Arrival/ First Week in Chengdu

I arrived in Chengdu at almost midnight on Sunday. A representative from my school picked me up from the airport and took me to my apartment. My apartment is very much like any apartment in the United States. It is a three bedroom, two bath apartment with dining, living, kitchen, and laundry rooms. While the apartment is equipped with air-conditioning, I have found the weather is nice enough to not need to use the air-conditioning units! I do not have a dryer, but the balcony and laundry room are equipped with space to be able to hang clothes to dry. I'll post pictures later!

After arriving at my apartment, I began unpacking then went to sleep to get some rest before the adventures of Monday.

Everyone who comes over on a work visa to China must go through a health check. This health check takes place in a multistory building with a multitude of doctors and tests.

After the heath check, I was then taken to the police station to complete my police registration.

After the police registration and health check I went with our assistant IT guy, whose English name is Kevin, to the phone store to secure my Chinese phone number, apartment WiFi, and cable. We had an issue with my first Chinese number, but we were able to work it out by Wednesday!

On Tuesday I began teaching and working with my classes. I am especially thankful to our elementary music teacher from last year that was able to fill in as a substitute for me during my absence. I am thrilled to be able to work with students that have such innate musical abilities.

Due to the jet lag and time zone changes, I was not very hungry on Monday. The language barrier was daunting and I did not want to attempt to eat in a restaurant without someone who know what to do, so I went to a little store below my apartment and got a bag of chips and some coconut biscuits (or crackers/ cookies as we would call them in the States).

So far this week I have begun eating at different restaurants in my area. On my street there are close to 15-30 different street vendors, restaurants, and vegetable/ fruit markets.

A lot of this week has been baptism by fire, and I wouldn't have it any other way. This weekend is the Mid-Autumn festival, but that's a subject for another post! (We get a 3 day weekend!!)

It has been raining this morning (Friday), and it put a bit of a damper on my plans for today. Sometimes it's important that our plans are ruined. This morning has given me a chance to catch up on laundry and washing dishes I bought at IKEA last night!

The rain has started to ease up, so that means I'll be headed out to explore soon!

Happy Travels and Bon Voyage!

John Peter Ford