Eric's Beijing Diary

Beijing, China. My last few days in America were among the most hectic in my life, but I suppose that is the nature of moving. Yesterday morning--no, actually Friday morning...except that I am in Beijing now, 15 hours ahead of Arizona, so if I were still in Arizona, it would still, in fact, be Saturday, so it was yesterday morning, sort of. Anyway, Sasaki-sensei and Toshiko picked me up at 5am and took me to the airport. The connecting flight to LA was uneventful, except that a
stewardess overslept, so the shuttle plane, flown by Mesa Air, was late.

When I got to Los Angeles, I noticed a booth for currency exchange. The lady at the booth offered me a ridiculously low exchange rate for my money. When I asked her about it, she said that the value of the
dollar was dropping every day, and she went on and on about how the dollar wasn't worth anything in Asia anymore. By the time I got through talking with her, I felt like my money was losing value by the minute, and if I didn't change it in right now, my dollars would be
completely worthless by the time I got off the plane in Beijing. But I didn't bite. I wasn't born yesterday. I thanked her politely, and put my money back.

We had been flying for about six hours, and I thought we must be over the middle of the ocean by now, so I walked to the back of the plane and looked out the window. I got the surprise of my life. What I saw
was snow covered fingers of land reaching out into the sea from behind me. I walked to the other side of the plane, and looked out. Rugged coastline interspersed with ocean waters, and a mystical pink band across the sky in the distance. It was a scene no artist could duplicate.

Alaska. The Berring Strait. My bad; I had forgotten, of course, that the "great circle" route to North China would be very different from a great circle route to Hong Kong, where I flew the last time I went to China. A little later, I looked out and saw the massive ice floes on the Sea of Okhotsk. Frozen ocean. A truly incredible thing to see.

Phil and Helen picked me up at the airport, and helped me get my stuff to my apartment. Then we went to a very nice on-campus restaurant for a delicious meal with some of the students from the college. Shrimp,
tender pepper steak, and some other stuff. I especially liked the yogurt. They told me it's called suannai. I have never seen that in America. Some of the students asked me about the courses I would be
teaching. I talked with them a bit about the Oracle database architecture, and how I saw the courses shaping up. I was able to get a little feel for their background, and I explained a little how I felt
the courses I was teaching would be beneficial to them. Afterward, we went to a place were Phil had reserved a private room, and the students took turns singing while the words were highlighted on a video screen. Of course, they wanted me to sing. I am afraid I was not in the best form, but it was fun anyway. Two-and-a-half hours of sleep on the
plane, it was now 7:30 am in Arizona, I had been up since 4am the previous (Arizona) day, but I gave my best travel-weary rendition of "Red River Valley." Well, it really was an excellent "get acquainted"
activity, and I enjoyed meeting these wholesome, friendly students.