杭州欢迎你 Day 0-3

Monday, September 8, 2008 to Tuesday, September 9, 2008:
Flying from LAX to Beijing to Hangzhou

Monday, September 8, 2008: 杭州 Day 0

It’s 12:35am, less than one hour away from my flight time. Bored as hell, sitting in a seat at LAX.

• Before this boredom, I was reading “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” – would be great to finish this text before I landed. Even before this, I had an adrenaline rush that I could do naught about. I had a headache and kept drinking water…I suppose this is flight anxiety, although I’m really not that worried about anything – I had the “fight or flight” response for no reason. Basically, my family came to send me off to LAX; we checked my luggage in to Air China, to find that one large luggage was overweight – had to pay an extra $25 for that. Oh, the pain. Then, said luggage was x-rayed and I left the family. I teared up. Sadness. Got my carry-on stuff x-rayed and went to the gate.

• I boarded this flight and placed my largest carry-on in the overhead compartment about five seats behind me. I was a bit afraid because I was paranoid I couldn’t get the luggage into the carry-on space above, and once I got it in, I was afraid I had to abandon my other stuff in order to get this luggage again. It was somewhat irrational, but of course, I was flying alone. I was lucky, though, in that I sat in the exit row (I wanted to request an aisle seat, but forgot, so it was great that I didn’t have to bug people to get out). I tried to keep myself hydrated. Also, this is really bad, but the plane was taking off and I had to go REALLY BAD…but I waited it out a bit until they turned the “seatbelt” sign off.

• During the flight, I didn’t feel that tired (it was already about 1am and beyond), so I read some more. I was quite bored. The attendants served dinner (I chose chicken & noodles with chicken salad, fruit, and bread) and breakfast (I chose fish & rice with mixed veggies, salad, and coffee cake). The food was aight at best. The in-flight entertainment did not meet my expectations – ‘twas a movie projected onto a little television set or a larger screen (that I couldn’t see because I was sitting a bit far). Besides, I wasn’t really interested in the programming so I really just did two things – read and sleep. I slept maybe three hours at most.
Just before landing, I had this strange headache. I can’t quite describe it, except to say that the pain was concentrated at the front of my head, from the hairline down to the area near my temples. It was a burning pain that I couldn’t get rid of…no matter how hard I tried to go back to sleep. However, once I landed, I felt a bit better. Yet…I don’t think it was altitude-based pain.

…

Tuesday, September 9, 2008: 杭州 Day 1
中国 Day 1
Asia Day 1

• At Beijing's airport, I picked up my luggage (I am too damn polite – never asking for help, though I don’t really think I needed it) and waited in line for the transfers to start. I guess the airline officials were a bit lazy, because we got to the Beijing airport around 4:50am and the airline staff did not start arriving/checking us in until at least 6:00am. I was restless, yet tired, so I was pacing around like a madwoman for much of the time. After they checked us in, I went to the waiting area. I was still quite restless, but I lay my head down on the seat. I attempted to plug my laptop into the ground, in order to have power to play some games. I was so bored and tired. The plane delayed for about an hour; I was supposed to be flying by 8:00am at Beijing, but I ended up taking off around 9:00am. I slept for most of the trip (around 2 hours). Got to the Hangzhou airport and I was greeted by Michael. We left the airport and he took me to the new apartment. Quaint place. He introduced me to one of the fellow foreign teachers, Zicheng, and we three had lunch at this place that’s about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. Aww, Michael treated me to my first meal in China. Lol.

• It was really fun, I’m glad to say. I encouraged those two to speak Mandarin, so that I could gain more exposure, but they also talked about postmodernism and philosophical things in English. Even though my brain was slowly shutting down, I had fun listening. We got back and I met some more teachers – Vanessa, Jamie, Thomas, and even Jessica came over. It was fun to listen to them chat…I couldn’t offer much in conversation, since my brain continued to shut down. Later, Michael was running around fixing apartment problems; DANG, what a hard worker! Awesome. Should thank him later.

• Around 4pm or so, I left Vanessa’s apartment and returned to mine to somewhat unpack (as well as rearrange some furniture). I made my bed and organized stuff, but I’m not going to continue to unpack until I get some hangers. Oh, and internet wasn’t working, so I kept a Word-based document.

• ARGH, when I was trying to rearrange furniture, I ran into a problem. I was trying to take a set of four chairs and a table out of one of the bedrooms, but the table would not fit through the door. It boggles my mind how the movers of the furniture got the table inside the room in the first place.

