The Second Day

As stated previously, I was up at 345 AM, so I have had time to write, and do some other stuff.  My first Beijing workout was this morning, I did a bunch of push ups, body weight squats, and running/jumping in place. It worked well,  I just need to find a pull up bar and I will be good. I am going to try to get to the supermarket and get some things that I need to wash clothes and workout.
The man who met me at the airport, he told me to call him Wendy from now on, I cannot pronounce his name, went with me for breakfast where we had soybean milk, a hard boiled egg, and fried dough, it was fine, there was not much flavor, next time I will try something different. The egg was good. I am thinking of getting a skillet so that I can make eggs for breakfast instead of eating out ever morning.

The person from the international student office came at 830 to meet me, we went over to her office where money was given to me to give to my instructor and Wendy to cover any expenses for my travel. I went to the police station and got registered as a foreigner. Mrs. Dongfang helped me to get some other stuff done. After this Wendy took me to meet Dr. Hongmei, I am now on the cotton modification team, at least for now I am. The lad that this group works in is very small and there are a lot of them. at least 8. I may see if the genetic sequencing team is smaller/more interesting and based on that, switch, but we will see. A lady (Pimpan is her name) from Thailand may be taking me out to get what I need from the store. She friended me on Facebook so we could make plans I believe. I spent the morning preparing things for the autoclave and then learning the names and functions of all the equipment. I knew them all which should help to get me working.
We (Leo, Wendy, others...) ate lunch at a Cafeteria, noodles, a sesame sauce, dumplings and red bean water. What is red bean water you ask? Red bean water is when they take red beans boil them then strain water out, this is the red bean water.  I was hungry at 12 which may be saying something about how filling the breakfast was, it took me only 4 hours to want more food, not much protein. I need to hard boil some eggs, this will give me something to snack on if I am hungry in between meals. I went down to the store on the first floor this morning and got some cherrys and bananas. 
One thing that I have noticed that is very difference from the USA is the amount of granite, marble, and stone. in all of the buildings that I have been into there is a lot of those building material. in the police station the counters were all granite, and in all of the stairwells/entryways there is marble or granite.
The AQI number has been going up all day, it is only 130 pm and it is up to 246, below 50 is considered healthy...

After lunch I went back to the laboratory, Wendy and Leo were still asleep, the Chinese seem to have to take a nap once they eat lunch cause they were knocked out, hunched over the lab tables. Pimpan took me up to the tissue lab, where they grow all of the samples needed to to extract DNA/test them. It looks like I will be doing much of my work with Arabidopsis thaliana a model plant organism. After Pimpan took me up there we came back down to the lab and found that Leo was awake but Wendy was not. They exchanged a few words and check that there was nothing to be done this afternoon. there was none and so Leo, Pimpan, and I went to the supermarket to get some random stuff that I need, Got some detergent, a jump rope, some foods, eggs and a pan. the Wu-mart is full of interesting things, they sell many fruits, fish, mussels, seeds, and so on. one could even buy millet in bulk. I will post some photos. We then went to the plant shop where I got an Pothos plant. they have bunches of very pretty lilies there. I came back to my room then. Leo and Pimpan went to the last 45 minutes of work and they told me to just go to my room and get stuff settled. I may go out to dinner here soonish. Another thing that is very different is that pets like fish are kept in the lab, and take up lab space. Wendy has two turtles in the lab, there are also fish in there as well. 

 One of the walkways overlooks a test field

 Above was dinner last night
 Here was Breakfast

 Lunch

 Turtle

Dragon Fruit 

 Me and Leo, it is rock candy

 WUMART!

 The east entrance gate

Lilies







I decided to stay in and eat what I had gotten at the Wu-mart, pineapple bread, cherries, ginkgo nuts and water, Ben the American came and talked to me for a few minutes which was awesome. He is a very good guy. this weekend hopefully I will get the chance to get out and about with him, he knows the layout of the area already.

 This concludes Day Two of my Journey