School started yesterday. Only Chinese class right now, but that is more than enough. We have Chinese class everyday from 8:00 am until 11:25! Gross right?! Next week we start our other classes. I think I'm going to take marketing and a cultural class. Maybe another one too. I don't want to have to take more than three because I just this wicked sweet internship at Cosmopolitan Magazine!!!!!! I might just be the next L.C. haha you never know : ) Anyways, things should get really interesting. They said that I'll be working with them on photo shoots, fittings with the models, runway shows, promotional parties, and of course COSMO! I will definitely keep you all up to date. I just wanted to share the good news. I am so excited for the first time in China. I have something to look forward to and keep my mind off of missing home on a daily basis!!

THANKS FOR READING : )

-nikita

Feb. 22-24

"Adjusting"

If your familiar with the term "Culture Shock" that is exactly what started happening to me. I was into my new home and getting adjusted in our room, but I still wasn't adjusting with the people. I feel like no one speaks English. Through these couple of days, Brooke and I went to the store to buy groceries and necessary things. EVERYTHING, is in Chinese. Labels, directions, everything. Also, half of the people in the store are people that work there. They follow shoppers around at a very close slash violating distance. However, this is just part of their culture. Anyone not use to standing inches away from someone should not come to China. Brooke and I went to Sal li tun Village (big big big mall and also right in the middle of ALL of the college nightlife). We saw cold stone creamery and almost passed out from the heavenly smell. In China it is not uncommon for you to get a whiff of mmm lets call them "fragrant aromas" and want to vomit because the smell is soo gross. When you get a good smell, it's like warm apple pie on Thanksgiving... AMAZING. Eating out was another thing. We went out to dinner at a place near by. I can pretty much order myself a drink, but reading all the different types of food is challenging. Luckily, most places have pictures. The place that we went to is a dinner and show. Brooke, Ike, and I got some pictures as we always do haha and left to call it an early night.

The next day all of us had to go to UIBE- our university to register. It was insane! People were everywhere, all moving around trying to get form one person to the next. I definitely missed on line registering that's for sure. Also, the students pay for their tuition in cold hard cash. The students in front of us were just pulling stacks and stacks of 100 bills out of their back pack like it was no big deal. Cheryl helped us through this entire process. If she wasn't there to translate some of the words and sentences, I would have been there for more hours than it already had taken us. When we were finally done, we went to the Bank of China and set up accounts. The bank is really close to our house, so we went to our place after we were done. That night Roy wanted to go to K-tv, which apparently is really popular in China. K-TV (karaoke) is a little bit different in China. The more common type is more private, like your own party. For example, we went to PARTYWORLD where you get our own room and food and just sing any songs you want. SO, it was us four roommates in a room singing anything and everything you could imagine. haha Roy was the best of all of us. He got so into it, he was dancing and yelling and hahaha it was really fun!

The next day I was pretty lazy. I had Internet for the first time in over a week, so I got on and did some things that way. I think after the week that we all had had though, we deserved a day off....

THANKS FOR READING : )

-nikita

Feb. 21st

"new home sweet home"









WHOOOOT WHOOOT! We moved into our apartment. Not to much to explain. Brooke and I are sharing a room and bathroom, and Ike and Roy have their own rooms. I added some pictures of our place and what not...

My address:

Attn: Cheryl-EAN- Nikita Miles
Room 2107 Tower B Jianwai SOHO
39 East 3rd Ring Road Chaoyang District
Beijing PR China, 100022


THANKS FOR READING : )

- nikita

Feb 20th-
Title: "We're gonna have to come back here"