• Around 7:00pm, I went with my co-workers to the urban area near Xihu, or West Lake. I couldn’t see much of the view there at first, as it was quite dark. We ate at a nice restaurant, family-style with the Lazy Susan. I saw the skill of some of the other foreign teachers. "Wo yao bing XueBi"..."Mei you bing de? WO BU YAO." LOL pfft.

• It was a great meal, 25 RMB a person. Afterwards, I walked around the area with Zicheng and Romain; Zicheng wanted to look at the tea shops, so we stopped at a few. Later, we walked around the lake and noted its tranquility. Spoke of Miyazaki movies, as well. Anyway…went back around 10pm. Ugh, I couldn’t get the water heater to work…so I took a cold shower. It was pretty refreshing, but it didn’t start out that way…since I was afraid of the cold. Well…here I go. Sleeptime for real (12 hour flight + 4 hour waiting + 2 hour flight + another 12 hours of hanging out with new co-workers = 30 hours of being awake – 3 hours of sleep on flight to Beijing - 2 hours of sleep on flight to Hangzhou = 25 hours of delirium?)

...

Wednesday, September 10, 2008: 杭州 Day 2: Uneventful
中国 Day 2
Asia Day 2

• I was a bit of a chicken today. I wanted to go out to explore the area near my apartment, but I ended up doing nothing.

• In the morning (7:30am or so), I was awoken by the sound of Bro's cell phone. After I checked Bro's phone, I determined that Bro's friend had called this phone. TWICE. UGH. Well, the roaming (more like international) fees were huge, so I didn't want to pick it up. I believe mom called once around the same timeframe. HRM. I went back to sleep about 30 minutes later and got up around noon.

• I browsed the Hangzhou Expat magazine that Romain got for us last night. It was informative and directed towards the expat customers (there was an ad for a massage, hah!). I also ate random stuff from the fridge (two apples, crackers, baked banana chips, bread) for lunch. My apple-peeling technique got a lot better, but the knife I used didn't really help me improve. As one can see, not much was done today. I even tried to read some more "7 Habits," but I only finished 10 pages. Same with "The World is Flat." Couldn't really concentrate because a talented, saxy man was practicing upstairs.

• A lady named Joy came by to drop off mooncake. MoooOoooOooncake. She works with Michael and became his proxy for today. She had a worker fix up the internet (yay, I can now go online and waste my time). She was also supposed to have him fix my heater, but that wasn't done yet. Thus...I had to take another brrrrr...cold shower. Those make me waste more water.

• I was waiting today for the stuff (fixings) to be done, but I could have gone out to see the town and shop around for stuff I needed. Haha...maybe another time.

• Around 7pm, I went to eat at a noodle restaurant with Romain and Jessica. Fun times, ah.

• Came back and showered. Brrr...I am so not used to cold showers, but it needs to be fixed soon, lol.

• I went online to chat with my cousins and got to webcam with my cousin in HK. I feel so awkward speaking Cantonese with relatives! The fact is, my Canto isn't that great and I really need to improve it. LOL, even my cousin was like, "the Canto you speak is really weird" in Cantonese. Anyway, I somehow communicated in written Chinese that I need my dad to call a certain number because I wouldn't be able to hang out tomorrow. Yes, Dad called my apartment and we chatted for a bit. He'll probably visit on Friday and we'll buy some stuff I need (if I don't buy it first). He even wants to bring me some mooncake or invite some of the head staff at this university to eat dinner. He even told me that one of the guys who work at the foreign office talked to him on the phone and told him that his "gwai lwei" (obedient gal, not weird gal) is safe and sound.

• Also learned a new term today: wai4 jiao1: 外教: gnoy gao. Not really a NEW term, but I guess I'll know how to say the other "foreign teachers" the next time I need to mention it.

...

Thursday, September 11, 2008: 杭州 Day 3 - Errands!
中国 Day 3
Asia Day 3

• I woke up around 7:45am to get ready for errands! YEAH.

• Well, we went to the police station first because one of our foreign teachers got in trouble with the law. HAH...kidding. We went there to let the po-po know of our existence. I had applied my 70 SPF sunscreen and I was SWEATIN' a TYPHOON. EW.

