Another New Beginning

After spending a semester studying abroad in South Korea, I packed my bags and flew to Beijing for the IARU Global Summer Program at Peking University.  I arrived in Beijing a few days ago on Saturday July 6, 2013.  PKU arranged a shuttle bus to pick us up at the airport and student assistants helped us check into our dorms at PKU's Zhongguanyuan Global Village.  I have my own room in a suite-style dorm with our own private bathroom.

Dorm room

We had our orientation and course registration session the very next day on July 7th.  The student assistants also gave us a quick tour of the PKU campus.  They took us to charge our meal cards and also get SIM cards for our phones.  I got a SIM card at the booth outside the Wu Mei convenience store on campus that costed 88 RMB for 300 MB of data and 200 minutes.

Classes began the next day.  I am taking 2 courses: Population Ageing and Health and Chinese Language.  We have lessons in the mornings and afternoons.  The IARU program has planned events for us in the evenings.  Yesterday, we had a free dinner at Mei Zhou Olympic Theme Restaurant with the program coordinators.  We had so much food and also Peking duck!  Today, we had a meeting with our language partners from PKU.  Everyone gave a self-introduction and we could choose our partners if we wanted one.

Peking Duck

So far, it has been a good beginning and I am very excited for the upcoming weeks here in Beijing.