Whoa, Jetlag

I'm not usually one to suffer jetlag, I may wake up a bit early, but as long as I go to sleep at a relatively normal hour, then I wake up at a pretty normal hour, because I have trouble sleeping on planes.  So imagine my surprise—utter incredulity—when I woke up to find my watch read 17:30, or 5:30pm.  Talk about an eye-opener.

 

Feeling well rested and having shocked myself awake, I looked out the window to see the sun hanging low in the sky, glowing orange through the hazy veneer that is Beijing's sky.  Traffic was surprisingly light, but I could only see back alleys outside of my window in my godfather's 17^th-story apartment.  I emerged from my hibernation den quietly and headed to the bathroom. 

 

As I was about to get into the shower, my godfather emerged from his room in his pajamas.  Strange, I thought, that he is home so early and already back in his pajamas, but I didn't think anything of it, maybe he'd just got home and always wore them around the house.  He wrangled his daughter's (read: he gets to do all the dirty work) new dog from its cage and brought it into the bathroom to do its business.  It's probably not the kind of business he thought he was getting himself into when he became a chairman for JP Morgan.

 

I took my shower and headed downstairs, said hi to Hattie, who was already awake from her after-school nap, and talked with my godfather for a bit.  I got my breakfast, and sat down with Hattie and Tillie, who had just woken up from her nap, and had my breakfast while they ate their snacks.  Which consisted of bread with jam and cheese.

 

By now it was about 7am.  It was only then that it began to dawn on me that I really had woken up at 5:30am.  I'm using my dad's watch, which was set on 24-hour time.  I didn't know that when I arrived in Beijing (airport pictured) the night before at 9pm, so I'd unwitting set the watch to 9am.  It all fell into place, and I felt better about my prospects for adjustment.  (To make matters worse, at 11am it started raining and became pitch-black outside, pictured) It's amazing how much I trust an unthinking piece of technology and not my own better judgment at times.  I could probably try and make some insightful comments about our reliance on technology and how we're losing touch with reality or something, but that would probably just ruin the story.

 

But the real adjustments are about to begin.  My program officially began Wednesday, but we haven't done much yet.  I just took the written segment of the placement test, and we head up to Harbin via train tonight.  It should be a fun trip, and I'm really excited to get up to Harbin.  This promises to be a great experience and a focused, productive couple of months.  Between classes, Chinese roommates, a new city to explore, and lists of things to do, I'll be keeping busy.

 

In the meantime in Beijing, I've gotten to see my godfather and his daughters, catch up with my host brother (who has noticeably matured after his freshman year), hang out with Stone and Wilson, a couple of friends from SYA in 11^th grade, and play some pool with them (neither of them pictured), meet my fellow CET Harbin students and go to the Temple of Heaven with them (pictures), and just generally chill.  The quiet before the storm I suppose.

 

I'm emailing this post in (and probably will be indefinitely), and I haven't figured out how to format well, so all the pictures will just have to be at the top of the post for now.  The firewall wins for now, but I will make like Genghis Kahn soon enough.