Mike In China

Well, I made it. I’m sitting in a pretty nice hotel room waiting for the air conditioner to kick it up so I can fall asleep. Its only 9:10 here but I’m spent. I definitely wish I had internet access so I could write everyone to tell them I’m here safe and sound but it seems like that is going to have to wait until tomorrow. The day started off not too bad, my parents and grandma kept the awkward, emotional goodbyes to a minimum. At the airport I found out that my bag weighed 83 pounds and if I wanted to fly with it that way I would have to pay $300 (the fact that it took both John and I to carry it downstairs and put it in my car should have been a sign). They gave me a giant plastic bag and I took out 13 pounds to make it down to 170 and then there was only a $50 fine. Then a pretty sweet thing happened and they offered to bump me up to business class for $500 (which is a retail price flight of $6,000), I of course didn’t have the money and didn’t want to pay but good old grandma wouldn’t say no. Business class is P.I.M.P.! I couldn’t touch the seat in front of me if I tried! My seat was like a reclining leather chair that went almost all the way back and legs almost all the way up! I ate like a king! I even got a little pouch with earplugs and one of those masks to wear over your eyes. I was definitely spoiled on the way over but considering that it was a 14 and a half hour flight it was worth it. Going through customs really wasn’t bad at all. I was pretty nervous because they had made some comment in Chicago about whether or not I had the right visa. Everything went fine, that is until the driver to pick me up was 45 minutes late! Lucky, Michele, another girl in the program, was meeting to ride with me also so we talked and worked out the situation together. She is pretty nice, graduated a year or two ago and is from Philadelphia. We got a cab ride to the ferry station and it was pretty cool to see Hong Kong. I think because of visa reasons I won’t get to go back until I leave unless I pay for some special visa but we’ll see. The ferry ride was crazy?! EVERYONE was puking, it was ridiculous?! There was a young boy on the left of me that had his head in a bag the whole ride and then an older woman on the right side of Michele that was dry heaving obnoxiously loud (it reminded me of a Solberg puke or that one time John was dry heaving at Toppers) and every time I almost fell asleep she would start back up again. We took another crazy cab ride from the ferry station to the hotel. By the way, if you think Asians drive crazy in the U.S., wait until you are in Asia!! They are pretty bad, and also, trunks don’t really need to close. They just shove all your stuff in and jiggle it around to “check” if its going to fall out. No casualties on our two cab rides today but it made me nervous. Now I’m in my hotel room for the night (we move in someplace tomorrow). Its really weird because the toilet is in the shower. Its just one big poop and shower room… kind of weird. And the bed I am currently sitting on and will be sleeping on tonight, definitely feels like a board. Well I am pretty tired and have to wake up for training lunch at 11. Hopefully I can find a way to email this to everyone tomorrow because I definitely already miss everyone.