Omigod. I am in China.

These are the initial thoughts that ran through my head as I looked at the huge tower that read "Welcome to Beijing" in small letters in English but big letters in Chinese. Even this Explorer window everything is in Chinese but fortunately, I remember what most of the links say. I am glad I didn't wait until I actually got here to set this up.

As an Indian growing up in America, I grew weary of people always making my culture more exotic than it was/is. It is a cool culture and I wear my pride blazing on my forehead but I sometimes became annoyed when people got all starry-eyed when they talked about India. I realized now that I have done the exact same thing with China. It is a truly exotic location but people here live just like everyone else lives in their own countries. Not everyone knows kungfu or practices Confucianism. It is going to be interesting to see how my own perceptions of China change throughout this trip.

Anyway, we arrvied late last night with no incident. The flights were long - the longest being between Minneapolis and Tokyo. I have inherited Amma's knack for sleeping through long flights so I was asleep for 7 of the 12 hours. The remainder of the time, I read some Fodor's stuff that Y. Uncle printed out and "The Devil Wears Prada." Very funny book and I am afraid that I am going to be done with it in the next few days. Well, "The Deathly Hallows" comes out soon enough. . .

Our room is small but not what I was picturing. There are three of us in there each with our own slightly larger than twin bed. I, of course, had painful jet lag and didn't fall asleep until 2 am but I did sleep until 7 am. I think this is going to be the key to not waking up at 4 am every day.

We also met our nice tour guide yesterday. It sounds like he has a lot of experience in dealing with Indian-Americans because he even spoke some Hindi and knew what his name, Harris, would mean for a bunch of Hindus (Harish-Vishnu). He seems nice enough and speaks English really well.

That's all for now. There is nothing going on today and the weather looks pretty gloomy so we'll probably just go to the mall that is right behind our place. Don't worry RC, I am not buying anything just yet. This is just to understand how the prices work because it is a government shopping center and there is no bargaining.