SO SORE. After my first restful night of sleep in China, Brooke and I woke up to go to a Taichi lesson. We didn't know if we had to get ourselves breakfast, so we went to the cafe the hotel had. When we got there, we saw that it was a buffet with a lot of American food. YES! Cereal, donuts, milk, eggs, and even bacon. We were so excited... until we got the bill. When we got to Taichi, the master (mr. wang) decided to teach us Kungfu as well as Taichi. That went well... Mr Wang called me a typical American, which was the first time that had happen to my face at least. I mean, sure people look, but no one has said anything.We left the outdoor park and headed to Tiananmen Square. Tony lead us around. Then because they pretty much run into each other, we went to the Imperial and Forbidden city. The guards were realllly cool. And i found myself snapping more and more random photos, maybe it's because I was getting bored. I really don't know. Oh funny story... Brooke and I were just walking like normal people right?! when all of the sudden I feel like a camera is being pointed in our direction. Brooke looked over because she noticed too, and "Click, flash"... some random person took a photo of Brooke and me. ha Brooke said she wishes she could have seen the photo because she is pretty sure she made the most random face she could think oh haha. After we walked through the cities, we made our way to lunch. Then off to the Houtangs in the rickshaws. Rickshaws are these cart things that are powered by a man on a bike. You sit in the back and they take you where ever you want. Tony had already mad an appointment or something because the second we got there we were seated in the rickshaw. Brooke and I rode together, and Tony and Ike rode together.The Houtangs are a type of house. They have four separate houses attached to each other in a circle with an outdoor meeting place in the middle. We got to stop and take a look at one up close. After the rickshaw ride, we went downtown to the business district to see a cultural acrobatic show. It was pretty intense. These crazy girls most have only been like ten but they were turning their bodies in ways i didn't know bodies could turn. There was also a part of the show were there was this big wheel thing where people get in the ends of it. I feel like I have seen it before, but I can't put my finger on it. After the show, Brooke and I got a picture with one of the girls. They did this number at the end, where they were all on one bike (like twenty girls and only one pedalling) yeah... that one girl pedalling must have been tried. For dinner we went to a famous Peking Duck place (a picture of Al Gore was on the wall ha-random) Cheryl and a girl named Hannah came with us. The duck was so good! I really really liked it. Probably my favorite food so far. Brooke and I had begun to say that we needed to come back to every place that we visited. Not on purpose... but we just felt we wanted to go back to places, maybe when the weather was better or something. But anyways, by the end of the day we were being made fun of, because apparently we had said it more than the usual today haha.

THANKS FOR READING : )

- nikita

Feb. 19th
Title: "The not so GREAT WALL"

At this point of the trip, we started titling every entry. Woke up this morning to go on the GREAT WALL hike. Tony was going to lead us and told us to meet him at 7 for breakfast. We did but he wasn't there. Apparently, China had gotten a little snow over night. (To the person that told me it doesn't snow- your wrong!) Tony said we might not be able to go onto the great wall because of all the snow. Like true blood Americans, we did exactly what we shouldn't have done. We went up the mountain anyways. After a 15 minute hike up hill, we were finally on the GREAT WALL and out of breathe... ha quoting our convo.... ike- "Hey Tony, are we at a higher elevation, cuz I feel I'm short on breathe"... Me- "me too, but I'm pretty sure it's because I'm hiking up this beast of a mountain!" Tony told us that we had to make a decision on whether we wanted to go on or not. We thought... it can't be that bad, right?! VERY WRONG! After the 7th watch tower, Brooke was telling me on how she couldn't move anymore. I told her we need to just push on, but around the 13th tower I was ready to give in and die right there! Just imagine this... Mountains, covered with rocks and then snow covering that... that's pretty much what we were walking on. Every step we took, we had to take with care. Not only could we not see what we were stepping on but we didn't know if what we were stepping on was secure. Do you know that saying that usually gets thrown around by parents, "we had to walk up hill both ways... blah blah" WELL, that saying has a whole new meaning to me. For the more than 6 miles that we were on the wall, we literally did have to walk up both ways. And that was the best part. Going down a hill was even harder than going up. The rocks would move from underneath you and you would just start sliding down the hill. My shoes did not get the best traction so i fell so many times. Let's just say I lost count after 10. At the 15th tower, I was thinking Oh My Goodness we are almost done!! Nope, good ole Tony in his not at all out of breathe voice said "good job half way there!"... WHAT?! Half way? I know what your thinking right now, wow Nikita are you really that out of shape? haha i swear I'm not but next to tony anyone sounds out of shape. Tony said that he goes on the wall maybe 30 times a year and hikes up and down every time. The trip that we were on was suppose to take us 4 hours regularly (with out snow)... well somehow we did it in 3:45.... when we finished i was so happy with myself and I know my legs and arms were happy with me too. I know that during most of this I sound like I hated it and i had such an awful time. Honestly, I would be lying if I told you I didn't feel that way at the time too. Now however, it's pretty funny. How many people can say they have ever been to the GREAT WALL, let alone the GREAT WALL in a snow storm to hike for six miles haha. I'm gonna go ahead an say not to many people especially because we didn't even see one other person on the wall when we were there ha. SO, all and all looking back, it was an unforgettable experience that i will never forget. I hope that some of these pictures will give you a little glimpse of how much snow was coming down and what it looked like.

