Greetings from Shiyan

Hey, everyone! This is Luke, posting for the Breland crew in China. Today, we finally have our internet working (kinda), so here's my first post. I tried to post once from Hong Kong's airport, but it didn't work for some reason.

So far, I am confused and nervous, Katherine is blase, and Finn is...Finn. At least he is teaching freshmen, which means his classes don't start for 3 weeks! I'm the only one in the group with a full load from the beginning. We've started settling into our apartments on campus, and they are...strange. Well, they actually aren't bad at all, aside from the kitchen and the bathroom. We'll get used to them. Poor Finn, however, is on the 7th floor of our building, which has no elevators. Katherine and I are on the 4th floor, and that's bad enough; I can't imagine needing to hike up all of those stairs every day! Poor Finn. At least he can hang out at our apartment all he wants.

Not much has happened. We've found a good place to eat, which the teachers here call "Happy Lady" (because the chef/owner never stops smiling), but any health inspector from the States would have a heart attack if he walked into the restaurant. Aside from that, we've just been taking naps and trying to get over our jet lag. Our Xbox is working (woohoo!), but I don't believe we'll be able to get it hooked up to the internet. So, no Xbox Live for us. The city itself is rather pretty, now that it has stopped raining, and I can see the hills and mountains surrounding it. It reminds me of Charleston WV a little bit, but it is in many ways beyond comparison.

Well, I can't think much right now, so I'll just wrap this up. For all those who are wondering, we are all doing well, in good health, etc. Don't worry about us, but please keep us in your thoughts!