NIGHT 1

Well, I’m here in Taiyuan (太原) and am trying to get settled. Right off the bat I can see that this is CLEARLY nothing like Taiwan (台灣) . We’ll get to the differences soon enough. I got in much later than anticipated because of a bad winter storm for my connecting flight from Beijing (北京) to 太原 so the next flight didn’t come for 3 additional hours. (I don’t know what it is about me and planes in recent days. Maybe they don’t like me (for details as to why I think that feel free to ask)) After finding my luggage and my escorts (one of which was the Vice-Head of the Institute I would work for) I was driven home.

On the way home, despite the time of night, no one used their lights other than to warn other drivers that they were moving too slow and were to be overtaken and the blinker must have been a recent invention because it was of no use yet. It looked pretty foggy as we were driving and I attributed it to the balminess of the night. 台彎 had plenty of rice paddies when driving through the country to get to the city. 太原 on the other hand, had no country. 太原 ‘s location: a basin. We were surrounded by mountains (or so I was told) but high up and thusly, we were cold. Yes, it was winter, Yes I’m from upstate New York, aka land of OUTER New York nothingness. Yes, I went to College in the mountains of Western Mass where snow knows neither boundaries nor time constraints. Yes, I went to prep school in New Hampshire aka where? Oh yea Upper new England- cold there too. But I was born in Hawai’i dang it, and am of Nigerian blood! I NEED WARMTH. Being in that Basin also meant that our air circulation wasn’t so great, this means much more later. I was also told that 太原 is one of the oldest Cities in China. There is a lot of history surrounding it. Great. Don’t really know why I would care, but I nodded my head in the backseat as the Vice-Head of the Institute continued to school me.

EVENTUALLY, we made it to my house. A bit chilly but nice and open, two bedroom a washer, internet, and the stiffest beds I’ve slept on in a long time. I’m getting used to it. For a virtual tour click here. After about an hour of setting up the internet (ok I’m addicted but I had to let people know I was ok) I figured it to be time to sleep… and that’s JUST what I did.