My contact took me to a very tall house, how else could it be, there are only tall houses here in Shenzhen as it seems. She phoned someone until we found the right house and could enter the door. In every house there’s a security guard in the entrance hall, which lets you in. I asked my teacher about it and she said it makes the people feel safer. But are they really safer? Does the secure guard know every one of the building?
We went up to the tenth floor and I entered a small apartment. I got two keys and a number code to my room and left a deposit for the keys. My host which actually lives in the place as well, wasn’t there and should come back on Monday. That wasn’t what I expected but more what I was afraid of. No host family but just a single room and a toilet to share. The toilet, by the way, very small and I didn’t see the shower at the first glance. But there is a shower head at the wall and it seems like you just have to take a shower next to the toilet on the bathroom floor. I’m so spoiled as a Swiss but I’m not used to something like that. How will I take a shower without flooding the whole place? Doesn’t seem like this is possible, but I’m gonna find out. 
Therefore I wasn’t very happy. There is a kitchen, but the kitchen isn’t often used as my contact told me. No meals with at a family table, no discussions and possibilities to speak Chinese and have a glimpse into a family culture as it seems, but I have to buy my own toilet paper and meals and eat alone as it seems. Fortunately in China most things are very cheap. 
My contact took me to a very small store around the corner to buy a towel and a cup and some toilet paper to start, because I didn’t know I would need any of these. She brought me back to my place and left me at the entrance. We arranged to meet again Monday morning at another subway station exit near the school where she will lead me to the iMandarin school in Shenzhen.
There I stood at the entrance of the hall and felt very lost. First I didn’t know how to get inside again and open the door next to the guard, second I rarely new which floor but when I got there I couldn’t remember the right door, because I didn’t pay attention and I didn’t knew the number of the apartment. So I had to check my keys on every door, embarrassing! The keys are not so easy, so I didn’t manage to find the door on my first round. Fortunately there aren’t that many doors on the floor. After a second try I found the right door but couldn’t manage to open the inner door, because I didn’t knew on which side to turn the keys and the door wouldn’t just open. Sometimes I can be really stupid in such simple things. After some minutes I managed to open and even to enter my room code and there I sat, all desperate and homesick.
What did I say about expectations and how to master to be disappointed? Never mind, I’m still working on it.
First of all I checked out what was working and what not. What worked out was:
WIFI, toilet, WhatsApp, Yahoo Mail, my bank account page. In that order.
What didn’t work out was: Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Google, my proxy set up on my webpage to reach them nevertheless, my open door app to reach them nevertheless.
And instagram doesn’t work either.
My room is very small but has a double bed in it with a same same blanket, but it is very cold, much colder than outside! Outside it has lovely twenty degrees, but inside it is very cold and I didn’t take that much warm clothes with me, because I saw how warm it will be. Although I must confirm that my chinese friend told me that there are no heaters in the houses in the south. And guy who sat next to me during the flight told me that the houses are very poor isolated and it can get around five degrees inside during the night or in the morning in winter. And I wanted to leave cold snowy Switzerland and didn’t want to freeze any longer. Major fail!
I didn’t stay long in the room and started shaking. So I went out to eat something. My contact pointed me in some direction for restaurants before and I wanted to look very well where I’m going so I can find my way back again and don’t get the same problem with finding the right apartment again. 
It took me some walk to find some restaurants and first I didn’t know which one to take. I went to Jayne’s Easy, which is very easy for foreigners. It’s just a buffet where you can point at the food you want on your plate. Very convenient if you don’t know the language well enough! I didn’t take much for I didn’t know how expensive it will be, but it only costs 10 yuan which is practically nothing. When food is that cheap I can understand why people don’t cook anymore! I’ve seen other restaurants which aren’t that cheap but still, it’s not much to pay for what you get! But I suppose, people don’t earn much either here.
Then I went to a supermarket. Not a huge one but a real one, not like the little store I went with my contact. I bought something to drink and looked for something for breakfast which wasn’t so easy. As the guy from the flight told me, there is not much bread in China. But there are some buns covered with pork which looks like wool and I saw them and bought them. But the Chinese seem to buy those instant noodle soups where you can just put hot water in. And hot water you can get on many public places. 
I also saw some strange snacks like welded chicken feets and I wasn’t sure if you can just eat them or have to cook them. There are right beside the gums and sweets. 
I didn’t understand the cashier but we managed to communicate with hands and I could read the total price from the cash.
