Life in Beijing

I have been in Beijing for almost a week and am getting acclimated. It isn't too difficult. I went for a long walk, maybe two hours long. There are many good western stores here, nothing like in Shiyan. I feel like I am in a huge Chinatown in a US city.

I decided to go with private Mandarin lessons for an hour a day. I study a good bit on my own: Rosetta Stone (computer program) for an hour, Pimsleur (audio only program) one or two lessons a day - each lesson is half an hour, www.chinglish-online.com for half an hour, and then I look over my lesson books. In addition, I talk with the taxi drivers, restaurant people, and anyone else I run into that seems to be interested. Language learning hurts the brain, but it is fun! I hope to spend about an hour or two each day practicing writing the characters too!

Here is my address for the month (express mail only - or else I'll be gone before it gets here):
Andrew Hill
Unit 601, Entrance 5, House 6
Tu Er Hutong, Jiadaokou Dong Dajie
Beijing 100009
China

I am staying in a three bedroom, sixth floor apartment with some nice expats, Joe and Joana. Joe is an architect from Canada and Joana is a Fulbright Scholar who worked in the China Program a few years ago. Joe is single. Joana is dating a very wealthy Australian who offered to let me stay at his executive apartment after my surgery. He has an elevator!

I will have surgery this Friday or next Friday for a torn lateral meniscus on my right knee (http://www.leadingmd.com/patientEd/meniscus/overview.asp). Everything else should be okay. I am still not happy with the constant aching in my knees, but he doesn't seem to have a reaction for that. I'll ask him again after the MRI. I have four MRI sheets from Shiyan, but the pictures are too small. My doctor is a sports medicine doctor with Beijing United Family Hospitals - probably the best hospitals in China! His examination was quite a bit more specific and thorough in comparison to the Shiyan Hospital. From the website, it seems that the other injuries to my knees could heal without surgery, but maybe I need to get extra vitamins specific to joint tissues for quick healing. (Any ideas? -of course, I'll be asking the doctor about this.)