My flight over to Beijing was alright. I sat a seat away from a Chinese man who loved eating those ginseng candies. So during the entire flight he popped in at least 3. I had to endure with that for a bit.
Surprisingly enough, by the time the plane started to move and take off, I was already passed out from the lack of sleep packing till 3am. My strategy was complete. Stretching out in tshirt, sweats, and flip flops, I dozed in and out of sleep, enough to watch the comedy channel and eat all the meals. Continental did a decent job with the food. The steak of course wasn't exactly anywhere near prime, but they did warm my heart with a snack of hagaan daz ice cream. The 13 hr flight felt like it was 7 instead, and I had a piece of eye candy 2 rows ahead in the middle section. During times, it felt like there was an excessive amount of human gas floating around my area, which was a little awful. Then again, when I first walked on board, it smelled like urine.
Later on when arriving at the beijing airport, I talked to that piece of eye candy since I let him and his friend cut in line to save from going all the way to the back. Turned out he was going to be a high school senior, and he was going to spend 2 weeks here to help out at the orphanage. Eye candy no more, it just felt like I was some pedophile. Or maybe not since he seemed a little gay as well. He gave me a little hug though, awww. Enough about that.
The guy who came to pick me up at the airport worked at the youth hostel. After dropping off my bags into the trunk of the car, I realized that the car was a little old. Somewhere along the lines I thought about how I should've also learned to drive stick. When he drove up a curve of the parking lot, the car gave a quick silent death and he restarted the engine again. Sign number one. Along the highway (where a good portion was renovated and had no traffic lines so cars zipped in and out) I realized how the car was moving slower than the others. Finally the guy pulled over to the side to see what's wrong, and after a few good tries, many of which he pressed the reverse and the gas i suppose and the car suddenly moved backward and went kaput, he called a cab for me to send me to the hostel first and said he'll bring my luggage later. I took my carryon for safekeeping and the taxi driver asked me in mandarin where I was from. So I replied the US in bad chinese. Then he went into a slew of mandarin and I just got lost from there. He looked at me and in the end gave up.
When we finally arrived at the destination, the taxi couldn't go any further. There were tons of road construction along the hutong road the hostel was on, and I had no idea which way to go. Of course I pick the wrong direction, and dragged my carryon a good 5 minutes through all the construction work only to find that it was just on the other side of the taxi if I only walked that way. >.> I had laughed earlier about someone's comment on paved roads, but I only realized then how it was a necessity. It was 3pm by then, and I had no idea what to do for the rest of my day, except for a real need of a nail clipper from a broken nail. I met Will from Wales, then Katherine from Canada, and 2 others from Scotland staying in the room.
To shorten things up, I went with Katherine to Carrefour, which is a nice spiffy place to get some drinks, then headed out with Will for a dinner. I had no idea what I was really ordering except 2 lamb shish kebabs, edamame, and beer. My first meal in Beijing I gotta love knowing beer in every language. I wanted some beef, so i pointed on the menu to the only beef dish out there that i could find the word beef. Turned out to be a tofu, beef, parlsey gumbo which turned out to be my meal. I somehow also ordered a leg of lamb, which I was too full to eat. Poor thing, slaughtered and spiced without even being being eaten. Even after paying the whole dinner, it was only $3, well 23 rmb. Man, and Will only had about 28rmb to last 3 days. That's crazy.
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