After the first day.
We had breakfast at the airport and took a cab down to Johns Hopkins. Moving in was smooth and easy, the staff at Housing Office were generally friendly and helpful. Soon I got my room! Here is how it is like initially:
I was trying frantically to put the bed together without success. I gave up after I realised that I won't be able to put it together until I could find 8 hooks/screws/nails to hammer everything together. Well, of course I couldn't find them in my room...
The unpacking was fast. After I had organised everything satisfactorily, I went out to meet Yiran so we could report to the International Student's Office. Everything was easy: we filled up a few forms and got some information from a Chinese guy working there. Though, we didn't get to see first hand who Kevin Murphy (the I-20 guy) is...
Soon we headed out again, now to set up a bank account. There was only 1 lady at the Bank of America doing that, and there were 2 guys in front of us. Well, we thought it was going to be fast, but hell, no! Each guy took at least 20 minutes to be processed, so you know how long we waited outside and inside while the lady was helping us. She was keying in everything alphabet by alphabet and you know, really slowly... However, despite the inefficiency, her attitude and service was excellent. While we were extremely confused about what to do when she asked us to 'sign our name' (meaning WRITE our name) and 'write our signature' (!), she explained to us very patiently (which confused us further, oh well...) and even cared to answer the stupid questions we posted about cheque writing. If we did that in Singapore I think I would have been shouted at.
Ok after that we had fried rice at a Chinese fast food stall next door, and subsequently went to buy our insurance, get our Internet cable (I got myself connected almost as soon as I got there, but it costs like US$26.50 a month?!!), ask about our J-card, enquire about our accounts, and for Yiran to settle his strange citizenship problem (JHU thinks that he is an American citizen :D), all at the basement of Garland Hall! And then we did some basic grocery, bought some bread and a few apples, and got a Subway sandwich for dinner. Subway here is exactly the same as the Subway in Singapore, even their choice of pickles/dressing and cookies are the same!
And after some final touch-up my room looks like this:
