it's 9:33 at night

and i'm about ready to head to bed. i'll be honest...the entirety of this post may be under the influence of two bottles of chinese beer, the fine brand of yanjing, which comes in probably about 20 oz bottles for 1.6 kuai each. that roughly translates to almost 30 cents.

we got in last night, late last night, and it had been snowing for quite a while. the pollution here is really bad. not only could we smell it immediately after getting off the plane, all the snow on the roads was totatlly black. not like the dirty stuff that's kicked up on the sides in the states, but black like a steer's toucas on a moonless prairie night (extra points for those who recognized the Big Lebowski quote).

this morning it cleared up, but i still don't get the sense that i'm in one of the biggest cities in the world. we walked down to a large department-type store today to buy some things, but it just seemed like a very large china town. i guess once i start hopping on a bus and really heading places will it hit me that i'm actually in china. i'm also proud to report that my chinese has indeed proved functional. a question about where to find the tea in the supermarket was answered with an intelligable response. i'm very happy about that.

anyway, this post has been sorta all over the place. we'll get some pictues up soon i promise. our chinese roommates for j-term are moving in tomorrow, which i'm excited about. we do this scavenger hunt thingie that takes us all over the city with them on saturday. i will keep you all updated on that. also, we're adding another member to our blogging team. durrell mack will be posting as well, once he gets the e-mail acceptance or whatever (the internet here can be kind of spotty. in fact, we can't seem to actually view our own blog, only make posts to it, so if anybody reading can see this please send me an e-mail and let me know you got it i would be forever grateful). otherwise, please remember this ancient chinese proverb: many men smoke, but fu man chu.