Now, I’ve been in china for three months. But, I haven’t been keeping a blog like this until right now. First post you'll show me some love. I suppose it's a matter of gestation, needing some time to ferment everything. After all China is A. Massive, and B. Hectic, everything is in a swirl of movement, takes some time to think through what you're seeing.
So now we're going to do some back up story, I came here in January, exactly on American New Years. An auspicious beginning if there ever was one. The flight to China didn't go exactly as planned, for whatever in life ever goes exactly as planned. I arrived in Shanghai after an 11 hours flight at midnight, looking like an ill-tempered zombie I'm sure. An hour of time was used to pass through customs and dear lord put that visa that I struggled over to good use, AND to collect my boulders of luggage. By the time this was all done it was well past midnight, then, I was to catch a bus outside of the airport and ride it to a hotel close by, where I would graciously be provided a room for the night. That's right my first night in China and I was being treated to a fancy hotel room, this was definitely the right choice. Oh by the way they weren't providing me a hotel JUST to be nice, my flight from America had been delayed eight freaking hours, way later than the time I was supposed to arrive in Shanghai, this made me obviously miss the connecting flight to Nanjing where I would have met the family. So the airline put me up for the night no strings attached. Then I would catch the flight to Nanjing the next day and be on my merry way to the hopefully wonderful arms of my host family. Along the way, ASC is always by my side, working with me and texting me throughout all of this, keeping spirits high and making sure I didn't lapse into a sleep deprived coma. From the very beginning, ASC has been a pillar of strength and support, thanks ASC.
I also want to mention, I got to haggle my first night in China. That's right, getting super friendly with the locals. Since I arrived so late, the bus that was supposed to take me to the hotel, had conveniently stopped running, great knowing this, there was a bevy of taxi drivers around, spotting a chance to make a few RMB off of us airport cattle. Us needing some ways to get to our hotels so late in the evening, they knew we would need them too. Eventually I caught on, there was definitely no bus around, and after watching my fellow nighttime flight mates slowly disappearing of with these drivers, so, the driver and I got our cross cultural communication going, he quickly explained that yes the bus is long gone, and that he would drive me to the hotel. This is where I prove that I'm definitely not the brightest bulb in the room. I asked how much it would cost to get to the hotel, he explained that it's really close by, only 10 RMB. To my exhausted brain and no logic whatsoever, I told him I wanted to pay less, he kindly told me, "no" and that concluded my career as a hotshot businessman. I also want to point out that his car was parked, through a maze of bushes and barbed wire. To me this gave an impression of, dear lord am I going to be kidnapped? I wasn't kidnapped by the way, he was a nice guy, I wish I had made friends with him and snagged his Wechat. We made it to the hotel and I quickly made best friends with the bed instead. Thus ending my day and a half journey from America to China. This was my first experience in China. I got to have a fancy hotel room to myself, complete with a TV and instant coffee. Things were looking up, by midnight the next day I would meet the family, ASC and get started on this whole, Au pair thing. That's it, tune in next time for more thrilling descriptions of life in China.
