Closure: The End of an Amazing Adventure

Well, here goes. Sorry for the delay! The Saturday night after my last post I went out with some old friends and the new IES students to a couple of the usual bars. It was good to get one last night in on the town, knowing I probably wouldn’t get the chance for a while. A number of my friends are sticking around in Beijing this summer, working, doing research, or just hanging out. I unfortunately knew that I had to prepare to go home. On Sunday, I went back to the Forbidden City with some friends, finishing what I had started before my trip across China. The weather still wasn’t great, but it was nice enough by the time we got through. (The clock room was especially interesting, showcasing a very large display of big and ornate foreign and Chinese clocks.) I also happened to run into the Australian man who I’d met in Xi’an. While we were sitting in the park at the back of the palace, a Chinese woman asked to have her picture taken with us (since we were white). All in all, it was nice to finally get through the Forbidden City, and cross this site off of my list of things to do in Beijing. (Though, I still have plenty more for my next trip!)

Following our tour of the Forbidden City, my friends and I headed back to the Beiwai campus, where we hung out for a while, before going out for my final dinner in China. Both of my RAs from the previous semester joined us, which was especially nice. I called it an early night, heading back to Wangfujing to get the last of my souvenirs before going to sleep. Monday, the day of my flight home, I just had to go back to Beiwai to eat lunch with my teacher, say goodbye to everyone, grab my bags, and go.

I definitely took too much luggage, since I had two oversized rolling bags, my large pack, regular backpack, and additional large carry-on bag. It certainly must have been a sight watching me try to carry all of my bags out of the campus to the street. One old Chinese lady peddling a bike towing a flatbed even stopped to offer to help me. (I stubbornly refused.) What’s more, it was pretty hot. So, by the time I made it out to the street, I was soaked with sweat. In any case, a taxi was quick to pick me up for the ride to the airport. The airport is about an hour outside the city in traffic (40 minutes on a good day), and is split into several terminals, which aren’t even close to being connected. As we approached the third and closest terminal (from where my flight was scheduled to depart), we saw several accidents, including a public bus broken down, and a high-end BMW which had pinballed off of several side rails. I should also mention that I had taken the taxi to the airport about 4.5 hours prior to my flight just to be safe. When we finally got there, I was happy to find the free luggage carts. So, I piled on all of my bags, and went to check in. They first informed me that my flight had been delayed 2 hours (it’s United). Then, I checked all of my bags except the especially large one that I had purchased at the Silk Market the week before. A little sweet-talking and she overlooked the fact that all three bags were overweight. But, I still had to pay USD$165 for the additional third bag, and had to take this bag to the oversized luggage counter separately. I went to pay the fee only to find that my credit card wasn’t working temporarily. (I can only guess that my bank thought I was back in the States). So, I asked if I could go to the ATM, and they told me to drop off my bag while I was over there as well, holding my boarding pass as confirmation that I’d come back. I checked my bag and hit the ATM only to find that my ATM card wasn’t working either. So, I went back to them and told them my problem, only having about Y50 in my pocket (about USD$7). The lady was a bit confused about what to do, since I don’t think she’s encountered this before. I had her run my credit card one more time, to no avail. Then, I asked if they could bill me to my US address. She told me that they couldn’t, and then after thinking it over for a few moments, and realizing that I had already checked my bag, she let me go.

Of course, I was now in the terminal an additional two hours too early. All of the terminal food was expensive, and I only had enough to get a small salad at the Pizza Hut. Believe it or not, Pizza Hut is actually a more upscale restaurant in China, and they actually have escargot on the menu. While I was there, I was making small talk with the waitress in Chinese. The couple at the table over, however, was apparently from Texas, and didn’t speak any Chinese. Their bill came out to about Y230 for the two of them (fairly hefty for dinner in China), and the man paid with his credit card and wrote in a Y30 tip. Since they don’t tip in China, the waitress was especially confused why the man had added Y30 to the total, and came up to me to clarify. I explained to her that it was supposed to be a tip, and that she was supposed to run the total amount, and then the restaurant was supposed to give her the Y30, to which she responded that they wouldn’t do that. So, she thanked the man, slightly embarrassed, and went back to her manager to see what they could do.

