Terry and I went to one of our favorite restaurant, Indian, down on 1st ave and 6th St, then we took off to the airport.
We got there and found most of the cast waiting around. You have never seen so much luggage in your life, I guarantee that! It was just luggage everywhere. And oh yea, did I mention it was 103pm and we were taking a 140AM flight? So it was late, we were all tired, but everyone was excited. I was starting to get excited now, but then, as I have been for a while, began second guessing myself. I really didn’t want to leave Terry and my family, but as I always told myself since I got the job, I would regret not going, and it’s only 8 months.
I did want to say that a major point of frustration for most of us was baggage weight. They were very specific about weights, so we all did our best to be within the 50lb luggage and 11lb carryon weights. And what happened? NOT ONE BAG WAS WEIGHED. I was mad, I know that. I took pants out, a zip-up sweater I’d wanted, left out my personal pillow (which I REALLY wanted)… Not a bag weighed.
Terry finally left, and as a group with no leader, we found our way through the airport and attempted to figure out where to go. Eventually, we made it to our waiting area, but it was completely full, so we sat in a nearby waiting area, which we basically took over. Because it was so late, everything was closed, but we found one wing (in a Korean Air area) where some small shops were still open, so we all got sustenance, very EXPENSIVE sustenance (a vitamin water and a smart water cost $10! Outside the airport, that would be about half that!). We all kept ourselves amused and entertained as we sat and waited.
And finally, it was time. The plane began boarding.
We were spread out all over the plane, which sat about 350 people, it was HUGE. I asked for a window seat, which would prove to be a huge mistake. But all I can remember is sitting in my seat next to a girl about my age, and falling right to sleep. I did wake up eventually as I felt the plane lift off, and spent the next few hours fighting sleep and awakeness.
At some point, all of the lights came on and our first round of food was brought out. This was maybe 4am or so. We had a choice of chicken and rice, or something else, so I picked the chicken.
I think I dozed off again, even though I’d really wanted to stay awake so I could try to get on their time. I was sad because I thought there would be so many entertainment options, but in fact, they played a few movies. It was about half Chinese movies and half American movies. My headphone jack didn’t work very well, so I didn’t really get to pay attention to the movies, and attempted to listen to music. There were a measly 12 stations, but out of that, I found an awesome country station! So I listened to that as I dozed in and out of sleep the entire ride.
Now, as I said, I managed to pick a window seat, I thought I would be nice and comfortable against a wall, I wouldn’t have to be straight up and down when sleeping, I could lean a bit to the left. Well, what I didn’t know was that there would be a huge gap between the chair and the side of the plane. So that plan didn’t work out so well. But sleep I did anyway! And the big problem, the girl sitting next to me slept the ENTIRE flight, except for when food came out. And for some other reason, my bladder chose that day to shrink, so I had to pee like, every other hour, and this girl was constantly sleeping! So I watched her with a hawkeye to see anytime her eyes might flutter open so I could jump at the chance not to wake her and get up to pee. This didn’t work very well. She barely ever woke up. Ever. So I am sure I am going to have some kind of bladder infection. Lovely.
I am sure I nodded off some more, and that was fine.
Eventually, they brought out a second meal, this one may have been breakfast, going by what was served. The options were omlette, which I cant do, or fried rice. Ok, so fried rice it is. It wasn’t the american version of fried rice, but it had lots of baby shrimp in it. There was also yogurt and fruit salad and such. Here is a pic:
And the British version of Peter Pan (the movie ) came on so I watched that.
Somewhere in the middle of all of this, about an hour before we landed, the flight played an “exercise” movie, and many people aboard did it. So I took the opportunity to take some pix.
It was weird, the flight. We left when it was dark, and arrived when it was dark, and for the entire 20 hours, we never saw daylight! It felt strange. Despite that, it really didn’t feel like 16 hours on the plane, it really didn’t. It was weird, and yet good. It may have also helped that we were on a larger plane.
We finally landed at the airport, but none of us had any idea what to do next, and the place was absolutely deserted! I mean, it was only 430am or something.
Things finally got moving and we somehow managed to find our way to the boarding area for our next flight. And we boarded a much smaller plane.
Greg and I sat next to each other and spent the whole time talking (ok, so I’m sure I did more talking, me and my epic stories) but it helped the flight go faster. Again, we got food. I ended up with some kind of fatty stir-fried chicken, so I don’t think I ate much of it. But it was still pretty decent.
We landed in the next airport and again, completely clueless, tried to figure out where to go. It sure didn’t help when all of the signs looked like this:
But we found our way, got our luggage (I don’t think a single piece went missing, now THAT is amazing), and figured our way out. When we got there, it was a mob scene! Tons of people everywhere waiting for incoming flights. And oh yea, did I mention the paparazzi? It was a mob scene of paparazzi. One of the articles was published. Here is the photo and accompanying Chinese story.
As we finally made our way through the crowd, we crossed the parking lot (no easy task!) and found our HUGE tour buses waiting for us, branded with SOM stuff. There will be no confusion as to who we are.
We got to the hotel and had some snafus, nothing major (just rooms that hadn’t been cleaned, which is pretty bad, but not horrible, could have been worse). Some of us ended up on the ghetto floor, it’s clearly not the pricier of rooms, though they are fine. Normal western bathrooms, two double beds, etc. But let me tell you, the beds are like sleeping on wood with a layer of carpet for just a touch of softness. There is no bounce or give to these beds, and the pillows, I kid you not, are only about an inch or two thick, and there are two of them. But it’s still nothing.
Anyway, then came orientation. We all met each other officially, and met the Troika staff. But honestly, by then, pretty much ALL of us had dozed off during the meeting, it really should have been about 35 minutes shorter, we were all nodding off, but it needed to be done.
After the meeting, a group of us went to explore and we found a store called Carrefour, which is much like a walmart, and we did some shopping. They have TONS of american products. I bought Listerine, body wash, a snickers, a huge jug of water, and the total only came out to about $6 US.
Vivian and I are going to go back today, definitely to get chopsticks, and I may get a cheap pillow. I also realized, after I may have fizzled my hairdryer, that I bought the wrong converter for my hairdryer. The converter/adapter is only up to 1600 watts, and my dryer is 1875. Yea… it made some stinky smells and weird sounds, so I turned it off, but I bet it never works again, at least not well. So I’ve been searching for a higher wattage adapter, but I may not find one, so I may have to decide to leave the hairdryer somewhere, its sad.
For dinner, we went searching for somewhere nearby to eat. We ended up in a small place across the street from the hotel, no picture menu, but they were so very nice, and we were able to get out “chicken” and “noodle” so a few of us were given a chicken noodle dish that was decently good, but the other table didn’t get so lucky. They got some weird looking thing. Pictures here:
On the plus side, dinner cost us each about 75cents!
Viv and I got back around 830. And by 9pm, we were completely zonked out.
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