Back in China!

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Hey everyone!

So here's what happened. I went on New Years holiday and so much junk happened that I just never got around to writing about it all. Yeah, i've been lazy about it leave me alone! So what's been happening? I finished the school year, went back to the USA and decided to come back to China for another year. whee!

So we will basically pick up like I was never gone and just start writing about junk. Aight so this time I came to China was probably one of the worst and most exhausting experiences i've ever had and it all started with some stupid bimbo in Orlando saying "Your bags are checked all the way to your final destination." Sweet I thought, now I don't have to worry about lugging all my crap through Guangzhou airport. And thus America has failed yet again in another thing category. In fact my bags were not checked all the way to my final destination, I was supposed to pick them up in Guangzhou. Thanks random bimbo in Orlando that obviously has no idea how anything works or even her on job. I should have suspected as much when it took her 10 minutes to give me my boarding pass after she had all my information. It was also pretty awesome how she only gave me one boarding pass. So every connecting flight I had to leave the airport and go back through the arrivals to actually get my boarding pass, meaning I had to go through security about 4 times. It was awesome with a laptop and 2 external hard drives that I had to remove every time.

So the plane rides were fine. LAX remains the worst and most useless airport. The only people worth anything there are the guys that stand outside giving people directions to the 4,000mile stretch of terminals that is the airport. Heaven forbid they construct an airport with a layout that makes sense, rather than just a straight line of nonsense that requires you to get on one of the 50,000 buses outside to accomplish anything. Last time I was there I made a mistake and got on the wrong bus and I ended up in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Anyway I arrived in the international terminal. Low and behold (as if I should have expected something better out of LAX) the entire terminal was under construction and the check-in counters were reminiscent of a job fair. So asking the woman who works there where is my airline (China Southern) she replied with a all knowing answer of "I don't know, ask the information desk." oh cool thanks. It's not like you work there or anything. Why the heck would you know where a airline is located? So I went upstairs and after consulting a sign, I found my desk.

The flight to Guangzhou was good. The plane was completely empty, so I had the entire row to myself. I slept for about 9 hours of a 14 hour flight. It was great. Guangzhou was boring and straight-forward. The girl at the check-in asked if I had bags to check, I said they told me my bags would be checked to Changsha. She said I had better get my bag and check it. At this point I kind of knew my bag would not come. But I had no time and the line for security was too long, so I hoped for the best and left. If I went back to find my bag I would have missed my flight. The plane to Changsha was cool. They put us on a bus and we drove for like 10minutes to a tiny airstrip with this plane that could only seat about 50 people. A baby in front of me was screaming so loud the entire hour long flight, all the passengers were getting angry, but apparently I was the only smart person who had music to listen to.

So in Changsha as I suspected my bag didn't come. so I went to the bag recovery place and luckily there was one girl who spoke English so she helped me out with a lot of junk. So I waited for about 6 hours in Changsha airport for my bags. It was great. And much to my surprise my phone also had no money on it, so I couldn't call my friend I was meeting or anyone else to ask for help. I just sat there waiting. After I got the bags I jumped on the bus to the train station. Once there I had to seek out a China Mobile so I could call my friend who I was supposed to be meeting. By this time it was about after 6pm. So there I was, lugging my heavy backpack, my satchel, and my 50lbs bag which the airport decided that they really didn't want to let me have anything easy that day, so they broke one of the wheels. So I was almost completely dragging the thing through Changsha in 95F weather. No joke it was at least that hot. The first China Mobile I got to they told me that they couldn't help because I bought my phone in Shaoyang. Awesome. So they pointed me in the direction to go which upon getting in that area, I noticed there were 4 China Mobiles within visibility of where I was standing. And before me was 8 lane traffic with a huge bridge of stairs leading over to each corner. So i'd have to climb up with all my crap, climb down, and pray that I got to the right China Mobile. Well....the first one wasn't the right one. So then I headed to where they said the next on was. All they kept saying was McDonalds. So I went to McDonalds which was in a shopping mall and was like wtf there can't be one here. So I asked one of the dudes working in there and he took me outside and actually pointed ot the right one. So I went there and paid and picked up my phone to call my friend and.....................the number he gave me didn't work. Awesome.

