Jet-Lagg... or Jet Lag... or Jet-Lag?

I woke up at 5:15 AM and realized it had been 36 hours, including 16 hours on a plane, since I had taken a shower. Thanks to jet-lag I wasn’t going to be going back to sleep anytime soon, so I got up and headed to the showers. I was determined to get clean, but there were two hitches in my plan. Firstly, I did not have a towel. I finally decided to use some absorbent sweatpants that I had brought over from the states. The second problem was that I did not want to open up a bar of soap without having a container to put it back in, so I decided to be super sneaky and borrow a bottle of the hand soap that was set out by the sinks. I am sure that karma is going to bite me for that one later. The shower went pretty well. I felt a bit like a sopping wet dog for the first few minutes without a towel, but I dried off and couldn’t have been happier to finally be clean.

At 8 we were split into orientation groups and walked to the supermarket. This was my first proper look at Beijing, unless you count the bus ride last night when we got stuck in Beijing rush hour. We left the West side of campus where the IES building is and crossed an underpass to reach the East side of campus. Once on the East side we made a bunch of turns, which I don’t remember, and somehow ended up at the grocery store.

My first priority was obviously towels, but I got a bit sidetracked by the shampoo section.

Before I left the US, my mother and I had gone out and gotten me two massive containers of Head and Shoulders shampoo. Turns out, H&S must have some special deal with the Chinese as their shampoo section was legitimately a wall of the stuff. I was reminded of a quote from a former IES student in Beijing who had written something along the lines of “the more you prepare yourself for a whole different world, the more difficult it will be to notice the similarities and assimilate in the long term.” Something that I am definitely taking to heart.

I can feel the jet-lag kicking in again so I’m going to wrap up, but stay tuned for more about chicken feet, the smell of the city, and my interesting home-stay…