I'm in China, and I don't know where to begin with this. I feel like I have already seen so much just by coming from the airport to the program office and checking in. Since leaving Vancouver, there has been three 'events' that I will likely always remember as marking the beginning of this trip:

1. The first was during the flight; about four hours away from Shanghai the ground became visible for a little while. It wasn't really "ground", but some islands somewhere off the coast of Siberia or China. Normally during flights I look out and visualize the airplane in relation to a map of the U.S. and figure out which part of which state I am looking at and what type of people live there. But seeing these islands and not even knowing what country I was looking at let alone who lived there made me realize how far away I was going to be, and how many new things I was going to see. And looking back after just 12 hours in China I still probably don't have any idea how much I'm going to see.

2. Next was a series of events proceeding from the plane landing at Shanghai Pudong Intl to the bus ride from the airport to the area of the city that I will be living in for the eight weeks.

• Descending into the city, I had awoken to realize that I could just make out the curvature of the earth, and decided I was going to try to get it on my camera. This was my first experience with the smog surrounding the city. By the time I was ready with my camera, we were just about level with the floor of clouds we had been above during the flight. I focused on the vewfinder of the camera and took a a picture, but we entered the clouds immediately afterward. I put my camera down, to see that these really weren't clouds, but brown smog. The ground wasn't visible until we were below about 5,000 feet.
• Exiting the plane was like walking into the bathroom after someone has taken a long, hot shower. You seem to take shorter breaths because the humidity is so high. I figured that this was just the jetway, which wasn't air conditioned, but entering the airport was hardly any better. They do have some air conditioning going on, but it only cools the air without any dehumidification.
• After getting our bags (which were sitting in the corner because our flight had apparentely already had its turn on its carousel), we walked through the customs gate unchallenged (unlike the passport/visa checkpoint, which took about an hour). This was the first time of the trip that I'd had my camera ready. We entered a winding mass of people looking for their groups. Their groups were looking for them also; our herd of people was lined with people shoulder-to-shoulder holding all sorts of signs, yelling for their passengers. It felt like the paparazzi- hundreds of people looking at each exiting passenger to make sure their signs were read. Somehow I spotted our sign (a piece of notebook paper with "ciee" scribbled in red marker) and we met our two chaperones.
• The last part was the busride into the city (not quite as cool as a trip on the 200mph maglev train would have been). Every few minutes a new skyline appeared out of the smog, with skyskrapers and tower cranes literally as far as you could see. Giant billboards bridged across the highway, advertising cars and other products made by companies we had heard of before, and many we had not. Tiny cars, huge buses, and everything inbetween bolted across lanes of the road (apparently you can do anything you want as long as you honk first). Off the highway, bikes and pedestrians filled the streets, most were carrying armloads of bags and other miscellaneous crap.

3. Meeting my host family has made me even more excited about the upcoming eight weeks. Huang Ming, my host mom, grabbed me immediately after I stepped off the bus, showed me an envelope with my name on it and gave me a hug and said 'Ni Hao'. She must have had a picture of me, as she knew who I was before I had even seen her. She speaks no english, and got her husband, Sun Li, to take one of my bags to their car. Sun has limited english skills, and we were able to communicate enough in english to show me to the house, give me a tour, feed me dumplings and let me shower. They have a nice apartment; very clean with darkly-stained hardwood floors and nice furniture...no air conditioning.

I will be on my own during the day as they both work (Sun is a professor and Huang works for the government), meaning I have to ride the bus the classes at the off campus program center, and walk a few blocks to the University for classes. Luckily I will be accompanied by another student from the program the first day, his host family lives in the same apartment complex.

Time for bed, it's 4 am local time. It will take a couple days to move my daily routine ahead 15 hours. I'll add some photos soon.