So there I was. In 95F weather, way too much crap to drag around, stuck in a big city I hate, all my friends that live there were not in the city at the time, and it was too late for a bus. My only hope was the train. So I went inside, and bought a ticket. My prayers were answered in that there was a train leaving that night, I didn't want to worry about a hotel, I just wanted to get to a city that I actually knew the area. The train left at 11pm, so I wouldn't get there until about 3 or 4am. No problem, I had a friend who after I texted, actually told me he would stay up late to pick me up at the train station. Not that I really needed him to, but it would have been nice. The only problem with the ticket.....it was standing room only. Now the last standing room only train I was on was horrible. It was exactly that, "standing room only" If you had anything else you were doomed on that train. So I was horrified. I had so much crap, I was just asking to get robbed and just have a experience which made suicide look like a pretty great option. So I went back into the ticket station to ask if they had sleeping cars, which it slipped my mind the first time. It was a waste of time because they didn't. The only real thing I had left to do was call my old girlfriend since she was from Changsha. So I texted her and she was the only person to help me. She called 2 of her friends there and sent them to come find me and put me in a hotel for the night. So I met them and we went to a really nice hotel that was right across the street from the bus station that I needed. So I passed out, very much obliged that I didn't have to go to Shaoyang that night, I was exhausted and any more bad things happening I don't know how I would have taken it. And I was scared to death of that standing room only train for 4 hours.

The next day I arrived in Shaoyang and met Ann, one of my students and immediately checked into a hotel which was cheap, about 60RMB per night. The room is exceptional for my needs. AC, TV, wireless that i'm leeching now, hot showers, nice hard bed which I like ^_^ etc. So it's pretty great, not that it matters since i'm only here to sleep.

So in Shaoyang I have been extremely busy which is great. Every morning I wake up at about 9am and whoever calls me first is who gets to hang out. So i've seen a lot of people and even gone to some new places and new people. The one thing that I made sure to do is visit my student who is in the hospital. My nickname for her was Xiao Zhu (Small Pig). She was one of my best students and she loved English, and one night she was getting off a bus, and she stepped off and a motorbike taxi hit her. She went flying and hit her head. She has been in the hospital for about 2 months now. This accident happened before I left, and I visited her the day after it happened. It was a real heartbreaking thing to see. She was unconscious since the accident and would not wake up for anyone, doctors, her parents, her classmates, anyone. So I walked in with some of her classmates and she was writhing in pain and screaming etc. Soon she calmed down and some students tried to talk to her to no avail. Then they told me to try to talk to her. So I went to her bedside and said "Hello....hello" And she immediately opened her eyes, although she struggled to do so. It took her awhile to find who was talking and where I was, but then she found me and could barely get out a "hi." After that she was talking to me pretty coherently. She understood she was in a hospital and she was in an accident and she was in pain. So she knew her situation wasn't good, the only problem was she had amnesia. She didn't know who I was, she didn't know her classmates, her parents, anyone. She only knew I was speaking English to her, so she woke up to see who it was. Before this she wouldn't even speak Chinese. I was the first person she woke up for and spoke to, and it was in English. I was also one of the first people she remembered. But before long after talking to her, she passed out again. And I talked to her again before I left, and she had no memory of talking to me 10 minutes earlier. It was incredibly sad, and her parents were so grateful that I came to visit her. But it was so amazing just to experience something like that. I've never really felt that important to someone at that level before. I came back to visit maybe 2 more times after that, and the next time she instantly recognized and remembered me as who I am. But, she didn't remember her classmates, or her best friends that I was with. Slowly as we were there she remembered their names and who they were, and it was really something to see. I can't imagine completely forgetting your best friend, and have them right in front of you, desperately trying to get you to remember them and you just can't remember. Then the joy when it suddenly clicks and they remember who you are. It was really something amazing to watch. So I came back to visit her and she is pretty good now. Apparently she has trouble with her short term memory and some small things and events that happened that aren't that important. So she has to go to Changsha hospital where it's better to get checked out. LUCKILY and how it should be, her and her family don't have to pay the hospital bills. It's all being covered by the company that runs the buses. But I am pretty sure only her best friends have visited her more than I have. You can imagine how highly her parents think of me. A teacher, let alone a foreign teacher, that has taken time out of his day to visit their daughter multiple times.

