Planes, Trains and Automobiles. And Buses. And Feet.

Ironically, while I was writing this post, which concerns the many inconvenciences of my passage from the airport to the school, all my progress was lost. Which was an inconvenience.

I don't really feel like working hard and writing everything a second time, so I think I'll be lazy by trying to summarize everything in snapshots.

After the easy passage through Dulles and the great flight I had, I guess the world felt I'd had it too good.

I got off the plane and my contact wasn't there.

Maybe she's further along? And everyone's going that way anyway...

Time? 3:32. My flight was scheduled to arrive eight minutes later. I missed her because I was early.

Maybe she'll pass through this space, holding my name board for some reason, and I'll see her amongst the hundreds of people.

That was stupid, I shouldn't have waited for 20 minutes. That was really stupid.

At this point, I have estimated my carry-on luggage weighs a total of 35 pounds, spread between a backpack and a large should bag, which is trying to remove my arm very slowly.

I moved on to a large area with even more people in it, in complete chaos. Which line? Which desk? Why doesn't this payphone work? Why can't I connect to this wi-fi?

I think it would be really smart to stand around for another 10 minutes, see if I can figure this out....

Nope! Can't figure it out. But maybe this guy speaks English.

He does!

I borrowed the man's phone, called my contact, Amanda, and handed the phone back to the guy because I could barely understand what she was saying. Her English was great, but she couldn't make heads or tails of what I was describing when I tried to tell her where I was.

And he handed it to his daughter, who spoke Chinese into the phone for a few minutes in case Amanda understood that better.

Eventually we reached some understanding, and the man said I should get to Amanda in about 30 minutes, I just had to go through immigrations and baggage check

What a liar! It's been 45 minutes and we're still in line at immigration. That line was slower than any line at any convention I've been too. Well, except maybe Otakon 2013 pre-reg. But that was just longer.

Finally made it to the immigration officer, but she has decided that the passport photo I took in December doesn't look like me, and she needs my driver's license and a superiour officer to make sure I'm me.

On to baggage claims. I mean, on to the train to baggage claims.

In PEK Airport, there is a desk where you are told which carosel your bag is on,  but there's only one person maning it. And she's occupied with the long-winded senile Chinese lady who has chicken-scratch notes instead of a boarding pass. I'm fairly certain, given the lenght of their discussion, that old lady had enough to say to write fill her own blog post. Exasperated, I finally present my boarding ticket and  the person at the desk tells me where to find my bag. Hey, Old Lady, What's so hard about that?!

It's kind of amazing to me that I had the presence of mind to notice the currecny exchange, and change $100 into about 600 Yuan. I felt better once I had some usable currency in my pocket.

And now that I had my wheeled suitcase, I could use it to carry my shoulder bag!

And now I've found Amanda!

From here, the journey became way easier. Erica, the other student from America, and I followed Amanda to the bus, which took about 2 hours to get to the train station. The ride was a welcome respite after the hell-ish 2+ hours in the airport, especially since I was finally relived of my luggage for a while.

I got some sleep during the bus ride, but I didn't want to rest too much in case I started onto the wrong sleep pattern. Fortunately, very random firework displays helped me stay awake.

I mean, very random. I swear there was at least one in the middle of the street, and another so close to a building, I'm surprised they didn't break a window. And these weren't kiddy sparklers either; they were short range star-rockets.

I guess I fell asleep for a bit, inspite of my efforts and fireworks, because the clock kept jumping forward until we arrived at the train station. Amanda presented our tickets and passports, and the three of us ran to catch the train in time.

Amazingly, the train did not have accomodations for luggage, so it was rather ackward fitting the volume of 3 humans, plus many cubic feet of Erica's and my bags into the 3 train seats.

This high volume became a problem again when we got off the train and into a taxi, but we managed to fit all three of us and some luggae across the backseat. It was a cramped, thankfully short ride to the school. I got a bit worried when the cab driver answered his phone, and started checking his WeChat voice messages while driving, but Amanda assured me this was normal.

Finally, at ~9:30 PM, 6 harrowing hours after landing, I walked through the East Gate, at the Shijiazhuang Foriegn Language School. Now, all I need is a map of the school, a schedule of my classes, some details on my classes, a towel so I can take a shower, Dinner, water and some sleep. Oh, but I do have Wi-Fi!