Dear family,We are alive and recovering (from jet lag and diarhea). We got here friday at 4:55p and it took about an hour to get from the airport to our apartment. Apparently there had been an accident on the exit to the great wall of china and it was backing up traffic pretty bad (now there's a sentence that I've never said before). Anyway here is some insight to Beijing. It's highway system is rings around the city and then roads off shoot into the city. Theycall them 1st ring, 2nd ring, etc. Anyway we took the 5th ring and itwas supposed to have saved us time, but really didn't. We ended up needing two taxis, but no matter the amount of our stuff I think wewould have needed 2 anyway since two girls came to pick us up and that takes up a lot of space in compact cars. After the taxi ride I am convinced ...and I mean absolutely convinced that I have no desire to drive in this city. I would rather pay a taxi driver than to risk life and limb and my own car. There are distinct lanes on the highway, wellmarked and maintained, but noone seems to care. I swear that our taxi driver shared a lane (and I mean being side by side in one lane) more than half the time. Here if you change lanes or want to get in a lane you have to force your car in so he was about 3 inches (no exaggeration) away from cars. Oh and for those that we shared our doubt about them having traffic lights--they do have them, but they are only at busy intersections and again they seem to be at times onlysuggestions.When we arrived at the apartment we (chris and I) had been up for 24hours and were so exhausted and wanted desperately to shower and sleep. However Chris' director was expecting us for dinner and so we had to attend. Dinner was on the third floor of a students comissary.The director and Dr. Di (chris' handler-sort of) picked food from apicture menu and would ask us to pick something out too, but we have no idea what things are and were a bit like deer caught in theheadlights...not to mention we were drop dead exhausted. We explained early on that we didn't drink tea, but would like water and despite warnings from people before we came about needing to specify thetemperature of the water, we forgot. It came and Dr. Di wanted to do atoast (they had beer and sodas) unfortunately my glass of water was scalding hot and I could only hold on to it for a few seconds before grimacing from pain. Di quickly realized the fact and we all laughed abit. We were so uptight and had so much anxiety that I'm afraid wewere suffering more than enjoying the time. The food I was able to taste (Amelia had had it and was up walking around the room and outthe door) was good, but the Kung Pow chicken here had more peanuts than I would have liked. During the middle of it all something I ate somewhere between mexico and the airport started to cause diarhea and I got to be the first one to use a squatter (the hole in the floortoilet). It was not that bad actually. Thankfully Amelia was showing her exhaustion and it was uncontainable so we were able to politely get out of the rest of the evening. We then were taken back to our apartment which is on the 17th floor (two elevators -don't worry) of some building that I still don't know the name or address of. We collapsed both mentally and physically from exhaustion. Unfortunatelyboth chris and I were feeling even worse as the night began and weren't able to take advantage of the 4 hours that Amelia slept. So then from 2 am on I was up with Amelia so chris could sleep and spot me later. Thanks to prayers and a priesthood blessing I was starting to feel better and got some sleep.Today has been spent touring the campus and doing laundry (there ismore to tell, but at this point I am so tired-I need to take a nap before we go have dinner). i will write more later. (Oh and as anaside...we weren't able to contact you until just a few hours ago because we had to pick up a cable and a new surge protector and and new power convertor).Well family we are so grateful for your prayers because like I'vementioned ...we needed them soooo much. Jet lag and not feeling well make it very and I mean EXTREMELY hard to function in any way. That is probably one lesson that I'll never forget.Till a little later,Sarah, Chris and Amelia
Okay so here's what happened to the power convertor: Chris plugged in the converter and the surge protector (not the computer yet) and the surge protector blew up (smoked and popped). When we bought the converter the chinese plug they had in the package had the two prongs but the grounding prong wasn't there so we think that was the problem. Either way it all works great now. One thing that is quite interesting and you gadget lovers will salivate is that we purchased these items at this electronics superstore that has things for quite cheap. The power strip/convertor was like 12 dollars and the surge protector was about 9 dollars. We had brought 200 dollars changed into 1500 rmb which is seeming to be enough so we are fine in that regard, but these things that we have to buy that we won't be buying again do add up so we really appreciate your help. The electronics superstore has about 3 employees to one buyer. It is an intense experience. Something that is interesting here is when you want to buy something they write you a receipt then you go to a main payment desk and pay then take your receipt over to where you were purchasing the item. Probably the most expensive item that we have bought was the convertor and razors. We walked to this store today, but it takes sooo much time and we have to take Amelia's stroller which is almost as long as a bike so on Monday we are going to purchase bikes which are when new like $15.00us. We thought that was amazing. They are not like the bikes in the states though as far as looks go. No shocks etc. We'll have to send you pictures when we buy them. But here it would be extremely foolish to bring or buy a bike with a lot of whistles and bells since they are quite often stolen. At least that is what Shan (english pronunciation of her name) has told us. They don't usually bring their bikes into their apartments, but on our floor our neighbors have their bikes parked on the floor not down at the rack in front of the building so I think that gives us license to do the same. Their is this little market on campus that does fresh produce and next to it is a bicycle shop (more like alcove--no doors and no walls). This is also the same market that we bought our LAN cable from, which was of course cheap. Now as far as a narration of what we did today: Our sleep schedules are of course soooo off especially Amelia's. We were however up and hungry at 6:30 so we went for a walk to the comissary and we got boiled eggs, this fry bread that is in the shape of huge chopsticks (it actually looks like a giant dna chromosome) and then this dried and fried vegetable (that I assure you looked nothing like vegetables, but more like thick cut up rubber bands). The vegetable was the only thing that wasn't good. Chris was the only one who tried it and he said it was wayyyyy tooo salty. A woman from Australia told us that it was what they use as a balance since they don't add any spices to the other two items (and there is no salt to be seen). After that we went back to a grocery store since Amelia fell asleep before we ate breakfast and we wanted to pick up food that she would like anyway. Then we went back to the apartment and slept for a little bit. Then we contacted Shan so she could show us where to buy certain things and help me understand our washing machine. It looked all great and easy, but the instructions are of course all in chinese characters so deciphering them with a dictionary is quite out of the question. It all works great now and clothes are drying. As far as weather goes: it is about 80s and there is a pretty high amount of humidity, but not as high as Minnesota/Wisconsin. If I had to guess it is probably about 60 %- you can feel it, but it isn't uncomfortable. We have room air conditioners that do a good job so life on the 17th floor isn't soo bad. Our apartment is painted in institutional white so that's a bit hard to take so Amelia and I are going to draw pictures and decorate the walls. When we first got here we were taken aback at how stark it looked and added to the jet lag and anxiety we both felt --it translated into devestation. It is not at all devistating, but holy cow exhaustion really makes you unable to think straight. Anyway in all this is going to be an incredibly positive and interesting experience. We are really looking forward to meeting the ward members tomorrow so we hope and pray that the taxi driver understands the directions (they are in chinese). Chris actually does really well communicating in mandarin so many of our little desires and questions are taken care of. Also as a side note: Amelia gets a lot of stares and smiles. Shan tells me that she looks like a doll that little kids play with (hair color etc. not size) and that is a big reason. As we were walking around many people commented that she is very pretty. So that part has been fun, but not too intrusive as we were fearing. That is all I can think of--oh and just so you are not worried when you look at the time I am writing (it actually probably won't show, but it is 1 am here) we are still adjusting to the difference and took long evening naps, but are wide awake now unfortunately. I can only imagine how long it is going to take for us to completely adjust.