Anyway, in Shaoyang i've been busy busy busy. So i'll continue to be busy busy busy until I leave in a few more days. I plan to go to Yangshuo on about the 26th of August where I will learn where i'm going to teach. Right now i'm shooting for Huaihua, but to be honest it probably won't happen. Why? Because I want it to.

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Comments

[Doster]

Sorry Xi Gua
Sorry your trip started off rocky, put it sounds like it turned out great. That happens often in life. It's nice to be able to make a difference in people's lives, which you have done. Enjoy, be happy and be safe!

[Mim]

Good
So glad you finally made it! Of course I'm very happy you got there safe! Good thing you didn't have to beat someone up. Love you

[Aaron]

wow!
Glad to see you're blogging again... since facebook's still blocked over here, there's no other way to keep in touch. And this is a one way street because blogspot blogs are still blocked... anyways, I want to say THANK YOU for sharing this terrifying story of your travel experience. Why? Because at the end of my first day (which is more like 48 hours all smashed into one dragging 'day', eh) back I was really feeling like no one on the entire planet knew what kind of misery I was feeling. This might sound weird, but it really lifted my spirits and made me happy to know that I wasn't the only one suffering and that in fact someone else--umm, I guess that's you--had it worse. Okay, that came across really self-centered and downright heartless, but I'm not sure how to say it. Basically, it made me feel not so alone in Hell and in addition made me feel thankful that at least my bimbo wasn't involved in losing my luggage. So why don't I just tell you my story. Well, I got to the airport almost 2 hours early only to find out as I was checking in that the flight's time of departure had been advanced by an hour...oh and my bags were overweight. So there I was rushing to throw things away (it's not like China doesn't have soap... and those aerosal hairspray cans were illegal anyways). With less than an hour to get through security, I became a nervous wreck. When it was finally my turn to go through the metal detectors, I had only done half of the requirements (I took out the laptop but completely forgot to take off my shoes or remove the keys from my pockets). Needless to say, everyone behind me must have thought I was a first time flyer with a twitching disorder. On top of all this, I was worried that my luggage wouldn't make it because I had to transfer from Toronto. The ticket clerks told me that I didn't have to get my luggage, but I had a strong feeling like they were wrong (luckily, they were right). Anyways, after transfering in Toronto, I was finally on my way to Shanghai. Smooth sailing, right? Well, I had the pleasure and curse of sitting next to a very friendly Chinese woman on the plane. Her English was not too good (but a bit better than my Chinese), so we talked with each other through mixed Chinese and English. The first problem was that she couldn't understand any of the movies, so she wanted to talk with me... so I was constantly putting my movies on pause to listen to her life story, advice about what kind of girl I should date, pictures of her daughter and her dog, why she doesn't like her fellow Chinese people, how lazy Canadian wives are, etc. blah, blah , blah. The second problem was that she wanted to help me get to my destination (Nanjing). This doesn't sound so bad, does it? Well... I already knew how to get to Nanjing... but she didn't like my plans. And so she insisted on accompanying me to make sure I did it right. "Taking the bus at night is dangerous" "take the train"... but I don't like the train for exactly the reasons you mentioned above "oh... but bus no good" "very crowded" oh, and trains are what? empty? Finally, she agreed to allow me to take a long-distance bus to Nanjing, but she didn't think that the long-distance bus station at Shanghai Pudong Aiport had a bus to Nanjing. I tried to tell her that the website told me it did, but she said no. When we got to the airport, I kept insisting I wanted to go to the long-distance bus station at the airport. She kept insisting that I go to a different long-distance bus station in downtown Shanghai. So then she began asking people around the airport if the long-distance bus station at Pudong Airport had a bus to Nanjing. Apparently they all said no. I desperately wanted to go the extra couple of meters and find out for myself, from the people who actually work at the long-distance bus station. But considering that she insisted there wasn't one and that the people whom she had asked agreed with her, I would look like a stubborn, stupid asshole if I persisted in