OKAY, so if that was enough for the day... we got in the car and headed back to the city for lunch. Tony took us to a mall to get pizza. YES, he knew exactly what I needed to refuel, the mall and pizza! After we had amazing pizza, we went back to the hotel. Brooke and I decided to try the hot tube. WELL, it was more like a warm small pool. hah no worries though, we just scaled the GREAT WALL ha. anything was good. After the pool we went to this dinner for a bunch of people graduating out of the teaching English program. We met Monika, Jungyoug, and Jon there. After the dinner we were all ready to pass out.

THANKS FOR READING : )

- nikita

Feb. 18---

Went to the University to meet contacts in the program. Cheryl is kinda like the program director. She has been living in China for four years, but she was origanally from Malaisha. She is the nicest person I have met in China so far to this day! We got on campus and met Tony, Solaro, and Simon. They all help with the program and are also involved in a program called IESGlobal. IESGlobal is a company like "Teach for America" College students or grads join to teach in 3rd world countries. When we got on campus Cheryl had a present for us... IT WAS A CELL PHONE! We were all very excited! My phone number is.

13691238947- this is my number without the country code. the country code is 86.

After the meeting we went for lunch with William, a student at the university. We had all sorts of foods. This one dish seriously looked, tasted, and yes even moved like worms. It's in the upper right hand dish. There are so many things different here about eating. You don't just order a dish and eat it. Usually one person orders for everyone. Then the fuyuan (waittress) brings out all the dishes. It isn't uncommon for there to be eight dishes at one table. Then they are put on a lazy susan turn thingy where everyone eats off of all the plates. You just scoop what you want onto your plate and eat it... with chopsticks. I haven't seen any forks since I have been here, except for in my apartment haha. CHOPSTICKS are SO hard ha. ALSO, the plates sometimes come wrapped up as seen in the picture. Resturants do it to show that the dinner ware is sqeaky clean. After lunch we went on our way to the Ming Tombs with Tony and our driver, Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee doesn't speak a lot of English, so he stares a lot at our mouths. ha Brooke and I would try to ask him questions in Chinese to make him feel involved in the conversation.. actually Brooke more than me ha, Im not very confident when it comes to speaking. Anyone in my Chinese class would know that ha. On our way, we saw the birds nest and the water dome where the Olymipics were. We got to the Ming Tombs and walked around for a bit. They were pretty cool. After you have seen a lot of temples and tombs though, they start to run together. In the bottom of the tomb, we are talking the way bottom like 50-100 ft under ground, there was this wishing thing where you shoot a coin or money into the hole. I did, and I totally made it! I hope that brings me luck in China. We finished with the park and had to use the rest room. The bathroom was near, so we went. When Brooke and I got in there, we realized two things... 1. there was absolutaly no toilet paper and 2. you have to squat to use the bathroom. They aren't sitting toilets. Anyways, we left the Ming Tombs and then headed to the GREAT WALL. It was a couple hours later when we got to the hotel that we were staying at. When we got there, we noticed we weren't in an urban area anymore. We were the only ones staying at the hotel. And no offence to the owners, but I kinda don't blame the other people for not being there... Going from the Marriott to this hotel was rough. The bed was a little bit like rocks and the shower head was not on the wall. haha. No worries though, we were excited to go to bed. We were still pretty tired from the plane ride.

THANKS FOR READING : )

- nikita

CHINA.....

Because so many things have been happening in the last week, I'm going to do a day by day over-view with photos and all that jazz in separate posts...

