The Plot Thickens

   And so, with our plane leaving without us, and no way to phone home, Kristel and I had to figure out what to do by ourselves. Stuck in a massive airport on the other side of the world, with no one in sight who could speak English, needless to say, we were going to have a very hard time finding our way to Linyi. After we heard the news about our flight, we decided to go to a little cafe to get a long deserved bite to eat. As we ate, we went over all of our options. After a while, we managed to narrow it down to either getting on a train and finding our way to Linyi ourselves, or getting a hotel and waiting for the next flight which was at 8pm the next night. Sticking around for the next flight would me we would have to wait nearly 24 hours for the plane, so in the end, we decided that a ten hour train ride was the more preferable of the two options. Unfortunately for us, when we asked a worker who was selling train tickets in our terminal, we were informed that the next train to Linyi wouldn't leave until 8pm the next night, the exact same time as the plane. Suddenly when comparing a 10 hour train ride and a 1 hour flight, the train didn't seem like such a good option anymore. And so, with that, we decided that a hotel and then another plane ride would be the best thing to do.

   After our meal, we started to head downstairs to the hotel information desk, but we were stopped halfway by a man in a nice, blue suit who asked very nicely, (and in very broken English,) if we needed a hotel room. It seemed like perfect timing, so we told him about our situation and he immediately started blabbing away about his hotel. It seemed nice enough from the pamphlet he gave us and it even came with a free bus ride back to the airport. It sounded perfect! That is, until he started talking prices. 680 yuan for a double bed hotel room! That's over 100 US dollars! There was no way we could afford that, even split between us! We tried to tell him no, but he wouldn't leave us alone. "I'll give you a discount, 580 yuan for the room." Too high. "How is 480 yuan for the room?" Still too high. "Here is a good price, 380 yuan for the room." We talked about it for a minute. 380 yuan is a bit pricey, but at nearly half the cost, we figured it was probably worth it. Besides, we were way too exhausted to go through the trouble of finding something else.
 
   After we worked out the details, he rushed off to call the bus that would pick us up and take us to the hotel. He wasn't gone for long when he rushed back and led us outside. Around a corner, into a parking lot, and then over to a...car? "Where's the bus?" I asked, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. "It cannot come, I will take you to the hotel myself." I couldn't help but notice that he was getting increasingly nervous and fidgety. He opened the trunk, grabbed our belongings, and unceremoniously tossed them inside. I looked over to Kristel to see if she felt as uncomfortable as I did, but she didn't seem very phased by our situation, and before I could say anything to her, she boldly stepped forward and climbed into the vehicle. At this point, I didn't see that I had any other choice but to follow. The first thought that came to my mind as the man drove was of course, "Are we going to be kidnapped?" The man drove horribly fast down the city streets. Swerving in and out of cars and honking at anyone in his way; I couldn't escape the horrible feeling that something bad was about to happen to us. I could tell that Kristel was starting to get worried as well, but there was nothing we could do now. The five minutes we were in his car seemed like an eternity, but soon they had passed and we found ourselves parked in front of an old, creaky building in the middle of Beijing.

Stuck in Beijing

 

At three in the morning on February the 26th, my adventure to China finally started. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone, but I would only be gone for three months, and this was going to be my adventure of a lifetime. My original flight plan was going to take Kristel (my companion from William Carey) and me from New Orleans, to Chicago, and then from there on to Beijing China. But of course, as luck would have it, our flight was cancelled, and we were rescheduled to take a few other flights. Our new plan would take us to Denver Colorado, and then to San Fransisco before we finally flew on to Beijing. Kristel I think was a little upset, especially since it would give us less time in each place to get to our next plane, but I was perfectly ok with the change of planes. After all, San Fransisco happens to be the home of my very favorite detective, Monk, as well as the future home of Starfleet headquarters. And yes, I do realize that I'm so horribly nerdy, but that doesn't matter, what does matter is the fact that the new schedule pushed up our flight to Beijing by several hours, so that meant our layover from Beijing to Linyi would only be one hour. I was excited at first since we wouldn't have to wait as long for our last flight, but little did I know how much trouble a one hour layover at an international airport could be.

   Our flights to Colorado and California went by without much excitement, and soon were were on our half a day flight to Beijing. Let me tell you, that was the most awesome plane I've ever been on. Each seat had a pillow, a blanket, and a little tv with several new American movies. Kristel and I sat on different rows so I ended up next to a young Chinese guy. He seemed to be about my age, but he was already working on getting his PhD, (unlike myself with my measly two years of college under my belt.) His English was pretty good, so we had a pretty long chat before the plane took off. He asked me where we were going, but when I told him the name of the town, he looked completely lost. After several more attempts, I finally had to spell it out, and he said, "Ah, Linyi!" And I said, "Yea, that's what I said!" He then took the liberty of informing me that my pronunciation was terribly wrong. Let's just say, I still have a long way to go on my journey to learn Chinese. On our way to China we flew over parts of Canada, Alaska, and Russia. Looking down and seeing the beautiful landscape made me want to jump right out of the plane and go explore it all.
 
   Madness ensued when we finally landed in Beijing. Our next flight started boarding at 8 P.M. an we didn't land until 7:15! We got through immigration easily enough, and it wasn't hard to find our bags, but after that we were at a completely loss at what to do next! There weren't many people who knew English, so it took us a long time to find someone who could give us directions. Time was quickly ticking away and we weren't even in the right terminal! It was 8:00 when we finally figured out which terminal we were supposed to go to, and to make things worse, we had to endure a 20 minute bus ride across town just to get there. It was a long time after boarding when we finally found our way to the check-in desk, and the plane was very nearly ready to depart. "Maybe we can still make it onto the plane!" Kristel said, optimistically. But when it was finally our turn to talk to the receptionist and ask if there was any way we could still get on, she looked at us and said those few words that no traveler wants to hear, "You're too late." And so, with that, we found ourselves stuck in Beijing.