my first entry from china!!!

Well, here I am safe and sound in Yantai, but still can't believe i'm really here for a year.
The actual flights here went really well. My first flight was from Dulles to Seoul, Korea...14 hours. I flew on Korean Air whichw as awesome. They feed us really well. I even had raw Salmon in my salad, and anyone who knows me knows how much i love raw salmon. I sat in a row on three seats and i had the window seat. The person who had the middle seat never showed up which was SOOOO nice. I never felt cramped at all and i sat with a super nice Korean woman who teaches highschool. I got nifty little gift bag and everything inside was this really pretty teal blue Korean air uses in their uniforms. The flight didn't feel nearly as long as 14 hours because my seat had a touch screen tv that let me choose from about 30 movies, play games, watches TV shows and other spiffy things. I watched alot of movies, including a short film about why Korea rules at making robots. When I arrived at the Korean airport i was starved.....and of course there was one place that called out to me above the rest.....

My lay over in Korea was about 4 hours long. I wandered around and went to Duty free shops were nice sales ladies gave me candy, including chocolate with very very spicy pepper in it. It was a bit boring after awhile and i was extremely tired. Korean Air did a good job of trying to simulate a night time environment for us, but I hadn't really slept much So i spent alot of time at my gate laying down. luckily I had good company with me. My lovely little Viv.

I hopped on my flight from Korea to Yantai, which after a 14 hour flight delt like nothing.
I was off the plane just as soon as i had gotten on. The plane was very small and i was the only foreigner on board.

I was greeted by three women, my contact, Sara and 2 adorable english students, Vicki and Penny. Vicki and Penny have kind of been little personal assistants and guides. They've both been studying english for a while, so we've only had minor communication problems. They have been so incredibly helpful and nice.
They're very curious about American life. they took me shopping and every time i picked up a brand they didn't recognize thew oulda sk me if it was american. It's funny cause they are hoping to see me pick up western things and but all i've been interested in has been asian products. One thing i thought was really funny was they took me to downtown Yanti today and were so excited to take me to Walmart of all places!!


Yantai just got walmart in june and they love it. They asked if i knew about walmart and if Americans shop at walmarts....oh boy...do they ever. Although walmart wasn't exactly where i wanted to go shopping, it ended up being really interesting to see their version of the infamous super center God. At one point Vicki was sitting next to me and she leaned her leg against me and wistfully sighed as she told me she wished she could be as white as me. It really caught me off guard to hear her talk about how she thought pale white skin was so much prettier then her own. I told her about how in the US most women tan in order to not be as white as i am, and she laughed and told me most girls in china wish they were white. Vicki and I are already planning to do a day of fun "girly" shopping in the near future, adn hopefully Penny is going to help me get a cell phone soon. These girls really float my boat, although having them always insist on carrying my things is a bit weird to me.
Tonight the 3 of us are going to get together for dinner.

Sarah,who's one of my bosses had me come out and meet her and her boss for lunch. He was a very nice man and he treated me to an INCREDIBLE meal. It was a feast adn i felt like i was going to explode once it was over. we didn't order from menus. he had sarah and i go to a kitchen area where all the food is out on display with tanks and tanks of live seafood. we then walked around adn picked out what we wanted. sooooooooooo delicious!!!!!!!! i don't even know where to begin with listing everything we ate. I was so nervous about using chop sticks in front of them, but i did pretty well. Sarah even complimented me.

I went shopping in the market today as well. The girls took me to get some groceries. Hopefully i will take pictures of it soon adnw ill have those to share. i haven't even been here a full day and have already discovered some delicious new things .....like kiwi nectar!