First Day of Class (May 10, 2007

As I did not have an internet connection to post yesterday I had to save notepad file and am now posting yesterday's (May 10) blog. I will also post one for today later on.

Today has been another quite eventful day. Classes began this morning at 10am. We met and had the first class with our teachers that will be with us for the remainder of the program. My teacher is Wang Fang Laoshi. During the whole class she only spoke Chinese. It was quite difficult at first and required lots of concentration, but it quickly got much better.
The class room is about a 15 minute walk away from the Hotel and the afternoon tutorial session is also in a different place. At first this seemed rather inconvenient, but walking through the beautiful Peking University campus makes up for the time it takes.
After classes finished I went to the campus mini mart where I got a new battery for my watch. This process was surprisingly simple. In Canada it took over a week for the people at the watch store to figure out they are not able to replace the battery, but here at this little mini mart it took 5 minutes and 67元 (about $10 CND) which I got at a deal since the watch guy originally wanted 80元. I also bought a notebook for class.
After a long busy day I then took a walk with Caty to the lake on campus to study for tomorrow's dictation. When arrived the lake there was a man playing a flute. People are sitting around the lake studying and the gentle wind made the trees rustle and the sound of the flute filled the air. It was a quite serene moment. We both found some seats on the rocks by the lake and began our non-conversational study session. We decided that since the day is always filled with so many group activities and chatting we would just sit there and study by ourselves. This made the afternoon very relaxing.
As the weather cooled off a bit Caty decided she wanted to buy a bike. A few students have already purchased bikes to fit in with the local traffic. This ended with her driving the bike with me sitting on the back all through campus. Many bewildered Chinese faces glanced our way, as we laughed and giggled, while trying not to crash into anything.
Now I'm back in my room studying a bit more and trying to learn how to play the contraption of an instrument I bought yesterday. It was only 20元 and promises to play wonderful sounds once I know how. There is a picture on Flickr. I'm not quite sure what it is called, but it resembles a violin mixed with a guitar and it only has two strings. I was orginally planning to bring my guitar and practice here in China, but I decided against this since it would be another large object I have to drag over here. As a replacement I can now learn to play this new instrument.
That's all the news for now.
P.S. I forgot to mention that on our way to the acrobatics show yesterday we drove by an Ikea, check out the pictures on Flickr.

Ich schreibe nun auch noch ein bisschen auf Deutsch, falls jemand aus Deutschland auch mitliest. Ich bin also gut in China angekommen. Die letzten paar Tagen waren voller aktivitäten. Ich habe mich zuerst in unser Hotelzimmer einwhonen müssen, dann wurde uns gezeigt wo unsere Klassenzimmer sind. Die Peking Universität ist rieseg. Es giebt viele Gebäude die nur mit Chinese verzeichnet sind. Somit ist es momentan noch ziemlich schwierig den Weg zu finden.
Der Unterrich hat heute begonnen und da wurde nur Chinesisch geredet. Es hat mich überrascht das ich troztdem alles verstanden habe, doch freue ich mich darüber. Wir haben auch schon Hausaufgaben und müssen morgen ein Diktat schreiben.
Nun bin ich in meinem Zimmer und studieren noch ein bisschen vor dem Abendessen. Ich hoffe euch geht es allen gut! Bis zur nächsten Nachricht.