This IS my first rodeo...

Family and friends, this is my first ever blog. I've always thought they were stupid; if you really want to know what's going on with my life, ask me, call me, text me, e-mail me, facebook me, skype me or write me a damn letter, that's how I've always felt. However, those of you that attempt to keep in contact with me know that it's sometimes hard to reach me through any of those media, oh and I'm like 6000 miles away, thus my blog.

I'll start by getting you all acquainted with my situation, the more fun posts will follow, don't you worry.

After 40+ hours of travel, including a drive to Toronto and a 7 hour layover in the lovely city of Deeeeeetroit, Michigan, I arrived in Shanghai. It was dirty, I was smelly, and I hopped on a bus that took me another 45 minutes into the heart of the city and my lovely youth hostel. After two nights there and fighting my way through Expo crowds to get a train ticket, I took a train that traveled another 14 hours to Beijing. I arrived at the wrong station and waited another hour to be picked up before finally arriving at my hotel.

Sounds like hell huh? I absolutely loved it. There is no better feeling than knowing that all you have is your suitcase, your backpack and your iPod and you're officially planted in a foreign country, the largest country in the world, and trying to get from the largest city in the world, to the country's capital, it was a great feeling.

So my hotel is fine, no one speaks English but they love to try when you buy 3 kuai tall-boy bottles of beer or giant water bottles from them. We have restaurants and street food everywhere around us, including 1 kuai baozi and massive plates of kung pao chicken for 12 kuai. The room has enough space for everything, the water pressure is very strong, you just have to remember not to open your mouth while showering, lest you allow the toilet-flush-from-the-room-above-you that they call water get into your body. We have a water boiler thingy that boils two liters of water within about 2 minutes, and we buy ridiculous amount of bottled water. The plastic use is so unsustainable that I could wipe my tears on my baby sealskin hankerchief.

Toilet paper is given to you once a day, in quarter roll sizes. In China, using toilet paper is seen as living a high-carbon footprint lifestyle (can't wait to bring that one back to all my "green 'til I die" friends who I know also happen to like having clean arseholes), there's a picture in the subway on my way to work to prove how evil tp is, hilarious.

Sidenote: Haven't hooked my camera up yet, but you'll be blessed with some interesting shots soon enough.

My roommate's name is Nick, he's from the city formerly known as Ann Arbor. I think he really enjoyed it when we were explaining in Chinese what is around our houses back home and I said there was a farm across the street from mine, but he went to Pioneer, so I pray for his soul every night before bed.

In all actuality, I enjoy the people on my trip very much (4 of us total), they are just as easily bewildered with the little things about Chinese culture as I am. Out of the group of four, I am considered the best Chinese speaker, this scares me very much, but I don't let it show because street vendors can smell fear.

This is all you get for the day, I promise more details later and an actual purpose for my posts rather than just to tell you I'm alive.

Ah, and what good are we if we aren't learning things? Every post I'll teach you some pertinent Chinese, refer here when you see something bold and italicized to figure out wtf I'm talking about.

(kuai 块) is the colloquial term for money, which is formally referred to as (yuan 元), and can also be called (qian 钱) or (jin 金) Don't be confused though, be happy: One US Dollar currently exchanges for about 6.8RMB (That's renminbi 人民币，literally "People's Currency", yet another way to say money), meaning that giant bottles of beer are about 45 cents, and baozi is just 15 cents.

(baozi 包子) is a steamed bun, filled with either pork, beef, shrimp, chicken, vegetables (ick) or any combination of things. Baozi reached infamy in 2007 after people were selling baozi stuffed with soggy cardboard rather than meat...it took weeks for buyers to catch on, that tells you about their quality, but they are damn tasty and ten of them are still cheaper than a cardboard box in the U.S.