Intimidating Arrival

Having never traveled overseas, my opinions and views of the Eastern Hemisphere are completely based off of multi-media and high school history classes. I felt like I would do something a tiny bit wrong and get arrested for it. Thus, the arrival at the airport made me somewhat anxious. The first thing I noticed was the smoggy air. The best way to describe it was the smell of freshly paved asphalt, a sort of burning smell. Next was the vast emptiness of the airport. At the time of our arrival there was very few people and very little traffic. We walked for a while and finally got to customs. After filling out a slip where we provide our purpose and intention of our travel, we waited in line to have our passports and Visas checked. There were several cubicles where two customs employees were each stationed. One checking the passports, and one checking the person checking the passports. One more indicator of how serious China is about immigrants but also something that made me want to learn more about the differences between different systems of government.