Phil and Red's Excellent Adventure

I woke up Thursday morning @ 430am and headed to the airport with my mom, dad, and my aunt Sharron. Got my ticket with no troubles. I was picked for "special" screening at the security lane. This entailed them opening all my bags and making them selves look like idiots. "What's this?" Its a friggin external hardrive, Jack-hole. I waited for about 20 minutes before we hoped onto the United Express to Chicago. This was a little puddle hopper that seated about 30 people. It was kinda freaky when they asked for 3 people to move from the front of the plane to the back of the plane so they could balance it. I was like, AAAAAGGGH!!!! What do you got down there? A bubble-leveler? One of those things you use to make a picture frame perfectly horizontal?
So, i was lucky enuff to sit next to a dude from a Windsor plant that bottles Crowne Royale Wiskey. He was on his way to settle a union dispute with the bosses or union in Wisconsin. I told him to "break them". He said he would. I had just recently purchased Bruce Campbell's "If Chins Could Kill" and i was about to read when he was like, Bruce Campbell rox. So we started talking about tons of crap. It was fun. We arrived in Chicago O'Hare airport. He went off to destroy a union stand-off and I went to the gate i need to get to to go to HK. The waiting area was empty. So i began reading. The book is awesome. I couldnt help but laff out loud sometimes. The book hit so close to home with the location he grew up and his interactions with family and friends, sounds like my childhood. I recommend it. Very intersting read.
I hung out in the waiting area for awhile...about 4 hours. I arrived in Chicago around 830AM. People began to show up around 1030am. I got into a conversation with this fella going to Guangzhou. He was pretty funny. He told me some things to expect and what not too. He said the chinese that i do know sounded really good, so that is a plus.
1145am finally came around and we boarded. I learned something on this 15 hour flight:
1. I can't fall asleep on planes.
2. When you are on that long a flight, you bond with your seat-mates. I am lucky I had 2 nice ones. Some cute Philopino girl and an old Chinese guy. We had some fun conversations and we got along well. I was lucky that I didnt get stuck to any jerks or Jabba the Huts. That woulda blown.
The plane ride really wasnt bad, they played some movies and the food wasnt the best, but it wasnt bad. There was a screaming baby from time to time, but that really didnt bother me. I also had some earplugs. However, I wanted to pound this little african kid sitting a few rows ahead of me because he kept playing with this toy that played the "Jingle Bells" song. I was like...ITS FRIGGIN SUMMER! Another irritating things was that one of the movies they played was "Garfield". I wanted to puke. but i didnt watch it. Overall it was a fine flight, tiring, but fine.
So, I arrived @ the Hong Kong International Airport around 5pm Friday Hong Kong time which would be 5am Detroit time. Got thru customs about 520pm. Just to let you know, I hate dealing with customs at any border crossing. Why don't they trust me? I never did anything wrong...really wrong I mean. So i got my baggage around 530pm. Went to the the shuttle bus location and got a ride for 6pm. First off, the bus driver sucked. It should have been theoretically 45minutes...but it took him 2x that. I really dont think he knew where he was going. He just kept circling the area..I was like, THOSE ARE THE LANDMARKS THAT ARE CLOSE TO THE HOTEL! DROP ME OFF HERE!!!
Checked into the hotel. It is actually quite nice, however, the rooms are really small. I will post fotos I got internet access as well, obviously. Its nice. I refreshed a bit. My friend Wendy, who I ahve been chatting with for over the past year showed up here with her sister, Carla, and her other friend, Money (that's right, her english name is Money), who I have emailed convos with. We walked around the city and went to this really good resturant. Very good. Walked around more and chatted. I got back to the hotel around 1130pm. Takled to a couple people and went to bed around 12am. I set the alarm for 7am so i could get up and get to the VISA office when they opened, but the alarm never went off! Got up around 8am. The subway in HK is kinda neat. Kinda like Toronto. Took a taxi to the office from the subway exit point. Pretty cheap taxi fares. Got to the VISA office around 10. I will pick it up on Monday @ 12pm. Then I will head over to Zhongsan, China.

Well, I am off to take a nap, i am tired.
-me