Journey to China

The limo arrived at 9am Thursday morning, with us and all 6 of our suitcases and 3 of our carry ons loaded into it and on

the road at 9:30.  Once we got rid of our massive amounts of luggage the airport was much less stressful.

Oh man you guys, United updated their business class seats and they are STUPIDLY NICE.  Check out my own personal entertainment console:



That's right, I have my own TV, and not one but two shelves for all of my stuff!   Also the seats totally recline like a bed, which was nice because I actually managed to get 3 hours of sleep on the plane.  I also watched Crazy Stupid Love (Is Steve Carrell ever not depressing?) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two.

The plane food was actually surprising edibl


e as well.  I had salad, bread, smoked salmon, weird pomegranate chicken, cous cous and pea pods.  All in all it was a very enjoyable 13 hour flight.  Also do you ever wonder what the North Pole looks like?  Because it is about like this:



Once we landed it was time to go through immigration, which was a 40 minute line.  I would have taken some awesome pictures in here but I was totally not allowed to.  Things of note: The line we were in was labeled "Foreigners" in big neon letters, and once I got up to the desk there was a little machine where I could rate my immigration officer's performance.  Big Giant Happy Face for "Very Happy", Normal Happy Face for "Happy", Neutral face for "Satisfied" and Crazy Angry X-eyed Face for "Unhappy"  I picked the Big Giant Happy Face and we were on our way to baggage claim. Where I found my first taste of Chinese Christmas decoration:



Then we were met by Angela (lots of Chinese business people take English names), who works for my dad's company and is going to be our guide for a large part of the trip because she speaks very good English.    And her 4 year old son, Andy.   Andy was crazy excited to meet us.  He was bouncing up and down and shouting "ANDY ANDY ANDY".  Which was all good fun but we were being funneled into a queue for an elevator to take us to the parking level and the swarm of people around us was NOT PLEASED.

Next it was time to get in the car to drive to Shijiazhuang.  Which was supposed to take 4 hours.  L. O. L.  We got in the car and were in some CRAZY Beijing traffic for an hour.  You think you have been in crazy traffic?  HA  Trying being in 6 lane traffic where the lanes are mere suggestions, there are cyclists, scooterists and pedestrians IN THE LANES and there are guys with crazy rickshaws that have like 12 dead pigs stacked on their handlebars.

Angela decided that it would be best if we took a detour in Beijing to get out of traffic and stop and get some food.  So we did that.



I looked at the menu and had absolutely idea what anything was.  I saw a lot of things labeled "pig intestines" and something called "black tree fungus".   Angela ordered some things, which turned out to be what you see above. The first course was that green stuff that you see Angela eating.  I believe they were shaved bamboo shoots in some sort of broth.  It was a lot like celery, with some spicy broth.  It was pretty tasty.  That broth with brown noodles is some super delicious duck soup. I had several helpings of this.  The broth was like liquified delicious duck.   Oh and that black and white stuff? That's the black tree fungus.  Yes, I ate it.  It wasn't that bad.  Kinda just like slimy mushroom pods.  I don't know that I would willingly eat more.  But it didn't make me gag or anything.

So then we got back in the car.  FOR 7 1/2 HOURS.  By the end the driver was actually falling asleep at the wheel and drifting over the lines.  Angela made him pull over and get a coke at a crazy sketchy rest stop at one point.  Then we pulled into Shijiazhuang.  Which though it has more people than Chicago, it doesn't have the same feeling as a large city.   This part was scary.  The driver took some sort of a detour through a street that wasn't actually a street, we had to drive zig zag so as not to fall into the HOLES in the street.  There were also little dog house sized things that appear to be huts for homeless people.   There were no street lights.  And then we pulled back onto the main street and got to our hotel, miraculously.

The main desk had lost our reservation, even though my dad has been staying at the hotel and made the reservation in person.   But it was worked out and we were directed to our rooms.  Where after being up for over 24 hours, we went to sleep pretty much immediately.   So expect pictures and reviews of the hotel later.