Ok, after 3 hours of sleep, I got up at 415AM today to prepare for the taxi fella. Yumi was able to move her classes around to allow her to come to the airport and see me off. So sweet. I took all the stuff down and it was a little interesting loading up the taxi. The guitar box was sticking out the back of the trunk, but it was in there snug so it wasn't falling out. However, i was paranoid all the way to the airport and always checking it. Lets just hope we dont get re-ended. Like my trip one month ago to the airport on my way to Shaolin, the taxi driver that picked us up took us to another residence where we got the usual driver. Change in shift maybe. So we headed to the airport.
The past few months the roads between Xiaolan and Guangdong have been under major re-construction. One half of the trip was spent on torn up roads and trying to drive on the shoulder to pass a convoy of 5 big hauler trucks. One other thing about chinese road construction...there are no warning or direction signs at all for dangerous or broken up areas. People just use their eyes to see the damage or the repairing areas which is not a good idea at all at 530Am because you can't see the highway at all. Headlights on these cars don't seem very powerful. Because of the lack of signs, the taxi driver was going like 120km/h ~70m/h when he hit what felt like train tracks.
There was a massive chunk taken out of the road. I swear, I think we caught air. Sure felt like it. It was like we were dropping down into a pit or something. The car lurched and i heard the trunk slam down into my box and i was worried about my things and very irriated with the driver and chinese construction practices. How hard is it too put up a sign that reads, MISSING ROAD - TAKE CARE. We hit about 3 other of those missing road areas afterwards.
We got to the airport safely, thankfully.
I loaded all my crap up and got down and filled out some forms n junk. And I thought I would have some time with Yumi to sit around and just relax but the line up for going thru to the International area was getting really friggin' huge and time was runnning out so we said our emotional goodbye's for now and i went thru the gate. I almost forgot to give her my cellfone as well. I didnt want to leave. I headed on thru to the check in.
Now, I was at the airport rougly 2-1.5 hours ahead of take off which is more than recommended and I was still the last person to check in. And it took the longest to check in ever. Why do you ask? Because, there were 40 American families that were taking this plane from Guangzhou to Tokyo who had just spent the last 2 weeks in China buying their brand new baby. There were 40 adopted babies, 6 to 12 month babies, on my flight from Guangzhou to Tokyo. Can you imagine 40 crying babies on a tightly pack airplane? The crying? The pooping? The smell?
It really wasn't that bad at all. My headfones drowned out most of the baby crying.
But back to check in. So I checked in and my one hardshell suitcase was overweight. The limit was 32kg, mine was 40kg. And that was after I emptied and rearranged it to lower the weight. Yikes. Then I took my oversized guitar box and the price was only 130US. THANK GOD! i was so worried with that Terry dude from NWA luggage claiming that box would be 390US. I still had to pay the 260 though because of the overweight suitcase. Man, it is always something. I got too much junk!
So I rushed to the passport checkpoint. It was getting closer to the time that we were too leave. I was standing in line and the line was half NWA flight people, we all had these little NWA stickers on. There was a chinese guy that was walking aroudn with a clipboard and he asked, in good english, "Are you on the flight to Tokyo with the babies?" I said, "Apparently so." And then he said, "Why are you so late?" In a confrontational tone to me. This got to me and I responded, "Its not my fault your government has made things so bad for its people that 10,000 American families come to china to adopt your children every year because this country sux so bad for its people and these american families just happen to be on my flight and take up all the time at the check in counter......" I didnt actually say that. I said something like, it aint' my fault NWA and the families took so long with check in. I was here earlier than recommended." He was then like, "Maybe next time you should come earlier." And I said, "Next time you should shut your hole." I then said something to him in Chinese and he got scowled at me then he made me go up higher in the line with the rest of the NWA folks.
I figured the plane wouldn't leave without a quarter of its passengers.
I was wearing one of my Shaolin t-shirts and so this made the X-ray guys and the flight attendents all wet. They were like, "Aaaaah, you know Shaolin gong fu?" "Yes, I stayed there for a month".. "Oooooooh, wow, so you know shaolin gong fu! Wow...."
I headed to my seat. In my area, there was no more room and any of the overhead cupboards for carry ons. It was all filled up with bags and babies.
I sat in my seat and put my junk underneath the seats making it a bit more cramped, but it wasn't too bad.
Ok, so these are the folks on the airplane. There were 40 brand new adopted chinese babies, mostly girls. Why girls? I dont know, since the country needs more women, but...its china. Go figure. Along with the babies, they were accompanied by their new, gigantic and morbidly obese, American parents with no knowledge of chinese culture. There were only two families who looked healthy. When I saw this, i shuddered. The other major group on the plane was the Guangzhou Cantonese Chinese Opera troop that was headed for L.A.
