La Chine!
Since leaving my home in Richmond Hill about 48 hours ago, I have had many an interesting experience. My mom drove me to the airport and I was able to check in without much issue. Katie and here dad were there already and she had already gone through the process because, unlike me, Katie doesn't like last minute things. But it was all good because we checked in, said goodbye to the parentals, went through customs and put our bags onto the luggage belts. It's interesting cause now you have to carry your own bags to the luggage section after going through customs, which is more inconvenient but makes more sense. Customs want to see your bags, if they've already left you at the ticket counter and are being sorted and loaded into the planes, it would take a lot more time getting them back to be checked if need be. Anywho, we were successful and it was all very nice, though Katie did need to take a lot of liquid things out of her carry on to put in her check-ins before getting to the medal detector place.
At the airport, I got starbucks which was awesome though they didn't have my fave flavour (dulce de leche), so I got java chip (too much info, maybe... but this is my blog). When we got to the gate, we switched our seats to sit together (they assigned us separate seats for both flights), ran to the bathroom and got back just in time for boarding. Our seats were pretty cool cause we got exit row and it had only two seats in the row (no mingling with the riffraff for us). Anywho, the funniest part came when the pilot came on the speakers. We were late taxiing off for some reason and after about 10 minutes, we hear the pilot's voice. He told everyone that there were problems with the readers scanning the baggage and that one had FAILED. He repeated that word at least 3 times and said it each time with such bitterness. Katie and I just looked at each other and laughed. You'd think that 'fail' is a word you wouldn't want to say on an airplane to the passengers. Then he was like, they should have a better backup system, and this shouldn't have happened. You could tell he was so pissed off. 5-10 minutes later, he updates us on the situation and says that they're just manually scanning in the bags and are finishing up. He then says we should be up in the air in about 3-5 mintues... unless things go... um, worse. Once again, we laugh. Seriously, who says that? Finally, he comes back one last time and says, "OK we should be leaving now within 3-5 minutes. The control booth told me everything was set so we should be all set, unless they've lied to me." By then, we were kinda expecting something bitter and awkward and he didn't disappoint. He was by far my favourite pilot loud speaker guy.
The second flight was a pain because it was 13 hours in total. That is a hell of a long time! And on this flight, I sort of got in a fight with the woman behind me. So a few hours in, Katie and I feel someone behind us banging into our seats. We're confused and turn around. There's this loud woman trying to get out of her window seat to go to the bathroom. She's sitting with her two young sons and has the window seat. Instead of asking them to move so she can get out, she gets frustrated with the us and she asks (or more like tells) Katie to move her seat back up into the upright position. We're annoyed a bit cause it is rather rude, but do it anyway. But then on her way back, she bumped into all of us again ad rudely told us to put our seats up so she can get back. Then when she got to my seat, I accidentally forgot to move my finger from the seat adjusting button so she pulled my seat back onto herself. So now she's even more pissed and starts yelling at me. I was rather annoyed now and thought, who does this woman think she is! So I tell her that no, I did not push my seat back and we all have the same amount of room as she does. She keeps screaming and says that she needs to go pee. I tell her that she should get her kids to move and then leave that way (ie. the normal polite, non-insane way) and she told me that her kids shouldn't need to move. So I lose it at this point and yell back. So her kids aren't supposed to move, but the three people in front of her has to move their chairs back up every time she needs to go pee? the people in front of us all have their seats back, and we deal just fine. Then she tells us just because the people in front of us do it doesn't give us the right to do it to her. blah blah blah, more craziness. So finally, I've said all I could cause she is just not listening. All she does is repeat "this is unbelievable" over and over again. Katie and I try to ignore her the rest of the flight but this is difficult as the kids keep kicking our seats and playing with the tray. This annoyance doesn't seem to bother the mom at all and she's just letting it happen. Finally, we had enough and called a flight attendant. We really didn't want to talk to the mom ever again. So the flight attendant talks to the kids/mom and tells them to stop kicking the seat. Then the mom asks the flight attendant to tell us to move our seats up when she needs to get up. The poor attendant stands there and was like, um, no we don't do that... ha! in your face dragon lady! in your face! She pretty much shuts up for the remainder of my life! (on the plane). She still banged into the seat sometimes, but once she got her son to move out into the aisle. I call that a victory.
