It’s about 10:15p.m. In China. I hate all of the clocks here because they are on military time, and I don’t know how to use them as well as a normal clock. My day started at 6:30a.m. In the United States, technically it’s between two days, but that doesn’t matter. At 6:45 we had to be at school. We came early because my family is the type that is typically late, and this time we didn’t want to take any chances. Our teachers wanted us to get to the airport early. I stayed up really late the night before, so it was hard for me to stay awake. I had a bagel and a smoothie for breakfast. The smoothie was huge! It didn’t really matter that it was really big because it was also really good. After waiting a couple of hours, finally at about 11:40 we boarded the plane. It was the biggest and smallest plane that I have ever been on! It was the biggest plane that I have ever been on because there were two seats on the right and left, and five seats in the middle of the coach section. First class had these nice chair-like beds. Unfortunately, it was also tight. There was practically no space. They started movies almost as soon as we took off, probably because everybody had their own personal TV in the chair in front of them. I watched about half of Dear John, while making a bracelet for my cousin. Then, they gave us lunch. I had beef and noodles, it was ok. My brother kept getting up and moving around; when he did that I’d put down his tray table, and sleep on that. At first he was ok with it, but later he had a problem with me. Apparently, the tray was on top of his legs, and when I was on top of it too his legs got smashed. To me, it was so comfortable. I slept in between his tray and mine. I put my pillow on top of the two trays to cover the crack, and my head went in the space from the two seats in front of me. After a while of his complaining I moved. Luckily for me I brought an inflatable pillow. I slept on the bottom half/his shoulder area, while he slept on the top half of my pillow/top of my head. I felt like every time I woke up they would be giving us more, and more food. The only problem with them giving us all of the food was that it kept getting worse and worse. I had WARM yogurt! We landed around 3:00p.m. Local time, which is 4:00a.m. In the United States.
When we got off of the plane I was feeling really dizzy. It was really hot in the airport too. I told Mrs.Greenswag and Mr.Shagrin that it felt like the room was spinning. We were standing in line at the customs/quarantine section. Then it was my turn, right before I walked up I told Megan that I was either going to get sick or faint. Once I gave the lady my passport I felt even worse. Mrs. Greenswag asked if I was ok, but I couldn’t answer, it felt like part of me was floating up. The next thing I knew I was on the floor. Ms. T had my feet and Mr. Shagrin had my head. Luckily, the people still let me go through. Mr. Shagrin made me drink some water, and a chocolate cliff bar that was melted and got everywhere.
We got to this crazy hotel, the rooms were two stories. I got the top half and Megan had the bottom. We ate dinner at the hotel. They had this fruit that kind of tasted like a fruit tart. I also ate something that was most likely a piece of vertebrae. After dinner we went to Wangfujing street. There was a lot of stuff, but I didn’t see anything that I liked except a terra cotta warrior for my brother. It was my fist haggling experience. I was really nervous, but it was kind of fun.
China feels like a dream. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been awake for so long, or because everywhere I go it is both very different and the same. It’s different because everywhere I go there are glowing neon signs, and the buildings are a little different. The city is a city though. What I found weird was that on one side of the street there could be a brand new beautiful building, but on the other there could be a shack-like building with bricks falling about of it.
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