When I got back to the apartment where it got even colder I made a disgusting discovery: a cockroach peering under the WIFI router and not a tiny one as far as I can tell. Ouch! That’s not something I wanted to see! Or know.
And there actually is a lady cleaning the place. I saw her when I first got there.
I left the cockroach but killed two tiny little bugs in my room later. I was very tired and freezing so I just played under the blanket and closed my eyes a little. At ten thirty I went to bed but couldn’t sleep just for two hours. I woke up because someone was using the shower at midnight. And I’m always annoyed when some of my neighbors move in the night! And yes I had earplugs in my ears. Next time I woke up at three o clock in the morning and couldn’t manage to sleep for some hours, damn jet lag!
But I got up in the morning for my very first Chinese lesson in China and eat the two buns, which where tasting sweet. Good for me, because I shouldn’t get lunch before four o clock in the afternoon!
But first another bug drama I have to tell you. So I put on my clothes and felt something moving inside the sleeve of my pullover. I put it out quickly and out came a large green bug which I trampled to death, sorry bug! No, I’m not sorry at all! Bugs don’t have to stay inside sleeves! I don’t think I will hang my clothes once more over the chair but put them into my bug instead. No more bugs please! I really don’t like bugs. Not the one I make in life or programming and not at all the living ones. They are disgusting, disgusting, disgusting!
And I surely didn’t want to start my Monday with a bug!
After this I went to the subway and met my contact of the school. She led me a mazy way to the school I’m not sure how to find again on my own! There I met my teacher and she really is a very very kind person! I liked here from the first sight! She liked my Chinese and told me that I have good pronunciation. My Swiss teacher always told me that and I didn’t believe here!
We moved on very quickly and did an entire lesson on this first morning. My school contact called the school in Shanghai for me for my home stay address next month. She told me that they didn’t find a homestay family for me thats why I had to stay in the apartment (BUGS!). My teacher told me that it’s hard to find a homestay family in China so I might not get one in Shanghai and Beijing either. She said that the Chinese aren’t just used to that, because they don’t have the possibility to travel around as we Western people can do it. So people from the West are very open and used to help or host other people. Chinese people just don’t know how difficult it can be to get around in a foreign country when you don’t speak the language and that foreigners might need more help or help at all. She told me that it can happen that you ask someone to help and he just moves on.
After my lesson she helped me buying a Chinese SIM card, which wasn’t so easy. We were in kind of Supermarket building in a kind of pawn shop corner where they sold some SIM cards as prepaid (which Chinese mobile doesn’t seem to, but I’m not sure, because my host didn’t really got what I meant with prepaid). You need a Chinese ID card to buy one, no passports allowed. But she gave here ID for me, which was very kind of here! Now I have a Chinese number and mobile internet, phew! She had some long discussions with the lady who sold it to us, but she didn’t seem to know all so well about phones, cards and so on.
Oh, by the way, Chinese are all watching their phones, like us. Everybody has his head down on that phone, talking to it, earplugs on, typing in it, nothing goes without a phone, that’s really the spirit of the 21 century as it seems.
After that she helped me buy a card for the subway which is also prepaid and can be recharged so I don’t have to pay each time when using the subway separately but can pay with the card. The subway is really easy to use and very much the same, wherever I used subways before like in Berlin or London. But it is really crowded! 
After that I went back to my place very late and went out to eat again and bought some more toilet paper. I got my schedule for the entire month and have even four days off because of spring holidays and chinese new year. But I don’t have a clue now what to do then or on the next weekend. I want to explore some more of the city and maybe go sightseeing someplace near by train ride. But I don’t know yet.
There is no other student in my class for there seems to be no other student right now I don’t know? So I don’t have other students to plan with or do something and it seems like I’m on my own for this first week. No family to talk to, no students, that makes me feel alone and a little sad. And my room is really very very cold at night! And full with bugs! Bugs, bugs, bugs! I’ve seen another cockroach in the bathroom a few minutes ago. But a tiny one, at least.
Just one month. It is just one month and then I can move on to the next buggy place. If it stays that buggy!
I’ve seen the center of the city today with the big supermarkets and I will hopefully explore more of it tomorrow on my own. When I can find some subway station I’m always safe, because my place is just next to the station and I can always get there by taking the subway. 
So this night I put my clothes back in my bag and hope that the bugs don’t come into my bed! I hope I learn fast so I can start talking to people and manage things on my own and maybe don’t feel that lost anymore.
Oh, and I’m sitting here in my down jacket while writing. I just loved to have a heater!