Arrival in Tianjin

On saturday, I flew to Tianjin, very excited to be moving into an apartment after 2 weeks of sharing a hotel room and living out of a suitcase...

I'm working at Nankai University, which is actually one of China's better schools, but apparently they have multiple campuses. I assumed I would be in city center, which is where the main campus is located. Instead, I'm at a really small campus in the Technological and Economic Development Area. To get to the city center, you walk the train, take a 45 min train ride, then walk to the bus, then take a 40 min bus ride... Yeah, I got to experience this fun commute on Sunday, when we missed the bus to return to campus. Every other sunday there are research seminars on the main campus, all in Mandarin, that we are required to attend for our lab group. In addition to the public transit option, there's a small charter bus that goes between campuses, but it fills up fast. We took it to campus at 6:30 am on sunday, and the bus had seats for 22 people; we transported 36. Some people were sitting on small stools in the aisle way. If nothing else, public transit here is an adventure. One of the buses I was on was a 2 story bus that was standing room only; if they had taken a sharp turn, I imagine it might have toppled.

Upon arrival on Saturday, 2 girls that work in the same lab as me fetched me from the airport and we did the train thing to get to my apartment, which is actually a dorm room... It had a kitchen with a sink and cabinets, but no appliances. The shower is not separated from the rest of the bathroom, and the living room furninture consists of 2 wooden chairs. There is hot water available for 2 hours a day in the shower. I'm pretty excited to have my own bedroom though; I visited the dorm room of my labmates, and they have 3 people living in a bedroom that's the same size as mine. i asked if there's a laundrymat on campus, and they laughed, so good thing I have a sink :)

I had already explained my dietary issues to my professor and he had assumed that i would have a fridge and stove in my apt, so he gave me a hot plate and told me that i should buy a refrigerator. The labmates took me to an electronics mall, 45 min away by bus, and haggled w/ some saleswomen for awhile, and i ended up w/ a mini fridge that was delivered a few hours later. in a lot of shops here, there are no fixed prices and you have to haggle for everything. either way, i now have a fridge and a hot plate, and kettle, so I am able to cook for myself.

Also, from my description, it must sound like i'm in the sticks, but technically i'm still in Tianjin, and there are still tall buildings everywhere. I'm in a very industrial area, which is probably the cause of the black dust that accumulates on the windowsill if i leave the windows open.

The labmates are all very friendly, but some of them speak very little English, so there's a lot of google translator going on. I started work on Tuesday, and apparently typical lab hours are 8:30 am- 10:00 pm. I start my new project next monday, and for now, I'm helping out with some of their ongoing experiments and also proofreading some of their english manuscripts.

On Saturday, I'm planning to take a train into Beijing and visit some friends. This is assuming that I can figure out how to get to the train station and which train to take :)

All things considered, it's turning out to be a good learning experience, and I'm getting lots of exercise each day since I live on the 6th floor!