I got up on Day 30 and skyped two friends in Cincinnati, and then I worked on my blog, philosophy homework, read a book, and other stuff online. Jessica and I made plans to go out around 2 to try to get the situation with our phones clarified (apparently the phone company has to have our pictures or they're going to shut off our phone service by February 6th.) The boys decided to go to lunch around 2, but neither of us were ready, and decided to wait until they came back to the phone store.
Walking out, we grabbed some of the oranges that I had bought yesterday, finding out that they were even smaller than the mandarin oranges that Greg had gotten, and a different type of fruit altogether. They had a very thick skin, and lots of pulp inside, and some seeds. They were hard to peel, and the juice got all over my hands. They weren't as sweet as I thought (but that was partly because I had just brushed my teeth before I left).
Getting to the phone store on campus where we got our SIM cards, we found that they were closed for the Chinese New Year. The boys told us to meet them by a nearby art store, and as we walked, Jessica's nose started spontaneously bleeding, at which Dom joked that I had punched her on the way there. (But I'd never be THAT violent....)
We walked toward Sunny Block to try to get the phone situation together. We found a couple of China Mobile stores open, but we couldn't find the China Unicom store, which was what we needed to get. We tried on two different map apps, but Dominic's wasn't working, and I couldn't read the Chinese map that came up on mine. So we realized that we would have to wait until after the stores reopened for the Chinese New Year. We were walking past the movie theatre, and I asked if they wanted to see a movie. We walked in, and found out that Rogue One had just started about 20 minutes before. We double checked to make sure that it was spoken in English, as Will had told us, and it was. So we bought the tickets, and found out it was in 3D too, so even better!
We settled in for the wait, and decided to go eat, since Jessica and I hadn't eaten lunch. There were only about 3 places open... a dumpling place and two Indian places. I really wanted to go to an Indian place, so off we went. I got lassi, a yogurt drink, some garlic naan, and some spinach paneer, all of which were really good. We headed out, still biding our time until the movie.
More Totoro stuff at Sunny Block!
But I went against my better judgment after tasting some of Jessica's popcorn and got a medium size along with a guava strawberry juice. Both the popcorn and the juice weren't as expected. The popcorn was more like caramel corn, which I was fairly happy about...but the juice was warm, which took me a bit of getting used to.
Toward the end of the day, I skyped one friend from high school that I hadn't talked to in forever, did laundry, and found out that I had been chosen to take over the UC International Snapchat account. I tried to get my Snapchat to work, and my efforts were successful! I emailed her back, asking her for more details, and saying that I could only upload on wifi (because my Chinese phone won't support Snapchat, and my American phone doesn't have data), but she said it was fine, and offered to work out a plan.
The next day, I ended up sleeping until 11, despite my best intentions. Trying to wake up, I chatted with some friends and scrolled the interwebs while eating cereal, milk, juice, and dumplings.
Afterwards, I finished packing for the trip, worked on some philosophy homework, some more French, the blog, and just tried to clear my mind for travel. I ate some more of the orange things, deciding that I really didn't like them that much.... You live and learn, I guess.
Dom reminded me to get the trip details together, and we realized that the plane that we thought left at 10 actually left at 8:30, and we rushed out the door an hour early, at 4 instead of 5. We walked down to the subway station, toying with the idea of getting a taxi to the airport, but deciding against it. On the ride there, I tried to get everything together for the Snapchat takeover, trying to figure out how exactly to get everything together with the app. Giving up, I decided to read to distract myself from everything going through my mind.
That, my readers, was a mistake. For after I got off the subway, I realized that my suitcase was still under my seat. Fortunately, I realized it right away, and told the others. We went to a police officer, and he got a lady to help us out who spoke even more English. However, she wasn't too much help at first, because I had to explain to her a few times that the bag was still on the train, not at a station through a translator app. I was internally freaking out, as I didn't want to have to miss the plane for this.
