1. I have arrived safely in China. My flight over the arctic circle went off without a hitch and I didn't have to eat anyone.

2. Diet Coke here still has a silver label, so even though I don't understand the characters, it is easily identifiable, phew!

3. The food so far is INCREDIBLE. Very flavorful and spicy. For breakfast today I had eggs and tomatoes, dumplings, a few different rice noodle salads with assorted cooked veggies, a very yummy sweetbread filled with a kind of sweet cream, tea and a hot citrus juice similar to Tang. For lunch we had 18 different dishes brought to our table!! They bring 2 or 3 at a time, you eat those, and then they bring more. Continuous food for an hour. You eat a little bit of everything, rather than a lot of one thing, so you get many different flavors and tastes in one meal. It is delicious. I am still working on using chopsticks, but imagine the best Chinese restaurant you have ever been to, times that by ten, and that is what the food is like here. And a great majority of it is vegetarian.

3. I had my first language classes today and learned to say my assigned Chinese name, WenLan, which translates as Educated Precious Blossom. I also learned hello, goodbye, good morning, my name is, his/her name is, teacher, and a few other words. The language is beautiful. It uses very different throat muscles and breathing patterns, but I am very excited for this chance to learn Mandarin.