In Nanjing

We arrived by train Wednesday. The Shanghai train station reminded me of how crowded, hot and noisy that city can be when you wander from the overly pleasant confines of where the waiguoren hang out (read: Ritz Carlton). Hauling our luggage through the crowds, up escalators and onto the train was hard work but our two reps from Nanjing University were terrific. We took a high speed train--over 200 km/hr--and arrived in Nanjing in two hours. And when we got there, the head of the international exchange office and a driver were there to greet us with a large, air comfortable minivan. The difference between the Shanghai and Nanjing train stations is something like the difference between New York City and Boston.
We settled into our lovely apartment in the foreign experts building on campus--two large bedrooms, a living dining room, cable (mostly CCTV replaying Chinese gold medal winners from the Olympics), Internet access (a bit slow, but it works for almost everything except my NU email, which is incredibly slow), a nice bathroom with washing machine and a porch where we can dry clothes and a kitchen with a machine that dispenses hot and cold water.
We spent most of the past two days with two journalism students who have been working very hard to help us get settled--getting my computer connected to the Nanjing U system, helping us order a fresh water tank for drinking water and new shower head, and taking us shopping to the supermarket (about a half hour walk, a long way to carry tea kettles, toasters, water, juice and whatever else we've needed so far, including a basketball for Marcus). We've made three trips there so far--it's an amazing supermarket with clothes, shoes, appliances, kitchenware, and every kinds of Chinese (and some Western) food.
Prof. Chao from the Journalism school took us all out to dinner the night we arrived at a campus restaurant next door to our building. Wonderful soups--fish, noodle, mushroom--spicy fried tofu, something like moo shu pork, a local beef pot dish, omelettes, noodles, chicken, duck and a good local (Jingiang) beer. A wonderfully warm greeting with far too much food.
Prof Chao, his wife ( a Chinese lit prof) and their three-year-old boy came to greet us yesterday morning and took us on a tour of the campus. It's quiet now--most of the students will be returning this weekend--and the campus is beautiful. Small parks with benches, basketball and tennis courts, new buildings going up all around us. And then they took us out for another huge meal.
The city around us is more hectic--5.5 million people may be a small city in China, but not to us--but crossing streets is easier than Shanghai, where there are no rules. People seem to stop for traffic lights and the bicycles and motorcycles ring their bells or honk their horns and don't seem eager to run us over.
Today we're off to Marcus's school--a British School about 40 minutes from here--to meet his teacher and get oriented. He'll be taking a school bus every morning starting next week and I think it stops nearby.
Nina has been in touch with the college of traditional medicine and the hospital where she'll work--she also starts classes next week.
I've got more than two weeks before my grad classes (journalism ethics and writing) start so I hope to be well prepared. But I won't know what my students want or need to learn until after the first few classes.
In the meantime, I'm going to be working on my Chinese, making contacts here and figuring out what I can cook.
That's enough for now. Best wishes to all.