A long day of flying and waiting

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Hi everyone! I'm so excited to have a travel blog up and running. I am going to tell you just a little bit about my fun plane ride to China and then we'll move on to the more interesting stuff.

When I got on the plane to Chicago, I was feeling much better about leaving. It's crazy, but I actually felt relieved sitting on a plane because I'd been so stressed out getting ready for China for the last three weeks. I thought "finally, a break"!

But when I got to the Chicago airport and it was time to get on the plane to China I didn't want to leave. I really like being in the USA. I'd never want to move away and I didn't want to follow all the Chinese people waiting to get on the plane to their far away country. I kissed America goodbye (well I kissed my hand and touched a post) and got ready to get on the plane.

When I was trying to get on the plane, the flight attendent stopped me and said, "Hey, you're on the wrong plane! You're going to Shanghai!!" He was talking to the Chinese girl in front of me. She looked totally confused so I translated for her "zhe shi qu beijing de!" She looked just as confused even though I continued to translate. Perhaps my Chinese is sub-par 😞 or perhaps she was hard of hearing 😊. So the flight attendant forgot to rip my ticket.

Then when I got on the plane I became the problem child. The flight attendants came looking for me, "Are you Lisa? Did they put your ticket through the machine?" Two of them came to find me. I thought it was funny, me slowing everyone up and everything.

I was incredibly lucky because there was no one sitting next to me!! I couldn't believe it. I was all the way in the back in row 57 and I suppose the plane wasn't full and no one wanted to sit in the back. Then a Chinese man came and took the aisle seat in my three seat row - I got the window! - but the seat in the middle was still free.

The plane ride to China actually wasn't bad at all. I watched two movies and slept and it went by really fast. But the plane ride from Beijing to Qingdao was "mafan". This is a word you all need to learn right now and it should be added to the English language because we don't have a good enough equivalent. "Mafan (mah - fahn): annoying, frustrating, tedious, a hassle. Especially a bureacratic type hassle where you have to go to fifteen places to get one thing done." A good example of mafan is American health insurance companies (Aaaah! My nightmare!).

So it was very mafan at the Beijing airport because I didn't have a reservation on a flight to Qingdao. My travel agent convinced me that it would be way cheaper to buy the ticket in China and there'd be tons available - no problem. Ha.....ha.

After going to two or three different counters I bought a ticket on China Eastern Airlines leaving at 6:30 p.m. I got there at 2 so it was already a long wait. The 5:30 flight was sold out. Not being used to how things worked in China, I spent a large amount of time at the information desk trying to figure out what to do. Apparently, they sell you a reservation but not a seat. You have to wait until an hour and a half before the plane takes off and get in line to get a seat. Ok, I thought, and went to hang out at Starbucks (yes, they have them all over China!) and switch my stuff around between suitcases. I had to get them all under 44 pounds. You know how us Americans need allll that stuff!

Then I went to wait in line for my seat. "I'm sorry, your ticket has been canceled," the girl at the desk told me. "When did you buy it?" "About two hours ago" I said. How does it get canceled when I just bought it?!!! Mafan!

The girl did the opposite of the "buck stops here". She passed the buck right over to someone else. "Go talk to the ticket counter. They probablly canceled it." The girl at the ticket counter looked at the screen like it was an octupus crossed with an alien and a horse. Huh??? Like she had never seen such a thing before. "That's so weird!" she said. "You're ticket's been cancelled. You can take the 8 p.m. flight". Mafan!

She said I could try waiting in stand-by. I did that and actually got a ticket! But by the line for standy wasn't allowed to form until half an hour before the flight - and they stop checking baggage - you guessed it, a half hour before the flight.

They said, you can get there but your bags might not. Is that ok? Haha! Is that ok? All my stuff for ten months of my life could possibly be lost. Sounds just dandy to me. I said, thanks but no thanks. I'll wait for the 8 p.m. flight.

So back I went to wandering the airport, exhausted, hoping that my ticket didn't get cancelled again and my bags would be under the weight limit. Luckily for me, I got on the plane just fine and after two hours and a little snooze arrived in Qingdao.

Now in China when you get off a plane and walk out to the lobby of the airport there are lots of guys out there coming right up to you and saying "Hello? Taxi?" No, my name's Lisa.

Well, one of them kept following me and I didn't know what to do. I started telling him in Chinese I'm going to look outside. I asked him how much he would charge and he said 80 kuai (common word for Chinese money - the official name is Ren Min Bi -RMB). I thought I'd be very smart and ask lots of guys while we were walking what their price was. "150 kuai" said the first, "120" said the second. Yeah, guess what. They all worked for the guy who was following me - I found out later.

Finally I said ok, fine I'll take your taxi. Little did I know it wasn't even a taxi. Just his brother's car. His brother drove me to my hotel - and got lost, adding an extra 30 minutes. I was kind of scared - but it turned out the guy was nice. He was a peasant trying to make some money and at least he said I was his first customer ever. Of course, not the first customer their little business served but the first he personally had driven - since this was his first time as a taxi driver. I was quite grateful to arrive alive and well and only 30 minutes late. Then finally I could go to bed.

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Comments

[big ai]

glad you made it safely
liisa. i'm glad your trip was good. sux that it was so mafan. i'm getting up dates from the tang mu. maybe i should come visit afterall. since it's an even year, it's time for me to go...however, i would be taking the train from one city to the next. anyway, have fun. i'll dai tang mu duan lian shenti!... -adf