Eventually, another guy came up who spoke even more fluent English to help me out. Through my description of the bag, including the luggage tags, they found out that they found it at the end of the line. Apparently, the end of the line was only a 9 minute ride away, so I hopped on the train to get it. I told the others to go ahead to make sure that they could get on the plane and get everything situated. One of the officers pointed out which stop I needed to get off at, but I was confused when he didn't get on the train to tell the people at the other station what had happened. I tried to ask him, but he didn't understand. As the train pulled off, I figured that he only worked at that station, and shrugged it off.
At the end of the line, I used a translator app to ask where the suitcase was. The officer called on the walky talky, and another officer wheeled it out of a room downstairs. Completely relieved, and realizing that I was very, very lucky, I ran back to the train to go back to the station where we had initially gotten off. From there, I had to get on a connecting subway line to the airport. I made it on fine, but a few stops in, they evacuated the train. While I was waiting on the next train, a few non-Chinese people came up to me and asked me if I spoke English. They asked what was going on, and I told them the hypothesis that I had come up with about making sure the trains were full.
I asked them about themselves and I quickly found out that they were studying at CQU! They appeared to be Indian, but they quickly corrected me, telling me that they were Pakistani. They were here on scholarship, and they asked me about why I was there too. Telling them the details, they were intrigued, and asked me about what I was studying in America, and also where I had been in America. I was happy to oblige, because, as most of you probably know, I love to talk about my passions, whether it be engineering, international cultures, astrophysics, philosophy, or something else in my extensive laundry list of interests.
We exchanged WeChats and kept talking. Overall, it was just a really great feeling to have an English conversation with new people. I honestly never thought I'd say that, but living in China does have its downsides at times. After the ride, I promised that I'd get back in touch with them after getting back into Chong Qing for good to hang out some time, and rushed toward the airport. At this point, there was only about an hour until my flight.
The others were sending me messages about where to go, and I made my way to each of them. I also had to get my ticket. At first, I went to the wrong counter, and had to get in another line that was moving at a snail's pace. Looking at the sign above the counter, it said that check in stopped 45 minutes before the boarding time, and there was only 47 minutes left. Acting on impulse, I told one of the workers, and she moved me up to the beginning of the line. I was trying to tell her my suitcase was a carry on bag, but she kept telling me it was supposed to be checked. I told her that I hadn't paid for a checked bag, but she insisted. I didn't want to delay anymore, so I just gave in. I knew it would take up more time after the flight, but I needed to get through security. Security also took a while, but I knew I'd be fine as long as I got to the gate 15 minutes before take off.
Rushing to the gate, they had a bus ready to take us to the plane itself. I ran onboard, and Jessica called out my name. Relieved the entire debacle was over, I gratefully accepted the Big Mac that Nick had gotten me. Now, normally, I don't like Big Macs because of the sauce, but that one was probably the best one I've had in my life (due to hunger and exhaustion). Interestingly, it also had shredded carrots in addition to the shredded lettuce.
Getting on the plane, I quickly found out that I was in business class for some reason, while the others were in economy. I wasn't sure why, possibly because I paid for this flight for all of us, but it didn't make too much of a difference because the movies in the TV in front of me were mostly in Chinese, so I just decided to read. After a bit, they brought out a snack box of a bun, a piece of cake, some yogurt, a couple orange pieces (which, after they put all the wrapping on it, they might as well have given us the whole orange....) and a cinnamon twist thing.
During take off and landing, the stewardess told me to put my e reader away, even though it was in airplane mode, so I just looked out of the window for a while. During the descent, I could see lots of the fireworks going off all around the city for Chinese New Year! And I was just struck for a while at how absurdly lucky I was to be having this experience, and have very little expenses as well.
Getting to the Beijing, I quickly got my luggage, and then we headed outside for the shuttle to the hotel. It took about an hour to arrive, due to language barriers over the phone, and during that time, I wished some of my Chinese friends and some of my students a happy new year. I also found out that our data plans may or may not have nationwide service, so we should be wary of using too much data. The air quality had that smoky, burning quality to it, so we all decided to wear our masks...
Very small bathroom
Slippers to wear around the room
We were going to get up early to get the hotel breakfast and make the most of the first day of the Lunar New Year!
-Zoe
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