hello from the future!

First, man made fire, then he made the internet.

And I have it!

Here is my blog from my 15 hours at the Bejing airport. I had internet then but can only log on to gmail and skype. Read on friends.

...I'm in China. Beijing Airport to be exact, waiting for my connecting flight to Vietnam... in 13 hours. Haha, the price I pay for getting a dirt cheap ticket. It's okay though, I am sort of enjoying this, if only I can charge my laptop here, I will be all set, but I think the voltage is different, and I don't want to risk blowing up anything.

It is currently 8:10 am Wednesday in China right now, and 5:10pm Tuesday back in the U.S, so greeting from the FUTURE! Here are a few things that have been going down so far, in catergories haha

The Sun:

On Monday morning, I had to go back to SD for a varicella booster, and oh man L.A traffics sucks major balls. Seriously, 7am and it's bumper to bumper, who else knew about this?? Every 20 minutues I'm in a different city and it's traffic there. It took me more than 3 hrs to get to SD, and missed my appointment but luckily they let me do it when I came in anyway. The sun made this entire day worse because it was ridiculous, if this is the only benefit of day light saving, I am so not into it. One extra hour of day light every day, are you kidding me? Why would I enjoy the heat, the burning sensation, the increased chance of getting a funny tan light on my body, all with one hour of less sleep?? UGH. Only until at night that I felt better after it's gone. I wish everyday was a gloomy day.

The varicella booster:

Okay, needle shots of things are usually never that enjoyable, unless you're a druggie and you're running after a high, but this shot SUCKED. Holy shit, no wonder babies cry ridiculously when they take their shot. The injection felt fine going in, but when the medicine enters the body it fucking hurt. Everyone told me that the Gardisil injection burns as it enters the body, but I didn't think it was that bad when I got it. With this one, I seriously needed a minute to sit and breathe out the pain, and the injection site still hurts until now. Fuckkkk chicken pox, 12 years later and you're still out to get me.

Flying:

Getting to my flight was no difficulty, it was packed of all Asian aunties and uncles heading to their mother land, and a random group of super tall (potentially) basketball players. Just because they're tall and travel in a pack doesn't always mean they're a bball team, right? Haha. The flight was 11 something hours and I had the middle seat. Thank goodness I'm relatively small or it could have been bad. On my left was a Chinese lady who kept speaking Mandarin to me, and on my right was a white man from Texas who talked to me about beer and how much rice wine can Asian handle (a lot apparently). I pretty much sleep the entire time, except for when the food came by. I wish they still give us peanuts on airplanes, I want those little bags of salty/sweet deliciousness godddamnit. My stomach didn't feel well at all after eating the airplane food, but I was so hungry. There were no in-flight entertainment, and even if there were, I couldn't see anything because of where I sat. Someone else who is taller probably could though.

Beijing Aiport:

Arriving at Beijing was painless until I went to stand in line at the "international departure" line to continue to my next flight, and upon random inspection, got send to a different line, in which I was given a visa stamp and sent to a different terminal, all within 5 words spoken to me by the two officials. I tried to talk to them more, but just got a gesture of "go this way" lol. It didn't help that everyone spoke chinese to me, and I had to reply with "Uhhh...ummm... I don't... Do you speak English?" and then they all look at me with this "disapprove/disappointed/disdain" look afterward. So sad lol

I hopped on little train frail thing to get to the terminal they wanted me to go. The only thing there were baggage claims, exit and domestic flights. I tried to get my checked bag, but back in the states when I checked my stuff in, they already told me that my bag will be transfer directly to my final destination, so my bag wasn't there. Oh god, I hope my shit get to Vietnam with me and not stuck here in Beijing at the end of tomorrow. So I wandered around the baggage claim area for a bit more, looking around and after trying to ask 3 different workers there, who spoked to me a total of 12 words, telling me that I had to leave the area, then re-check in upstairs.

So I did. And stood in line for "international flights" again, and got send back to "domestic flights" again. So apparently if you are flying within the same land continent it's domestic? Did anyone else know that? So I sort of lined up and get myself there. I say sort of lined up because the concept of lining up for something isn't widely accepted and embraced in Asia. People just kind of huddled together and then move as a mass. As I am standing at an infomation booth talking, a lady walked up real close to me, and started talking to the agent at the same time, and another lady did the same... and I had no knowledge of chinese to interupt them so in the end, I ended up waiting for them before asking my quetions. They probably think I'm just being respectful to elders. Hah.

Because my flight isn't leaving until late afternoon/early evening, I don't even have a gate for it yet, but I can't leave the airport (though they did give me a visa, but I don't know how it works/don't want to risk it) so I went through securities anyway and now just wandering around between gates, using the airport's free internet, that won't let me do anything beside skype and email. I tried to buy some food using my American dollars, after a bit of consideration, they accepted it, but not after requesting that I gave them a new 20 dollar bill instead of one that looked a bit dirty. Now I have a bunch of Yuan. $1 is 6.6 Yuan, it's actually not bad considering airport purchases are generally pretty expensive, and all I've been doing up beside writing this entry was walking up and down checking out the entire terminal buying food. There is a ramen shop here, and a KFC, the only American restaurant I've seen so far beside Starbucks. Of course I had to try the ramen, and then fell asleep immediately after eating on the same table hahahaha........ and the waitresses just left me alone. LOL. Proabably because they didn't know enough english to wake me up and kick me out.

Chinese People:

I think I'm pretty much the most casual dressing person in this entire airport. Everyone is so dressed up and I don't know why. Where are they going? All these proper looking middle age men and fancy casual women. The few of them anyway, I have seen way too many men here today. Where are the ladies at? China should definitely reconsider their "We love sons/men" policy because the lacking of women in this country is definitely being noticed. Plus, women are better looking anyway, if it was me, I'd rather be in a country full of beautiful women (i.e: Brazil) than in one full of men.

All the airport employee, beside dressing the same, kinda look the same too lol, some females have the same hair decoration to hold their hair. I wonder if it's a part of their uniform. All the young ladies are pale and slim and all the older aunties almost have the same hair cut. I'm dark and not slim, so I guess I stand out. Maybe that's why people kept staring at me when I walk by them.

Update:

So it's 5pm right now, and my flight is at 7:10pm, but I finally know my gate, C53. Oh the magic number, all day today I've been trekking up and down wondering what it would be, where would I be leave from and now I finally know it. And I finally figured out why the flight is classified as domestic when it's flying to another country, it's because there is a stop in between to Shenzhen (where is that?). Anyway, I'm following signs that point me to C53, and it leads me to two flight of stairs and into a dungeon like place... I think I have to take a bus or something to get to the aircraft, which means it's a small one. Well, good thing I will have ailse seat. Oh and the awesome part is, there is a sign that list the flights that especially going to the route I am going, and somehow after walking by it twice today, I missed it. The dungeon is empty right now, if I knew about it earlier, I would have so come down early and sneak in a nap.