First Days In Beijing

I can't sleep. 

Right now it's somewhere between 3-5am, which United States Melissa would consider to be an outrageous time to be conscious.
China Melissa wakes up at 3am (Thank you, jetlag!), waits around for the hotel breakfast buffet to open at 6:30am, and then takes four-hour naps in the middle of the day.
Curtis and I have been living here for about three days now, and as you can probably tell, it has been an amazing life so far!

In the days leading up to our move here, I mentioned to a couple of people that moving to Beijing felt like getting ready for a first date. Yeah sure, I was here two years ago for three days, but that didn't count. I mean, at that point, Beijing was just a fling to me. I didn't think it would ever turn into a serious, long-term thing.

My hope was that upon our arrival, Beijing and I would run toward one another in slow motion with arms outstretched.

Forget the fact that we don't speak the same language. 
It would be love at first sight.

The reality was that after traveling halfway around the world for an entire day, my hair was bad and my breath wasn't much better. So maybe that's why Beijing didn't feel like trying very hard to impress me.

Fair enough.

The day we landed, the air quality here was measured by the U.S. embassy to be "Very Unhealthy." What that means is that the air looks thick, brown, and soupy. I've been trying to think of how to describe what it tastes like when you breathe it... dirt? metal? filthy grossness? You get the idea. We put our masks on, but I could still smell it. I tried my very best to breathe as little as possible and only when absolutely necessary. It was like a game! Only not fun.

The next day was the same, so we stayed in our hotel room with the drapes pulled shut. It was just too depressing to look outside and not be able to see anything but the heaviness of the air. I mostly just slept and counted down the minutes to the next breakfast buffet. I've never been an emotional eater, but hey-- new country, new habits, right?

Thankfully, the air got much better yesterday.

Curtis and I ventured outside hand-in-hand to explore our neighborhood and breathe in all the clean-ish air we wanted. We wandered into a market and ooh-ed and aah-ed at the variety of strange-to-us foods being sold... from the teensiest bananas I've ever seen, to a bin of what we think might have been live silk worms, to big piles of chicken and pig's feet. (Yum!) We tried what turned out to be a custard tart and a strawberry-filled pastry (descriptions are all in Chinese, so we just had to guess), which were both very good.

For dinner, we caught a taxi to a different area of the city, filled up on beer (Curtis), wine (me), and some pretty dang good Italian food. Then we had a Taiwanese dessert of mochi balls in hot, sweet, black bean soup. It was delicious.

So yes, it's been a bit of a rough start, but I think me and Beijing are starting to warm up to each other. Will it ever be love? Who the heck knows. But Beijing is (kinda sorta) trying to learn my language:

Sure, we've got a ways to go before really understanding each other, but we've gotta start somewhere.
And speaking of starts, I think it's time to go and start my day with my favorite breakfast buffet.