• Next, we each opened a bank account. It was 25元 total. Next, we stopped by a photo store so that we could print out photos. I didn't have my USB stick...so what I should have done was to just take the photos there on the spot (36元). However...I just decided to print my 2x2inch photos later.

• We came back for awhile to chill and then both me and Patricia went out again to take care of errands. Me, being that I have very little directional sense, went one direction and ended up just wandering around for an hour. I went into the deeper city area (it was a bit like Downtown San Diego) and more metropolitan. It was quite a cool place, but I was getting scared that I would get lost...deep, deep in the heart of Hangzhou (without a working phone, hahaha). Besides, I had to be back by 12:15pm to take the bus to the main campus of the university. I gave up looking for the photo store and came back to the East Gate of the campus.

• The bus came to pick up me, Michael, and Patricia, as well as a whole slew of teachers. Patricia and I had a wonderful conversation on the way, whilst Michael slept, ha ha. We went onto the main campus, which was huge, then transferred to the east campus. THEY HAD SO MANY AWESOME CLASSROOMS. Well, the classrooms were medium-sized, but they had so much audiovisual equipment. I'm excited, hahhh. Also, we had a teacher meeting with a few teachers and learned about expectations and such. Should be quite exciting. Whilst I was gone, one of the other tenants who lived above moi made sure my water heater got fixed. We left Xiasha East campus and waited for a taxi (for about 5 minutes), then Michael suggested we walk to a main intersection to find more taxis.

• We got to the main campus and went to see Michael's office. Very breezy! We chilled there for a bit, then Patricia and I went back to our campus. After this, I took a walk around the Hangzhou area (around the block) and I still couldn't find that photo store!!! BOOO.

• Not that long after, I went to the photo shop with Jessica and brought Vanessa along, but we split up soon after. I had to ask for help (because I couldn't read all of the Chinese there). Had dindin with Jessica.

• We chose a restaurant and then the waitress handed us menus. I couldn't read a LOT of the stuff on there, so I asked the gal what was really good. She turned over the menu and then pointed to this part that said "specialty dishes" (I thinky). Well, such dishes were a bit more expensive. Jessica pointed to one of the dishes at random and then kept saying, "对，对" (right, right) when the girl asked questions (even though she didn't know what the waitress was saying). I didn't know what the word next to "tofu" meant, so I asked her to describe the dish. She couldn't really say, so she had her boss come to take our order. Jessica's was easy, but the one I chose (the one with veggies and meat) looked appetizing, but then the guy just listed three types of vegetables that one could eat the dish with. I had never known of such a dish and didn't even know what the veggies were...so I just chose something else at random. LOL...I felt so bad for not knowing what to order. Later, Jessica ordered two bowls of rice. Dannng...her Chinese is pretty damn good!

• Anyway...funny incident. Some random Chinese lady called Jessica. The first time, Jessica picked up and made a funny look. After she put the phone down, I told her to tell the lady that she was an American and blahblahblah. About 3 minutes later, the lady called again. All I heard was, "喂？。。。什么？。。。什么？。。。我是外国人。。。我不会说汉语。" Translation: "Hello?...What?...What?...I'm a foreigner...I don't know how to speak Chinese (written form)." THAT WAS HILARIOUS. I was busting up laughing in the restaurant, which probably was a bit rude, wah. Oh, and I was recounting to Jessica how one of the teachers at the university called me a "laowai" (i.e. foreigner). It amused me so. Dinner was 12元.

• Afterwards, we went to Vanguard, which is a supermarket of sorts. It can be likened to Carrefour or Wal-Mart. ^^. Bought some essential things and then walked home with them in hand. Ooooh...during the checkout process, what happened? Some lil' old lady swiped a card for the both of us (needed a membership card or something). She was soo nice! Even the checkout lady was freakin' nice. (She asked if Jessica spoke Chinese...and I said, "She does...a little bit...and I do...a little bit." She was like, "How's your Chinese so accurate?" I told her I took some Chinese school ^^). AHhh...I spent ~126元 at Vanguard.

• After that, I mopped the mess on the floor and put a bucket under the dripping water (after I discovered it). Not soon after, I took a shower. Dad just called.

• ARGH...I'm soo annoyed about the leaking water. It reminds me of that LOST episode where the people had to keep pressing the button (every 115 minutes or so), or some unthinkable thing would happen. I already know what would happen if I didn't empty the water....splish splash! But it annoys me that if I don't do it...bad things will happen...grrr. Oooh...mom just called! Well, nighters!