing Race, called The Amajing Race (Haha, so corny). It was a lot of fun, and we got to visit a lot of beautiful places; Temple of Heaven, White Dagoba, Bei Hai park and Hou Hai. Unfortunately, my group came in second, but it was a close second! I got some nice pictures out of the excursion but they're not the greatest. The air quality was terrible that day and it was really hazy, so while the view from the Temple of Heaven was spectacular, the smog took a lot away from the scenery.

The day kind of cleared up as we went along, but not by much. Bei Hai park is really beautiful, and Hou Hai is lovely as well. Some things I got to do during the Amajing Race: ride a double tandem bike, attempt to ride on a triple tandem bike, eventually switch back to the double tandem, fall over on the tandem bike (haha ;p) aaaaaaaaaaaand ride in a rickshaw. It was a lot of fun.