Leaving on a jet plane...

The visas are supposed to be arriving from Chicago today (or so Dr. Coppola says). The plane leaves Detroit for Tokyo at 1530 Friday. We will arrive in Beijing at 2130 Saturday night if things go as planned. I got a middle seat toward the front of the plane.

I'm sitting in a U. Mich chem computer lab right now watching everyone else create their first blog posts. It's really funny to watch them in action. They are writing essay-length blog posts. I'm probably going to miss Ann Arbor. I enjoyed getting to meet everyone before traveling to China and the activities we did were pretty cool. I'm looking forward to meeting my research group and seeing the sights in Beijing. Research in a foreign university sounds pretty exciting. Once I learn some Chinese, I should be in pretty good shape.

Hanging out in Ann Arbor

We haven't done much the first two days in Ann Arbor. I really like the four other guys in the group. We did some sort of group activity yesterday afternoon. Some of the guys in our group played a few pickup basketball games with a bunch of random people...they were great (especially the guy wearing Crocs). We also got our first Chinese lesson this morning...only 9 more lessons to go!

We did a Chinese banquet for lunch today (Middle Kingdom, 322 S. Main St). We ate were spicy frog legs, Peking duck, spicy fish, and pig blood/intestines. All of this was quite delicious and quite expensive. I accidentally ate a spicy pepper and my mouth felt like it was on fire...but that's the adventure of eating!

The visas situation is unresolved for most people. I got a visa along with three of the girls in our group. We have until Friday morning to get this fixed.

Heading to Detroit

I'm on the flight to Detroit this afternoon at 4:10 pm and I still have to finish packing all my stuff. I'm excited to meet everyone this evening but hate leaving the comfort of my own bed. But life is supposed to be an adventure, isn't it?

In other news, the Chinese gov't announced a three-day mourning period for the victims of last week's earthquake. I don't know yet how this will affect our visas. Stay tuned...