So, I sat down next to a couple who had a little 10 month old named Quiun with the English name of Megan. She was really adorable. Very cute and she only cried when her dad held her because she wanted to be held by mommy. She was very playful and she seemed to like me. I got to hold her at one point and I made her do some gong fu. The parents loved it and the kid was smiling, breathing heavily, and drooling which is laughter to their kind. She was also quite ticklish and she liked to chew on her toes. I wish I had that flexibility.
The two I was sitting next to told me of many funny stories that they dealt with. But they mentioned that the group they were with had 22 families, and there were two groups on the plane, thats why 40 kids. But he said that they had some major pieces of work in their group. Like this really large woman who was like, "I hate chinese food, I hate china, I can't stand any part of this culture, blah blah blah blah". Apparently she was quite rude to the director and all the resturants they went too. She would always try western food. And she just pissed off a bunch of folks. And I can just see her, in my head, complaining and shaking her head while her gowls shook back and forth. Yuck. You know that's one baby that is gonna grow up not knowing about where she came from.
Since these are the most Americans i have seen in one place, i really noticed the overweightness and obeseness. I was like, "what are these giant mounds of disgusting flesh and why are you soooo big?!" It just struck me hard. Mostly because I spent a whole year surrounded by skinny ass chinese people. It just opens your eyes right up. Yeah, there were some fat chinese folks but they more or less consisted of beer/pudgy bellies, there was no pear or apple shaped folks. And everyone in china that I saw had necks, ankles, wrists, and chins.
So the flight was good. Thought of Yumi alot. Read a Batman comic on my computer, played with Megan, and talked to her parents.
Surprisingly for leaving a little late, we were able to arrive in Tokyo a little earlier than expected. The winds help us or something, or the rotation of the earth, i dunno. We got to Tokyo and immediately, just from the landing strips, i could tell that this country was much cleaner. The Narita airport was quite nice.
I was able to speak Japanese with some people. I just wanted the practice. I found myself speaking in Chinese as well. I was like, "Xie xie....i mean, arigatogozaimas." All the time. ugh. Hope I didnt offend anyone that might want to chop my head off with a katana.
I hung around until we boarded the next plane. It was a 747 and i was in the middle row. There were 4 seats and only 3 people sat in them, so we had a little bit of extra room. I spoke a little japanese to the people that sat next to me. Then we were off for the 11 hour fligtht. Now it wasn't too bad. The food was good and I was actually able to sleep a little bit considering there were babies everywhere. I didnt really watch the movies that they played. I also played computer a bit before the battery died.
We finally reached the US. i was getting excited.
We touched down in Detroit around 115pm.
We unloaded and I headed to the passport checkpoint and they only had about 4 checkpoints open for the hundreds of people that just arrived on two differnt planes. And they were being very anal on the checking of everything. So it took awhile. I went and grabbed my luggage and went to customs.
I walked up to the guy and he did what I expected, he wanted me to go and have my stuff checked out. So i was like, no problem. He didnt sound to happy or pleasant either. Trying to be a hardass. He signed my paper and told me to go thru the glass doors. Then as I came to the glass doors to go thru, an attendant was all with her hand on her hip and giving me the snake head, "Sir, where you goin?" Um...thru the glass doors like the customs dude, said. "No, I mean, where are you going?" Um...the glass doors....i mean, I am going home. "The exit is that way, sir."
Um...ok, if you dont want me to go thru customs, thats fine with me!
So I left. Ha ha! Awesome.
I met up with my folks and I exchanged some money. After that we headed out of the airport and drove down to go get some Calder's Ice Cream, the best ice cream ever. Better than Ben and Jerry's and better than Stucchi's. After that we headed home. I stopped by a music store and picked up some guitar strings. Then we finally headed home.
Man, it was feeling odd. Nothing really has changed at all. Everything and everybody is the same as when I left. It makes it feel as though this past year in China was almost like a dream or that me at home is a dream. Its strange. Maybe that's the jetlag.
I started a little bit of unpacking at the house. My brother showed up around 430 and we all chatted. Then we had some of the best pizza. OH MAN! IT WAS SOOOOOO GOOD! This is the stuff that I have missed! Yummy yummy yummy! I stuffed myself as well because my dad also cooked up some Medium rare steak…..yummy.
After that I set up my computer and sent out emails. Around 930pm, I crashed out and fell asleep. Goodnite.it was super long.