A few quick thoughts

I've now been in Beijing for three full days and I'm finally starting to recover from the sensory overload. I arrived on Thursday in a driving rainstorm and, despite obvious communication barriers with my cab driver, was safely delivered to Tsinghua University's Jin Chun Yuan Hotel. The accommodations have exceeded my expectations in every respect. The hotel has an excellent restaurant (with colourful pictures to assist with ordering) and every amenity one would expect from a full service hotel (including high speed Internet). The campus is beautiful with gorgeous ponds, islands, and parkland to explore. I'll describe the campus and show some more pictures in a subsequent post.

My colleagues helped my Chinese immersion immediately with a hot pot dinner (think fondu). The adventure was heightened by a power failure that made each bite a surprise. I'm really fortunate that three of my friends are fluent in Mandarin, but this will likely just ensure that I remain a clueless and lazy tourist for the duration of my stay.

On Friday we visited Tiananmen Square and explored some of the Hutongs (small narrow streets) in and around the city centre. It's in a restaurant off one of these allies where I had my first taste of Peking Duck and the best hot and sour soup I've ever had, bumping Spadina Garden from the #1 position on my list of all-time great hot & sour soups (I thought Spadina Garden would hold on to the top spot for at least a couple of weeks).

In northwest Beijing, where I'm staying, there is a cluster of several universities. I have spent the last couple of days exploring this district and the Tsinghua campus itself. It is an exceptional campus, rivaling even Queen's University in Kingston (note, I did not say besting). We start our teaching tomorrow, but I'll try and post something every day to keep folks at home up to date on what I'm up to.