How hard can it be, really, just to make a phone call?

Got into Beijing last night. I have to admit, I'd forgotten what it's like to travel in a foreign country when you don't really speak the language. I can sort of speak and understand Mandarin, but it's gotten rusty from disuse. My brother can read Chinese but can't speak Mandarin at all. At least we make a great team. I ask where things are and he reads the labels to make sure we're buying the right stuff. =) At least it's a great place to force you to use your Chinese. Hopefully I'll be a bit more fluent when I come back......

Still need to get used to how things run a lot differently. Like how some things are just so much more complicated to someone who didn't grow up here. I found out last night that it takes 2 phone cards just to make a phone call. One to get a local line, another to make an international call. Unfortunately (of course) all the instructions were written in simplified Chinese (which my brother can't really read), and no one spoke English. Also, Beijing Mandarin has a different sound to it (much more harsh) than the Mandarin I learned in school. As a result, making a phone call ended up taking us half an hour to figure out. Then again, over one billion people live in this country and they have no problem dealing with the phone system. So who am I to complain?

I can't get over how everything's so cheap here! I haven't had a chance to explore that much yet, but with the 2008 olympics coming Beijing should be getting a major makeover. Our campus is located a bit on the outskirts of town so we haven't had a chance to check out the cool areas yet - most of those are in the city centre.

Alright, will stop here, didn't get much sleep last night so contacts are starting to blur. Class starts at 8am tomorrow. Ugh.