Arrival

Dear America,

I arrived safely in Beijing after a bit of excitement with traffic getting into JFK. The trip was uneventful, except I was very excited to see even before leaving the US so many Chinese people speaking Chinese. I was seated next to a 60s-something women who didn't speak a word of English, so we conversed for part of the trip in Chinese.

Once in Beijing the security didn't believe that I was the same person in my passport photo. It took three different photo IDs and three security guards and some discussion (in Chinese) on how I'd gotten thinner before they decided to let me go.

I arrived at the hostel without too much difficulty, found a bank and extracted enough money to last me a long time, bought a bus-and-subway muptiple transit card, and bought my train ticket for tomorrow. And, to continue my three-year long tradition of the first and last thing I eat in China being watermelon, I bought some shared it with the others at the hostel.

I'm about to turn in for the night and tomorrow I get the 8-hour train ride to the orphanage, but I figured I'd let you know I'm safe and sound... for now.