Later on the flight, we kinda started a conversation with a flight attendant that seemed pretty non-friendly, but turned out to be TMI girl. She asked us where were from and told us that this was her first time in China. She seemed to be Eastern European. And she told us what she was going to do in Beijing (mani, pedi, massage, hair re-colouring, maybe she'll even cut it) and asked me specifically if it was a good idea to buy electronics here. I was like, um, je ne sais pas. But I made up some generic reply and said that it's cheap but who knows about the quality. Her curiosity seemed quelled at that point. The she started talking about Portland, Oregan and how there's no sales tax there and we should go shopping there. I told her we couldn't really find a way there, at which point she asked us when we'd be back in Toronto and seemd saddened by the fact that we wouldn't be back when she was there. I guessed that maybe she wanted to buy things for us in Portland, Oregan and bring it to us in Toronto when she gets there. Who knows.
The airport was pretty easy in Beijing. It seems very tourist friendly with none of the officials asking any questions. They just took whatever forms they needed and sent us on our merry way. We also met my uncle with no problems. He just arrived and we were there! It was very good timing. Last night, I had Beijing food for dinner and it ws delish. I had duck! MMM! I love duck. We couldn't finish so we brought some home. This morning, when I was awake before Katie, I was bored and had about a quarter of it by myself. Just call me a fatty.
Today, both Katie and I got bank accounts set up with the help of my uncle and that was cool. Later he had to go do stuff and we took the bus ourselves!! to this famous street called Wang something something Dajie (dajie means big (da) street (jie)). I'll figure out the something something later. Anywho, it was like Beijing's equivalant of Harbourfront or Old Montreal, but on one street. There we got on a tour bus and took a 40 minute tour in Chinese. That was sorta fun. I would catch very little of what they were saying. Mostly, I remember the guide explaining that there's a church the French and Irish either built or renovated and that we should keep our arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Katie fell asleep for about 30 minutes of the 40 minute tour.
Later, we found food in this really crowded small alleyway off of the Wang something something street. I got a coconut for 10 yuan which tasted awful. Katie got some sort of spicy veggiegg wrap and they short changed her. Well actually they didn't give her back change at all. I think that's what they do with tourists. The thing was 4 yuan, Katie paid 5 and then they turn away from you and ignore you. They figure most white tourists won't try to argue 1 yuan back. It was kinda stupid. But on the plus side, I took interesting pictures of starfish and seahorses on wooden skewers. People eat the darnedest things!
Tomorrow, we're getting up at pretty early to be ready to travel at 7am. My uncle's taking us somewhere. I don't know. Will report later!
At the airport, I got starbucks which was awesome though they didn't have my fave flavour (dulce de leche), so I got java chip (too much info, maybe... but this is my blog). When we got to the gate, we switched our seats to sit together (they assigned us separate seats for both flights), ran to the bathroom and got back just in time for boarding. Our seats were pretty cool cause we got exit row and it had only two seats in the row (no mingling with the riffraff for us). Anywho, the funniest part came when the pilot came on the speakers. We were late taxiing off for some reason and after about 10 minutes, we hear the pilot's voice. He told everyone that there were problems with the readers scanning the baggage and that one had FAILED. He repeated that word at least 3 times and said it each time with such bitterness. Katie and I just looked at each other and laughed. You'd think that 'fail' is a word you wouldn't want to say on an airplane to the passengers. Then he was like, they should have a better backup system, and this shouldn't have happened. You could tell he was so pissed off. 5-10 minutes later, he updates us on the situation and says that they're just manually scanning in the bags and are finishing up. He then says we should be up in the air in about 3-5 mintues... unless things go... um, worse. Once again, we laugh. Seriously, who says that? Finally, he comes back one last time and says, "OK we should be leaving now within 3-5 minutes. The control booth told me everything was set so we should be all set, unless they've lied to me." By then, we were kinda expecting something bitter and awkward and he didn't disappoint. He was by far my favourite pilot loud speaker guy.
