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Published: October 16th 2009
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Siberia out the Window
Looking out a Sibera on the International Flight from Chicago to Beijing Today I am waking up in Wuxi. It is 6:30 am China time which is 6:30 pm in USA. Im not sure what day it is...let me check...I know its Tuesday, but I have to find my calendar...oh, never mind, that will probably take too long. Let me look on the computer. Okay, I think I have it figured out. It is Tuesday, October 13th here, 6:30 am and Monday, October 12th there, 6:30 pm.
Leaving Lafayette: Friday, October 9th
This is the first time I have actually had a few minutes to sit down and write. I just made a cup of coffee. I learned from my mother to always bring your own coffee, filters, and one-cup coffee device when traveling. You can forgot almost anything else, but forgetting coffee is like forgetting your passport.
We have been very busy. We left Lafayette at 7 am on Friday, October 9th, and drove to the Indianapolis Airport. From there we flew to Chicago on United Airlines. In Chicago we boarded a plane to Beijiing, the ride lasted 13.5 hours. During that time, I sat between two business men in their 20s. The one on my left was a
Welcome to China
This was the first writing in Chinese that I saw after I got off the plane. black guy from Atlanta whose dad lived in Fort Wayne. He was a mechanical engineer who travelled to China several times a year until the economy went bad; this trip was his first in two years. He spoke Chinese and helped me to fill out my entry and exit cards. The man on my left was an auditor who worked for UL (I think they are the company that certifies that our electronics are safe to plug in the walls.) He went to University of Michigan and travels all over the world auditing electronics. They were good seat mates, talked just enough to make you comfortable, but not too much.
On the long plane ride I mostly read, slept, and did Sudoku puzzles. I watched one movie, the Proposal which was okay. Although I lugged about 10 pounds of papers to grade in my backpack, I didn get to grading. I hope to try to start grading soon, as the grading period ends on Friday, October 16th and my grades are due before I get back to the United States!
When we landed, I was one of the last ones off the plane because I sat in 41E.
Passing through Inspection
This is where I got in trouble for taking pictures...and first realized I had left my purse with my passport and money on the plane. I was helping another member of our travel group, passenger Martin Hale, with his laptop and I forgot my little black purse on the plane. I was so mesmerized when I got off the plane, that I didn realize it until I got to the entry point where I had to show my visa. I was busy taking pictures before then (the airport was beautiful, like something youd see in a sci-fi movie and there were tons of billboards advertising all the finer things in life---cars, watches, clothing, sporting equipment, etc.---mostly in English and Chinese. I snapped a picture of the masked female security guards (most of the airport personnel wore those little paper masks that covered their mouths) and was quickly surrounded by security guards insisting in Chinese that I erase the picture. Since I don really know how to operate my camera, I just pushed a bunch of buttons while they watched and the picture went away; however, I think I still have it. That was the first time my heart really raced.
The second time was at the entry point where I had to show my visa and it was there I realized that I had
Quarantine Check Point
I guess I did not delete this photo! This is at the quarantine check point. The Chinese officials had masks over their mouths. left my purse on the plane. Of course, the entire GK-12 entourage had already proceeded to customs. I panicked and told the security guard. He made me stop the crew members of the plane as they came through the visa checkpoint and ask them. When they said they hadn seen it, He escorted me to a holding site while they notified United Airlines and searched the plane. At that point, Ming, one of the GK-12 assemblage came back to see where I was. I told him I had left my purse on the plane. After what seemed like forever, although it was only about 10 minutes, an official looking Chinese man arrived with my purse. He said $501 count it as soon as I got there and made me count my money. I had brought far less than $501, but I couldn explain that, so I just counted my money in front of him and said it was okay, which it was.
I ran to catch up with my group and we passed through customs very easily. We then took a bus to another terminal for domestic flights where we waited for 3 hours to check in on China
Riding the Tram to Luggage Pickup
We had a series of tram rides, this was the first. Eastern Air to travel to Nanjing. It was here, on my walk from the bus to the domestic terminal, where things started to look, sound, and smell very different from America. First, the air is very dirty in Beijing. It looks like a permanent fog that blankets the sky. The sun does not shine through the sky. The people are all very small and simply dressed. No one really stands out, except if they are an official of some sort, and then they are in some type of uniform. Many people in the airport wore masks to cover their mouths and there are signs posted in many places that if you have flu-like symptoms or have been around people with flu-like symptoms, you must report this to the officials.
It was in the domestic terminal that I first had my experience with Chinese money. A bottle of water cost 2 yuan which was about 30 cents. There are about 6 yuan to 1 dollar. In the USA were are trying not to use water bottles for two reasons: the plastic that the water sits in leaches chemicals that are unsafe into the water and the plastic does not biodegrade
Thermometer and Sign on Tram
I thought this was interesting. The temperature in Celsius and the "disinfect regularly" sign. so the bottle remains in the universe forever (or almost). In China, however, the water is unsafe to drink because it is not very clean, so water bottles are a way to ensure that the water you drink is safe (or at least one likes to believe it is!). We ignore the plastic leaching chemicals and the damage to the environment and just quench our thirst.
We waited in the terminal for several hours. The domestic terminal was a sharp contrast from the international terminal which was clean, shiny, and beautiful. The domestic terminal was shabbier and dirtier. It was very warm and muggy; there was no air conditioning. Many of us rearranged our luggage, because supposedly we could only check 40 pounds of luggage on this domestic flight whereas we could check 50 pounds on the international flight. I read some of my travel guide and vegged-out a bit on my suitcase. (Little did I know it was soon to be the last time to veg for several days!) Finally we checked our bags, passed through security, and waited at the gate. The airport was very quiet, unlike the United States where announcements are frequently made regarding boarding
Starbucks in Baggage Claim
Scary...you just can get away from Starbucks! and people talk loudly on their cell phones. There is not as much bustling about and far fewer kiosks and shops to buy things.
Finally, we boarded the flight to Nanjing. It didn seem like many people were at the gate waiting, but after we were on the plane people continued to board for quite a while. The flight was mostly men, I assume businessmen and a group of very loud American young people. (We later found out they were engineers from various schools in the US together studying Chinese.) I fell asleep on this flight which was nice. I woke up to a small Chinese sandwich---layers of white bread, cheese-like substance that tasted more like egg, and cucumbers. It was very delicate like a finger sandwich.
When we arrived in Nanjing, we were greeted by Lisa Luo, a very pretty Chinese woman from the Foreign Affairs Office of the Jiangsu Institute of Educational Science. She waited while we collected our luggage and escorted us to a bus. We rode on the bus for another 40 minutes to the Nanjing Grand Hotel, a beautiful four star hotel. We checked into the hotel, handing the our passports and credit
Beijing Sky
The sun was covered with smog. I noticed this on the walk to the domestic terminal. cards to the desk clerk. It was nearly 11 pm; after nearly 30 hours of travel, we could finally say we had arrived.
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