-THE DAY OF THE FLIGHT- Monday, Feb 16th

I woke up late. My flight was scheduled for 10:37... so I figured I needed to get there around 8:30. However, I woke up at 8:30 so that plan ended real fast! I was pretty panicked until we got to the airport. When I finally said goodbye to everyone (my family) I boarded my plane. We sat in the plane for sooo long because Obama was either coming in or going out of the Chicago airport because CHI O'Haire wasn't letting anyone in or out until president was safe. I got to the airport and Brooke was there to greet me. We got some McDonalds... kinda like our last dinner. Went to the terminal and boarded the flight. When we got to our seats, we realized that we were in the middle of the USA Men's Hockey Team. haha this was going to be a good flight. ahah it was and we met a lot of the guys. They were all in college. A few some Iowa State and even some from the Michigan area! The long 13 hours entailed a lot of bad food, no sleep, and a lot of good stories. Instead of flying over the Pacific ocean we flew over Antarctica. It was really cool! Here is just one of the pictures! After the flight we got a photo with some of the guys that we met. They were really nice, but we will probably never see any of them again. ---definitely reppin' the Deltas! We got in the airport and had to go threw customs. We did not really know where to go, but we just kept walking ha following the signs to the baggage claim. We tried to ask for the time, and the woman at the counter had no idea what we were talking about... Brooke and I just looked at each other and though "oh crap, what the heck have we gotten ourselves into?!" When we finally found ourselves out in the greeting area, a man holding an EAN sign asked if we were Brooke and Nikita... His name is Matt, and he was our contact to get to our hotel. He took us to Ike, the guy that is in the program with us. He is from Texas and goes to Drake University in Des Moines, IA. Ike is also going to be our roommate. Together all four of us went to the hotel. So Ike is a lite packer (one bag) which I have no idea how he did that! Brooke and I had seven bags together, so we had to take two taxi's to the Hotel. TAXI DRIVERS ARE CRAZY! I seriously thought I was going to die on the way to the hotel! Honking horns and swerving in and out of traffic! I survived though. This is the Beijing, Marriot.

We checked in and then went out to dinner with Matt. Ike, Brooke, and I were feeling very tired however! I was surprised I made it as long as I did. It felt so nice to sleep in a bed though. That is until I woke up at 2:30 in the morning China time (1:30pm Michigan time) and couldn't get back to sleep... STUPID JET-LAGG!

THANKS FOR READING

: ) nikita

OKAY! Two Days!! I leave on Monday morning. I catch a flight to chi-town then meet Brooke, and we head out from there... Unites Flight 851 on a lovely boeing 777... so if this one goes down. Well, ...ha this trip will have come to a short end.

When we finally do get to China (15 hours after we leave chicago) we meet our people. Yes only minutes into the country, and we will have people ha. These are some of the things they told us that we will be doing in the first couple days.

Day 1: Tuesday (February 17th, 2009)---Arrival into Beijing

Day 2: Wednesday (February 18th, 2009)---Forbidden City, Jingshan Park, and Chinese Cultural Show

Day 3: Thursday (February 19th, 2009)---Tai Chi lesson
Ming Tombs -Walk the Sacred Way and visit the Ding underground tomb, Great Wall Jinshanling.

Day 4: Friday (February 20th, 2009)---Hike on the Great Wall from Jinshanling to Simatai. Ride through the Hutongs followed by Peking Duck Dinner

Day 5: Saturday (February 21st, 2009)---Transfer to semester accommodations

WHOOT WHOOT> I'm pretty pumped! THANKS FOR READING : )

nikita

I'm into the SIngle DIGITS

Okay.... SO, I have less then 8 days until I start what I hope is the trip of a lifetime. I have so many questions running around my brain like it was running a marathon.

What are my roommates going to be like? I have been told that I'm gonna have three native student roommates and one international. Will the international student be from the states too? Will the native speaking student think I'm crazy? ha... WHAT IF I GET STUCK WITH SOMEONE THAT ONLY LISTENS TO COUNTRY MUSIC???!!

Am I going to be okay with the year and some change of chinese spaeking that I have? DO blondes have more fun in China? Am I going to survive when even the smell of soy sause makes me want to puke...?! Am I gonna need the mask that Brooke gave me haha? Will people love 3Oh!3 the second they hear it? Of course, where can I dance>? AM I going to be TAKEN??? good movie if you haven't seen it by the way.

I'm sure these quesitons now are questions of yours ha, so I'll keep you updated as I find out the anwsers...

THANKS FOR READING : )

-nikita