The second flight was a pain because it was 13 hours in total. That is a hell of a long time! And on this flight, I sort of got in a fight with the woman behind me. So a few hours in, Katie and I feel someone behind us banging into our seats. We're confused and turn around. There's this loud woman trying to get out of her window seat to go to the bathroom. She's sitting with her two young sons and has the window seat. Instead of asking them to move so she can get out, she gets frustrated with the us and she asks (or more like tells) Katie to move her seat back up into the upright position. We're annoyed a bit cause it is rather rude, but do it anyway. But then on her way back, she bumped into all of us again ad rudely told us to put our seats up so she can get back. Then when she got to my seat, I accidentally forgot to move my finger from the seat adjusting button so she pulled my seat back onto herself. So now she's even more pissed and starts yelling at me. I was rather annoyed now and thought, who does this woman think she is! So I tell her that no, I did not push my seat back and we all have the same amount of room as she does. She keeps screaming and says that she needs to go pee. I tell her that she should get her kids to move and then leave that way (ie. the normal polite, non-insane way) and she told me that her kids shouldn't need to move. So I lose it at this point and yell back. So her kids aren't supposed to move, but the three people in front of her has to move their chairs back up every time she needs to go pee? the people in front of us all have their seats back, and we deal just fine. Then she tells us just because the people in front of us do it doesn't give us the right to do it to her. blah blah blah, more craziness. So finally, I've said all I could cause she is just not listening. All she does is repeat "this is unbelievable" over and over again. Katie and I try to ignore her the rest of the flight but this is difficult as the kids keep kicking our seats and playing with the tray. This annoyance doesn't seem to bother the mom at all and she's just letting it happen. Finally, we had enough and called a flight attendant. We really didn't want to talk to the mom ever again. So the flight attendant talks to the kids/mom and tells them to stop kicking the seat. Then the mom asks the flight attendant to tell us to move our seats up when she needs to get up. The poor attendant stands there and was like, um, no we don't do that... ha! in your face dragon lady! in your face! She pretty much shuts up for the remainder of my life! (on the plane). She still banged into the seat sometimes, but once she got her son to move out into the aisle. I call that a victory.
Later on the flight, we kinda started a conversation with a flight attendant that seemed pretty non-friendly, but turned out to be TMI girl. She asked us where were from and told us that this was her first time in China. She seemed to be Eastern European. And she told us what she was going to do in Beijing (mani, pedi, massage, hair re-colouring, maybe she'll even cut it) and asked me specifically if it was a good idea to buy electronics here. I was like, um, je ne sais pas. But I made up some generic reply and said that it's cheap but who knows about the quality. Her curiosity seemed quelled at that point. The she started talking about Portland, Oregan and how there's no sales tax there and we should go shopping there. I told her we couldn't really find a way there, at which point she asked us when we'd be back in Toronto and seemd saddened by the fact that we wouldn't be back when she was there. I guessed that maybe she wanted to buy things for us in Portland, Oregan and bring it to us in Toronto when she gets there. Who knows.
The airport was pretty easy in Beijing. It seems very tourist friendly with none of the officials asking any questions. They just took whatever forms they needed and sent us on our merry way. We also met my uncle with no problems. He just arrived and we were there! It was very good timing. Last night, I had Beijing food for dinner and it ws delish. I had duck! MMM! I love duck. We couldn't finish so we brought some home. This morning, when I was awake before Katie, I was bored and had about a quarter of it by myself. Just call me a fatty.
Today, both Katie and I got bank accounts set up with the help of my uncle and that was cool. Later he had to go do stuff and we took the bus ourselves!! to this famous street called Wang something something Dajie (dajie means big (da) street (jie)). I'll figure out the something something later. Anywho, it was like Beijing's equivalant of Harbourfront or Old Montreal, but on one street. There we got on a tour bus and took a 40 minute tour in Chinese. That was sorta fun. I would catch very little of what they were saying. Mostly, I remember the guide explaining that there's a church the French and Irish either built or renovated and that we should keep our arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Katie fell asleep for about 30 minutes of the 40 minute tour.
Later, we found food in this really crowded small alleyway off of the Wang something something street. I got a coconut for 10 yuan which tasted awful. Katie got some sort of spicy veggiegg wrap and they short changed her. Well actually they didn't give her back change at all. I think that's what they do with tourists. The thing was 4 yuan, Katie paid 5 and then they turn away from you and ignore you. They figure most white tourists won't try to argue 1 yuan back. It was kinda stupid. But on the plus side, I took interesting pictures of starfish and seahorses on wooden skewers. People eat the darnedest things!
Tomorrow, we're getting up at pretty early to be ready to travel at 7am. My uncle's taking us somewhere. I don't know. Will report later!