When I got back to the gate, I found that United had provided soda and very small sandwiches to the passengers for the delay. It was a nice effort, even though the sandwiches were pretty bad. I spent the time reading, and working on my computer. When we finally went to board the plane, just a bit over two hours late, there was an additional security checkpoint, at which they went through our bags to remove any water. (I’m not really sure what the point of this was, since we had already cleared airport security.) I found my seat, put one bag in the overhead and one under my feet, and waited. I lucked out with an aisle seat next to an elderly Chinese couple. We waited. And waited. And waited. And then it started to rain. And then the rain got harder. And before I knew it, it had been raining for a couple hours, and we were still at the gate. By the time the weather had settled down and we were almost ready to go, it was now 12:30 at night (6.5 hours late). Right as we were about to go, however, an elderly woman in the bathroom had some sort of major problem, and they had to bring a medical team onboard to take her off. I think I’ve grown more patient with my lone trip across China and some of the 20+ hour bus rides, and I said to myself, “maybe it’s a good thing we were delayed, so this woman can get to a hospital rather than having had this problem in the air.”

We finally took off for the 14 hour flight to Washington D.C. I helped the couple next to me fill out their customs forms, and sat back for hour after hour of bad airplane movies and bad airplane food. One of the non-Chinese-speaking flight attendants was thankful for my help in translating meal choices, and just a bit too long of a flight later we arrived in D.C. at around 2:30am, two hours after we’d departed. Of course, it was the middle of the night, and I had missed my connection to Philadelphia. I went through customs, picked up my bags at the luggage carousel, found a United representative to get my rescheduled connection to Philadelphia, and then patiently rechecked my bags. Because they’d put me on an 8:20am flight, for which I needed to show up at 6:20am, and it was already almost 3:00am by this point, they said it didn’t make sense to put me up in a hotel, since I would barely have enough time to get there, fall asleep, and come back. Rather than risking missing my connection, I agreed to take a meal voucher instead. I left the customs area to find myself in the main luggage carousel area, with a lot of confused Chinese people. The couple I had sat next to on the flight came up to me for help getting their tickets for their connecting flight, since they had only given us itinerary tickets for the next flights and told us to pick up our tickets at the check-in desk. I didn’t really know what to tell them, but pointed them in the right direction. Then, another family, seeing that I spoke Chinese, came up asking for my help in getting quarters to make a phone call. I grabbed a snack and a drink at Starbucks using my meal voucher, and then went to scout out the check-in desk. It turned out the check-in desk didn’t open till 4:30am. So, I found a chair, and dozed lightly for the hour and a half till the opened.

At 4:30am I went up and got in line, listening to lots of people complain about a lot of stupid stuff. Then, after getting my ticket, I went back through security without any problems, found my terminal and gate, laid my stuff out carefully, and slept on the floor for three hours until my flight. The flight to Philadelphia turned out to be a 25 minute flight on a small turbo-prop (an hour after waiting for the flight attendant to get on board and with taxiing time), and I kicked myself for sleeping in an airport for such a short flight home. Arriving in Philadelphia, I found my parents at the baggage claim, both very happy to see me. I shared some stories with them while we waited for my luggage. And waited. And waited. But my luggage never came. So, I went to the desk to file a report, and then we went home. My bags showed up later that day at my house by fed-ex, and I made myself stay up to midnight to avoid jetlag. I was back, and only a little displaced. We had all been told to expect reverse culture shock. Since I didn’t get any culture shock going to China, I didn’t really expect to get any coming back. But it’s taken me a bit over a week to get my sleep back in order, and I’m still having some minor adjustment problems. I’ve been pretty indifferent lately, and I feel a bit like I’m just biding my time before something else comes along. I’ve been trying to get all of my errands done, but there’s a lot to do, and I’m not overly motivated for them at the moment. I spent a couple days up in NYC visiting my friend Ben from school, and my friend Mae from Beijing. I was supposed to go up to Rochester to visit people and deal with some school issues today, but car troubles caused me to delay. This past semester has been an amazing and unforgettable (and so many more cliché adjectives) experience, and it’s definitely impacted me on more than one level. My senior year’s up next, and I can’t wait for my next adventure. But for now, I’m home. I start work on Monday, back to the grind, and to quote one of my good friends, “I woke up and everything’s in the same place.” I wake up every morning in my bed and everything’s in the same place.

 

p.s. I've already uploaded some more pictures from the semester, and I'm working on the ones from my trip.  I'll get them up as soon as I can, and then make another post letting you know when they're available.