They weren't kidding...

about the smog. Holy crap: it looks like it's about to thunderstorm, except it's sunny out.

Anyway, I'm in freakin' China! 36 hours ago I woke up at home, and now I just finished a rather long walk around town. I'm in the 'Study Coffee House', which for 18rmb is letting me drink coffee and use their wi-fi for as long as I want. That's just over $2.

So I've been walking around town for 3 hours. I woke up at 5am and didn't bother trying to go back to sleep. And breakfast at the hotel (which turns out to be the Post & Telecom Conference Center. No wonder there was a 电 in the name) wasn't till 7, so I thought I'd hit the road. According to the kiwi that I sat next to from Eugene to San Francisco, staying awake all day today is the key.

First observations: It's hot and sticky. Just like Chicago. It smells like some of the more fragrant parts of my hometown as well. Except everywhere. I can't imagine the air being worse in the winter when everyone's heating with coal. There's ice cubes in the glass that just got put in front of me--I'm hesitant to drink it. I think I'll stick with the coffee. I walked around a bit last night in search of a cold drink to take pills with. I walked about a mile, but wound up buying from the guy just outside my gate.

So: the trip. I was 4 hours late getting in due to a volcano erupting somewhere in Russia. So we were routed through Anchorage, which I guess allowed us to not fly over Chamkatka? I'm just guessing on that one. The kiwi was also on her way to Beijing. She works for the Holt adoption agency and is leading a tour of ethnic-Chinese adoptees. She was heading over a couple days early. So the across-the-water flight was a lot longer than it was supposed to be.

I did get a couple hours sleep, but tried to stay awake, as I knew it would be almost bed time by the time I got into town.

Airport was uneventful (and whoever warned about the 'chaos that is customs' was exagerating. It took all of 2 minutes), as was the cab ride, which cost about $15. Somehow I thought I was only paying for 1 night, but it's 2. I'm still trying to figure out how to say: "Will I have to move tomorrow morning?"

Oh, almost forgot: sneaky Google knows I'm in China. The whole blogger interface is in Chinese. I wonder how I change it back?

So the walk last night was most surreal. Very Blade Runner. Lots of small shops with plastic freezer strips hanging off the doorways. Open charcoal fires cooking meat on the sidewalk. Everyone was sitting outside on the 3 streets I walked down. My 'hotel' is actually in a hutong, and there are 4 or 5 places right inside of it to eat and drink, all of which are totally sketch. I can't wait to try.

So this morning, as I said, I woke too early to eat in so just started wandering. I promptly got turned around on the 北大 campus. I'm so glad I brought the compass. I then found my way to where I'm supposed to check in on Monday, which is right across from 6 tennis courts! (and since then, I've found a couple places to buy balls). From there, I went out the south gate and attempted to find the 'book mall' (海淀图书-something) I had the impression from the guide book that it was a well established place, so the bright shiny new high-rise mall that I found took me aback. It was at that point that I started getting hungry, but it was still before 7, and nothing was open. Besides: the only things that looked like they might open for breakfast were a McDonalds and a Starbucks.

I started moving east (that's when I figured out it was actually sunny) and realized that the whole area (海淀）that I was walking through is a just-getting-finished construction zone. There were already work crews out (I thought people here got Sundays off?) putting the finishing touches on all the sidewalks. By hand. On their hands and knees with rubber mallets and carrying bags of sand around. In the last few hours, I've seen more manual labor (including a crew of ten pushing a cart of rebar down the street) than I think I've ever seen in the States.

By this time I was starting to want to gnaw on my arm, and the street vendors were starting to appear. Crepes and fried-doughball sandwiches were on offer, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it for the very first meal here. Walking down Chengfu Lu (成府路), I finally found a restaurant open, and it was crowded. Lots of soup and hanbau being eaten. I walked by three times before I worked up the courage. There was no menu, no prices on the wall, and three seperate folks making stuff: I guy outside operating the fryer, a lady inside making hanbao and jiaozi, and one last lady ladling out the soup. She told me to sit, but when I couldn't tell her what I wanted she brought me up to the pots and uncovered each of three. One looked somewhat heartier, and I would call it a sort of congee (although I have no idea if that's what it's called here). Somehow the word for bowl came to me, so through some pointing and gesturing I wound up with an incredibly bland bowl of soup and some fried dough for breakfast. Maybe I should have had the crepe.

So I failed miserably at ordering my first meal here. But I did manage to ask 'how much' on my way out. Breakfast was all of 2 RMB, about $.25.

OK folks, don't get the idea that you're going to get this kind of detail everyday. The coffee is all-you-can-drink.

成府路 has 2 detailed areas in my guidebook, so I kept with it. The map is already out of date, as Microsoft and Tsinghua University (Google's a tenant too!) have built a research park over one of the intersections. But, the coffee house is still here. There's a bookshop down the block where I'm going to try to buy a better map once my battery runs down. And then I'll gradually make my way back toward home for lunch. In the late afternoon, I'm going to head toward the Summer Palace and try to see a bit more open space. 北大的 campus is filled with ponds and landscaping, but perhaps today I'll go for something a little bit more opulent and formal.

I'm sort of running out of things to say. So I think I'll sign off for now and see if this place has a 厕所.