doing it my way. So finally I relented. Okay, let's take the shuttle bus downtown to your preferred long-distance bus station. Well, long story short--her stop is before mine, so she gets off before me with instructions of how to get off the shuttle bus at its terminus, get a taxi to the long-distance bus station, and how to get a Nanjing bus. Well, this story isn't getting any shorter... let's skip to the conclusion. The long-distance bus station that she told me to go to did NOT have a bus route to Nanjing. So NOW what?! I didn't know of any other long-distance bus stations, and I wasn't going to go all the way back to Pudong Airport. So what option did I have? train... ugh... taxi shift change time, so very difficult to find a taxi... waited 20 minutes... finally flagged down one successfully only to find out that I got myself a taxi driver who was one of those shouting-talker types... you know these people right? Everything they want to say comes out of their vocal cords as angry shouting. So here I was thinking this guy is pissed off that he had to take me to the train station and would go postal on me at any moment. Got to the train station and found myself exactly the mess that I was expecting. Crowds of people everywhere... people trying to sell me stuff.... one guy offered to drive me to Nanjing for "500rmb, 300rmb, 250rmb-final offer"... would have taken him up on that offer if I didn't worry that he would drive me off to somewhere where he could pillage my 2 massive luggages, laptop, and camera bag and then leave me stranded on the side of a highway somewhere. So I continued searching for the office to buy the tickets. There! I saw a place that looked like they were selling tickets. But the sign said that I had to walk up the stairs to the second floor to buy the tickets. At that moment--I swear--I drew a line in the sand and told myself that I was not walking up that long-ass flight of stairs with all this luggage and all these people looking at me and all this humidity choking me. I would get on a bus back to Pudong Airport and fly back to the U.S. before going up those stairs! So I decided to just go into the place that looked like it was selling tickets... and it was... (I'll never know why that stupid sign said you had to go upstairs to buy tickets). Luckily, I got myself a hard seat ticket. But then I had to get through all the crowds, security, and (a much shorter) flight of stairs to wait for my train. An hour passes, and the train boards... how to get all this shit on the train? Push, pull, and drag. That's all I can say. Luckily the train was perfect for my needs. It was actually a sleeper car that had been converted into a hard seat car. Basically, everyone sits on the lower bunk and they put their stuff on the upper bunks above. It was perfect. And the people were all friendly and talkative at exactly the level I needed (I didn't need a chatterbox... and no one who wanted to give me advice how about what I should do when I arrived in Nanjing). 3 hours later I arrived in Nanjing. The conductor helped me with my luggage, so I can't complain about this part of the journey. But there were more stairs as I wandered my way out of the train station. I got to the exit... how how to get a taxi. Basically, there was a long line to get a taxi. A bunch of people were walking around the station offering to take people in their unofficial 'taxi', ie their cars... at inflated prices. Considering that it was after 11pm and I began to worry that the hostel I had booked would not have 24-hour check-in, I finally accepted an offer. Now this hostel is noteworthy in Nanjing for being cheap and comfortable (very good, I like it), but notoriously hard to find, as on some random alley. Luckily, my illegal 'taxi' driver was patient enough to search through the darkness and nice enough to get out and ask some people in the area. Ultimately we found it. BUt was it open? YES!!!!! I made it by an hour (they shut down at 12:30am). I had an hour to sneak in some wifi. That's when I found an email with a list of things that I had to get done by Monday in order to prepare for my new job! And that's when I packed it all up and went to bed to try to forget all the madness.... Wow! THis has been theraputic. I almost feel like all of this is somehow... amusing. ANd I hope you now feel that you weren't alone in Hell this past week. I'm telling you what though, if this kind of stuff had happened to me last year on my first day, I would have freaked out. Probably would have pissed my pants and cried in front of everyone in Shanghai. I was REALLY lucky last. And in the grand scheme of thngs, I was pretty darn lucky this year too. Stay in touch... hopefully facebook is unblocked soon... [longest comment on a blog ever]