Week 2

I am blogging a little later than what I had planned, but this one should be better than the first post.

I was not as sick this week as I was last week. I started to get sick again towards the end of this week. I am hoping to get better soon, and then stay healthy. I don't know why my sinuses are out of wack but I know that I am tired of being sick.

So back to the good stuff. Korean BBQ is amazing. It tastes so good. It is pricier than the Chinese food but it is still relatively inexpensive. I will probably splurge a few times and treat myself to Korean BBQ. Food is really fun in China. I can get a huge meal for less than 90 cents (United States Dollar). Most of the restaurants that I go to are less than three United States Dollar. It is quite amusing to watch my friends worry about the bill, because they see a bill for 100 kuai (yuan) which looks like it is really expensive but it is about 15 United States Dollars which isn't bad for 6 people. A few of us went to Pizza Hut. That was an interesting experience. The place is a high end restaurant in China where the more wealthier Chinese people eat. It is really classy and it is way better than the Pizza Hut in America. The food is much different in China than in the US. For instances, in China the pizzas have themes and you can't order custom pizzas. It is very expensive but it is definitely an experience.

As for activities, we have been doing a lot. I have been trying to stay healthy so I have been trying to rest. I did go to the Temple of Heaven though, it was very fun. We danced with the locals. They really liked that we wanted to participate. We also went to a Kong Fu show. It was disappointing to say the least. It was basically ballet and it was rather long. I will probably never go to it again because I really didn't care for it.

I started work today in Professor Ma's research group. It was quite different from the work I had done in other research groups. I have mainly focused on Inorganic Chemistry and Biomedical research. I will be doing Organic Chemistry research in China. I have a good background in Organic Chemistry but it has been a very long time since I have had Organic Chemistry class and Organic labs. I really need to refresh my knowledge of the subject. I studied a lot of Organometallic Chemistry before I came to China because I thought it would be focused more towards Organometallics, but it seems to be focused on Organic Chemistry. I will need to refresh my memory quickly in order to contribute. I was assigned homework today to look up reactions and mechanisms. I will have to explain the mechanism tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to explain the mechanisms to my graduate student.

I love learning about other cultures and observing cultural differences. I also like the language barriers that we have to overcome in order to interact with the people in China. A good example is my roommate in China. He wanted to print out some papers for his research. He called the front desk to ask if there were any facilities that would allow him to print papers. They told him no, then we get a ring at our door a few minutes later. It is a guy who is here to deliver my roommate his paper. They thought that he wanted paper, so apparently they sent a guy to give him paper. He went to the intercom to tell the guy that he was grateful for the paper, but he didn't want it. The guy insisted that he come to our apartment to give my roommate his paper, so my roommate let him in and we waited for the guy to get to our apartment so my roommate could explain to him that he didn't want paper. When the guy came to our door, my roommate answered it and tried to explain to the guy that he didn't want paper. But the guy thought my roommate wanted to pay for the paper, and he told my roommate that it was free and he didn't need to pay. He gave the paper to him and left. He came into my room and started laughing really hard. I looked up and the guy had given him toilet paper. Then I started laughing. To be honest, the guy was very accommodating and he was really trying to help us out.

So That was pretty much how my second week went. I am hoping that I can start feeling better. See ya later.