Orientation Day 2

Today was the first day that there has been clear blue sky and is has been so unbelievably hot. I had an orientation in the morning which talked about what to expect in schools, what we need to do e.g. buy a Beijing sim card and open a bank account and answering any of our questions. After the orientation a group of about 20 of us went to the subway to go to the Temple of Heaven which was about an hour away. It cost £3.50 to get into the park and temples, the park was a huge landscaped garden with the temple in the middle which was beautiful, although I was bored after 2 hours where as everyone else were taking loads of photos. It was just so hot that all I wanted to do was sit in the shade with a bottle of water and ice cream. There was a stall selling zodiac figures for 50p so I bought one of those and sat in the shade waiting for the others to finish with another intern who has a similar attitude to culture as me. Its not that I don't like culture, it's more that once I've seen it I'm ready to move on, not spend hours taking photos of every single thing (mum, the temple photo's are for your benefit). I was so tired and my feet hurt so much by the time I got back to the hotel (I've done so much walking over the last few days) that all I wanted to do was have a shower and go to bed, but the welcome dinner was at 7pm so I couldn't. The welcome dinner was in the hotel and each table of 10 had a lazy Susan in the centre with lot's of different dishes to try. During the meal there were two guest speakers who had done the same internship last year and decided to stay on in China. When I arrived here on Saturday night it felt really strange finally being here and I felt really weird on Sunday thinking that I had finally made it to China and was actually in Beijing about to start my internship and it was a bit of a culture shock realising that there is actually no easy way to explain to a Chinese person what you want, like the menu for example, or asking directions or even saying thank you in shops as no one speaks English. Since getting my phrase book on Monday I have found it a bit easier and I am looking forward to my 3 hour Mandarin lesson tomorrow to learn how to actually pronounce the words.