First Day of School

Oooh wee! what a day! School, lunch, school, HouHai Lake for dinner, boats, walking around, etc...too bad I didn't have my camera for ANY of it. So no pics to post for today. I think we are thinking about going back to HouHai so I will go back prepared!

But more specifically, we had two lectures today at BJTU. One about Business and Product Strategy for Foreign Funded Companies and one about Employee Relations and Chinese Philosophy. They were each two hours and I was surprised that I didn't fall asleep! The first professor was somewhat interesting but he was nice so it made up for the language barriers and the sort of slow pace of the lecture. The second professor was definitely stricter but her lecture did have some good information as well. Nonetheless, I have good notes.

Between the two lectures we had a 2 hour and 45 minute lunch. LOVE IT! Definitely wish I could get away with that back in the states...so Andrew B., Mark C., Leah, Matt B., Matt F., Mark E., Josh and I all went to lunch. A bit of a struggle but well worth it. We originally wanted street food, but once we approached the one we wanted, the lady scooted us into an actual restaurant. We tried to tell her we wanted to eat outside, but it didn't work out. So we just went with it and ate off of the menus. The food was pretty good and SO CHEAP.  The total bill was 96 Yuan...then divided equally among the group to be 11 Yuan each...which is not even TWO AMERICAN DOLLARS. Yes, you heard it. We ate a huge family style delicious Chinese lunch for less than what 2 five piece chicken nugget sets cost from Wendy's.

So after we finished the second lecture, we ran back to the hotel on campus and got ready to go to HouHai Lake area. SO BEAUTIFUL! As I mentioned I didn't really know what was happening so I was camera-less. So sad. But it gives me a reason to go back. So after some dinner, a boat ride on the lake and some more walking and hanging out, it was time to come back. This girl always needs a good night's rest. After all, I have school again in the morning and then a visit to the Summer Palace.

If you want some more info about HouHai or Summer Palace, check these wikipedia posts...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houhai

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace

Well that is enough for now. Room organization and bed are both calling...

Write soon.

-G