Welcome to the China

I arrived in Dongguan City, China last night after 26 hours of traveling. Let me break that down for you:

Drive to Manchester airport: 1 hour
With all the rain and flooding we've been having, I wasn't sure if the roads were going to be safe to use (many areas in MA and NH had washed out sections of road). Turned out to be no problems.

Connecting flight to Chicago: 1 hour waiting + 2.5 hours in flight

Chicago to Hong Kong: 1.5 hours waiting + 16.5 hours in flight.This is the big one, so better settle in and get comfy. I had a window seat, which I prefer for a couple of reasons. Many people who prefer aisle seats justify that with some version of the idea that "I don't have to crawl over anyone to get up and out of my seat." Well, I look at it a little differently. If you do have the aisle seat, the person next to you is going to be crawling over you to get up - whenever and however they want. At least if you are in the window seat, you are the one who gets to choose when and how. Couple that with the view, and the window seat is a double winner in my book. Of course, on this particular flight, I had the worst case scenario. There was a woman sitting next to me who reclined the seat, raised the legrest, and slept the entire flight. And the person in front of her also had their seat reclined all the way. So every time I got up, I had to jump over and hope that I didn't land on her by accident. And it was too cloudy on the approach, so I even missed out on having a nice view.

Ferry from Hong Kong into China: 45 minutes waiting + 2 hours on the boat
The flight got in about 40 minutes behind schedule, which made the connection with the ferry a close call. With a mere 15 minutes to spare, I bought my ticket and headed to the bus transfer area to get taken to the ferry dock. I was the only Westerner on the ferry (out of maybe 200 people). I can tell my Mandarin is getting better - this time I was able to recognize a few words here and there when they make the announcements on board. Even still, it sounded something like this to me: "Ahda fjdalk djaf fjfa jfdkaewi vakld gnjdj toilet jfa mzcad maw mfdal fjalw jfdka newspaper mfda ewjal fjalf fjd fjslfa weus a dsafl Thank you." Now that's progress! This trip took extra long due to weather conditions. Oh, what's that? There's a typhoon that is going to hit tomorrow? Huh, that would have been nice to know ahead of time (more on this later).

Drive from Humen Ferry station to Hotel in Dongguan City: 45 minutes
Finally at the hotel, I could try and get a good night's rest. Everyone seems to have a different approach for how to best adjust to the time change. I have always managed to handle this pretty well. Here's what works for me.
Rule 1: As soon as you get to the airport, mentally make the time switch. This sets you in the right frame of mind from the get go.
Rule 2: Sleep as little as possible on the flight over. No sleeping at all on the second half of the flight. Stay awake!

Fortunately for me, I have difficulty falling asleep if I'm not lying flat, so this is not terribly difficult. The idea is that when you land (which is always in the evening), you will be very tired. The sun goes down a couple of hours later and your body knows that it is time to sleep. So far, I have always been able to sleep the very first night (after last night's 6 hours, I'm 3 for 3). By the next morning, I am well adjusted and good to go for the week.

The 7am wakeup call came quickly. I woke up and made the phonecall I've been training myself for since my last trip here. You see, no matter which hotel I have stayed at in the past, there seemed to be the same communication difficulty when it came to one thing - getting an iron brought to my hotel room. The first time I asked for one, I got a funny look and the squinty eyes. I tried charades, but still no luck. "You want aiyyyaaaaan??? Ohhhh... Ummmmm.. So sorry, please wait one moment" Eventually, they understood "iron" but told me to leave my clothes with the laundry service. No! I want to iron it myself. *Funny look* I want to use the iron! After 3 such incidents, I had made up my mind to learn how to ask for an iron in Mandarin. And now, the moment I had prepared myself for was upon me. I picked up the phone and dialed housekeeping.

"If it is not too much trouble, can you bring me an iron?" I threw out in Mandarin. "Oh, you want an iron? Afjkd fja hfakf jfkauw uwnc shir a fjaow f fasl fsjeah fjd. Afja ewaod fjadlw f fjlsa f afkruwofv dfjdho fjsaoweur."

Shoot! I knew something like this was going to happen. I just said "Okay" a bunch of times hoping that that was a good answer. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. Aaawwwwww yeeeeeeaahhhhhh! There was my iron. It was a proud moment for me. I took it and filled the reservoir with water. Of course, it started leaking all over me and the floor. Next time, I guess I am going to have to learn how to ask for an iron without a crack in the side.

Nice! Too bad this iron was on crack...

Lunch today was Chinese fast food chain Kung Fu, who advertises that "Steamed is good for the health." For about $2.30 you can get a bowl of steamed rice with some stewed beef or pork over it, along with a side of steamed lettuce. Honestly, steamed lettuce kind of weirds me out, but they flavor it with soy sauce and some oil so it actually tastes pretty good. We also tried this thing which is sticky rice filled with some unknown orange thing, wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed. The orange thing turned out to be an egg yolk of sorts. It wasn't very good.

I'm sure Bruce would be proud

Sing with me - Everybody was Kung-Fu eating...

Before I go to bed (hey, it is midnight here!), I just wanted to let Hollis know that we are not in any real danger from Typhoon Chanchu. We are getting brushed by the western side of it right now, but it doesn't seem to be anything more than a little rain here. The track takes it east of us, so I think we're in the clear. Time for night-night!