The adventure…

I was able to print only my boarding pass to JFK. Printing the one for China had to be completed at the ticket counter after I landed at JFK. Here is one thing I learned: you have to “exit” the airport to come back in on the international side. It is quite a site with many agents for each airline. However, China Southern only runs flights within a short time frame and the ticket counter only opens up a few hours before. So the adventure was technically being out of the general airport area and not being able to go back in until the ticket counter opened! Small issue and am glad my 4 large bags were already set to be put on the connecting flight and that there was at least one place to eat.

Immigration into China…

Farely uneventful after a 16 hour flight especially when you enter at 4:30 in the morning. The flight was long but was able to sleep a bunch, ate 2 great meals plus a small sandwich, and watched several movies… When you enter Baiyun airport (which is beautiful and very easy to find where to go) those staying in China need fingerprinted with self-serve machines. That slip and your passport is then looked at by the officer, your picture is taken and your fingerprints are verified again. No one really pulled my luggage aside to look through it. After that checkpoint I saw signs for my school and waited only a short time for a van to take me to the apartment. There three other people (2 from HR and one of the admin) took me to my apartment. Waiting for me: Part of my relocation money in cash, health cards, information, key cards to the room, forms to complete, tour of the apartment, questions answered, wifi password, and best yet: Food in the pantry and frig.

After they left I opened all of my bags and found running clothes to go on a short run after all of the sitting of the past day(s). The goal now was to stay awake until about 7 pm to try to avoid days of jet lag. I met another teacher, Erica, and we went to find Indian food nearby. The food was great and we also saw an organic food market. We shopped for veggies and some kitchen staples. Also we saw a vegetarian fusion restaurant we will be trying too. Pizza and salad will be delivered at 6 tonight to our apartment. Between all of this I did unpack my bags and was able to hang everything up in that one wardrobe. I also scoped out the rooftop pool and found the fitness center. Tomorrow I’ll iron everything that is wrinkled.

The apartment…

Small, but I do not need much. I made a video tour but it is not loading properly so will take pictures for the next post.

 

Waking up in China…

Jet lag caused me to only sleep a few hours at a time but used the time in between to finally get my VPN running on my phone, get my Garmin fitness watch to finally connect. I do have English speaking TV channels: CNN (has some American news but is mostly international with stories from all over), HBO, Star Movies, MTV, and a few others but all the others are Chinese. I have been able to connect to Netflix, and CBS All Access so will decide whether I want to keep those subscriptions.

I had intended to blog this official first day but was busy with a run in the morning followed by 6 laps swimming in the rooftop infinity pool. Beautiful. I did hang out there for some time just taking in the view.

Here is a cool running track I found outside. It is actually located in a running park.

Here are pics from the rooftop swiming pool:

 

We were picked up by van to go to the Shangri La hotel for a Dim Sum brunch that was absolutely amazing in the variety and freshness of the food. There we met others who are new to the faculty, met the admin team from both campuses, heard from the Director and took care of important business:

• Getting the Sim card for the phone. Now I can chat off of wifi. It is very cheap. We pre-paid 500 yuan for the plan: 99 yuan per month for 4G unlimited. This equals $14.53 per month.
• Filling out the forms to get a China Bank account where our pay will be deposited. The rest of the relocation money will open that account. We were not at the bank but filled out forms, they verified the passport and our picture was taken with a bank representative and one from HR to verify we were real. Seems strange but faster to do it this way. Tomorrow when we go to the bank, it will be fast and we will get our account numbers as they will already be set up. Yes, the bank opened up on Sunday just to open up our accounts. They have a special deal with the schools to do this.
• Picture taken for residence visa which we get in 4 weeks.

Picture from inside the Shangri La:

That evening we went back to the Shangri La for a pool party. More excellent food!

Tomorrow I’ll share pics from the apartment and other adventures. The food here is marvelous and one things that Guangzhou is known for!