CHINA ADVENTURES: PART 1 - The ascent, descent, and landing

It's 22 minutes into the flight, and I'm already bored... Sure flying is fun- at least, taking off and landing is. The 14 hours in between isn't quite as amusing. I stupidly spent the evening two nights ago uploading some movies onto a computer I wasn't even bringing with me so I would have something to watch on the plane. Now I'm stuck with about an hour and a half of battery life (there aren't any outlets on this jet, unfortunately) and a few old GBA roms to kill a bit of time.

I have made a few friends though. The flight director (I think that's what his position was) was really nice, and smiled at everyone as he helped them find how to get to there flight and check their bags in. I met a woman as I was walking to my seat who had an extremely cute son with a crazy haircut. I didn't ask, but I assumed he was about 6 or 7 months old. As I waved and smiled at the little birthling, I could only thing of my own nephew, Aaron, who I'm going to get to be hanging out with in a matter of hours.

I also spent a while getting to know the man sitting beside me, who is an electrician. He seems like he's good at his job, although he says he doesn't like it much. Apparently handling hundreds of watts of energy that could easily be used to electrocute any person that stands in his way is a little more boring than it sounds.

I have to say, I'm kind of disappointing with the state of the jet. I was under the impression there would be outlets and WIFI, but I guess we didn't pay enough for our tickets for anything like that. There's still some sort of console in the seat in front of me that you can apparently watch movies on and stuff, but I've yet to take the time to figure out.

Anyway... There isn't much going on right now, so I don't have much of anything interesting to write about. I should probably use all this free time to do something productive. Maybe I'll write a short story? Maybe I'll write a song? Maybe I'll sleep? Yeah... I'm sleeping. Sleep sounds really amazing right now.


... *13 hours later*


Remember how I said I was going to sleep? That didn't happen. I realized today that I  can't sleep on planes. I did, however, spend some time writing music and stuff. I listened to at least 8 or 9 full albums of music (which I always love doing) and watched a few movies on the in flight entertainment system, but no, I didn't really sleep.

As of now, I'm in a hotel bedroom in Beijing because the flight took too long to get us our baggage so we couldn't get on the connecting flight to Kunming. When we first landed, we spent a good 40 minutes waiting for our bags to arrive, thinking that they might have just been tossed on the next flight without us. I entertained myself by planting my feet on one side of the baggage claim room, sprinting to the middle, and then sliding the entire rest of the way of my slippers. It was great fun, and I'm glad I had a chance to experience the airport to it's fullest potential.

After we finally got out bags, the airport crew was supposed to drive us to a hotel. The thing was, we had 10 suitcases and 5 carry on bags all two fit in 3 mini buses  Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but when you add about 30 natives to the vans with all of their baggage too, you begin to wonder if that tiny space left in the last taxi is actually big enough to fit a human being in. Somehow, we got everyone loaded up and to the hotel, though nearly all of those who got on last were either sitting on someone's knee, or the arm of someone else's chair. It was a very intimate experience, and I feel like I got to know the many Chinese strangers on a deeper level than I usually get to know strangers. The language barrier didn't even seem to matter when we were all piled up together within an inch of actually crushing one another.

Anywho, we got some help from the hotel crew and ended up getting all of our baggage hauled off the mini buses and into the hotel. Now, I'm going to actually try to sleep. We'll see how this goes. Until morning, this is Garrett Signing off.

...*3 days later*

Huh, I still haven't posted this on my blog... I guess I should write about what went on since where I left off.

We all got up fine the next morning, save for the fact that the younger ones' alarm clock went fast and woke them up at 3 in the morning. We got all our suitcases packed up into yet another undersized vehicle and filed into the airport to grab some breakfast before the flight. There wasn't any western food in the whole place, so the few of us who actually liked Chinese food gobbled up our dumplings and noodles while the others ate the two Mandarin oranges that came with our meals. When we finally got ourselves seated in the plane, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that because the people who booked the front (most spacious) seats didn't show up, we were allowed to sit there instead. Words cannot explain how nice it was being able to stretch my legs right out during the flight instead of being cramped up into the completely inhuman posture the stewardesses of the previous plane called "sitting".

We arrived in Kunming late, but Deanna and Drew (my sister and brother in law) were more excited to see us than upset about having to wait in the airport for 2 hours. We finally had a chance to get some slightly more western tasting food at the Chinese version of KFC. With the help of one of Deanna and Drew's friends, we loaded all of our 10 suitcases, 5 carry-ons, and 2 computers into their van. The ride back to Deanna's apartment wasn't nearly as unbearable as the flight to Beijing, especially since I was finally reunited with my sister. We were a little cramped in the van, but the ride was only around an hour and a half.

We piled out of the car into what still seems like some sort of resort. Honestly, the place is beautiful. I thought I couldn't be any more impressed until we actually set foot in my sister's apartment. This place is great, I'm so happy to be staying here. For some reason I originally had the impression that it was going to be super tiny and crampy with no extra room to walk around, but there are 3 bedrooms, two decks, and a really spacious living room. As usual, I ended up being the one voted to sleep on the couch.

The next day was pretty interesting as well. We took a tour of the local market just down the street from Deanna's apartment. I brought my ukulele around writing songs about the people I saw and singing to them in high pitched voices. I got a lot of weird looks, but hey, I'm in China. I have no identity here, and thus, have no reason to cling to any form of dignity.

Anyway, after making friends with countless dead animals and taking pictures with them, we made the monumental mistake of taking a walk down the alley with a certain fruit vendor who sold a certain pineapple to a certain me, giving me a certain food poisoning sickness that has been tormenting me since then. I guess the trip down that alley wasn't all bad, though. I did buy a really cool hat that I wear all over the place now.

This morning was when I woke up to find I was actually sick from the pineapple, and wasn't just suffering some stomach cramps from eating it too fast. I threw up in the shower... so that was fun. I had promised Deanna that I'd drum for the band today day, and was pretty determined to keep that promise. I ended up exhausting myself mid-way through the set-list and getting one of her friends (who is also a drummer) to take over for me. I spent most of the rest of the day sleeping and listening to some Christmas music.

I finally woke up a bit more around 3 o'clock or something, which was just in time to watch the rest of the fam decorate the Christmas tree. I could say I really wanted to join them in decorating, but honestly I enjoyed sitting there watching everyone else do the work instead of having to get involved much more. It sort of gave me a feeling of authority knowing that I wasn't helping anyone do anything, and they all still appreciated having me there. We watched Elf after, and everyone else ate pop corn. I was really annoyed that I couldn't eat any, but I guess I'd rather recover from this food poisoning illness than eat a few kernels of caramel diabetes.

It's now 9:32 PM, and I'm going to bed... Maybe I'll go watch some Sienfeld first. 'night