Sleepless in Seattle

When I have free time and I feel lazy, I've been spending a lot of it watching movies that I've been meaning to watch/want to watch. (There is a difference). Sleepless in Seattle fell into the been meaning to watch category (along with Love actually, when harry met sally, the notebook, and love and basketball. You've probly noticed that they're all the same genre of movie…which is because I think I've seen all the "classics"—and by classics, I mean the movies that I heard are good haha—In most of the other genres, so if anybody has any suggestions, do suggest.)

Anyways, I don't know what made Sleepless in Seattle such a "classic", but I was soo disappointed. I found it incredibly creepy. For those who haven't seen it, its basically Meg Ryan in Chicago (I think) and she hears this guy (Tom Hanks) on this radio show about how much he loved and misses his late wife. Before Meg Ryan (I forgot her character's name that's how bad this movie was) hears this guy on the radio, she is happily engaged to this guy, and really excited to marry him, but then after hearing tom hanks, she starts to feel as if she's making a mistake because she should be with the radio guy. Sooo nutty meg ryan, who's a reporter, makes up an excuse to go to seattle to find tom hanks, finds his home, goes to his home, sees that hes leaving on a boat, follows him by car, and spies on them from afar. She almost gets hit by a truck staring at them, and also writes a letter to tom hanks' (OH her name was annie!)kid telling him to meet her on the empire state building on v-day b/c shes going to be in nyc w/her fiancé…wth?! The movie ends in the typical love story fashion, where they end up seeing each other on the empire state building and falling in love...HOW is this a classic?

The ending was too abrupt. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan spend like at most 10 minutes seeing/talking each other (this is really unproportional b/c meg ryan watches hanks from afar for like hours, which reminds me of Malcolm from she's the man when he sings…"I see you from your window, when im standing on a tree ouuuttsidddee". Hahahah CREEPER). Btws, speaking as somebody quite skilled at stalking, she is quite a pro at it.

AND The movie was too creepy. I mean aside from the stalking and following, Tom hanks sees meg ryan at the airport in seattle and randomly on the street in seattle…and then to see her again in NYC? On the empire state building? And they just both happen to be there? I mean really?! Seriously, his first thought should have been, what are you doing, trying to kidnap my son?

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In the time after watching this, I watched love actually (omg I love hugh grant, he is still hilarious.) and when harry met sally (meg ryan again. She kind of grows on you.). Both were pretty good, but I was really surprised by when harry met sally because I heard that billy crystal was in it and well, he's kind of ewww. Haha. I think it was the first billy crystal movie ive seen, and it was actually really funny.

World cup!

Several days ago, I would have said that I havent watched nearly as much world cup as I would like to have, but it just honestly hasn't been that interesting...at least the group competitions weren't that exciting...until the last match of the group play for South Africa. Terrence told me that south africa had to beat france by 4 and mexico-uruguay can't end in a tie (altho it might actually be uruguay has to win by 2) for them to make it to the 2nd round...BUT if mexico-uruguay ended in a tie, both of them advance to the 2nd round. BUT if mexico wins the game, they don't have to play argentina in the next round...to make it more exciting, bafana bafana was up 2-0 vs. france at halftime!
When Terrence told me this, all i could think about was a game matrix and if it would be in mexico's best interest to try and collaborate w/uruguay and try to tie the game to avoid possibly losing or if it would be better to be aggressive and avoid argentina... ><

Now tho, with the refs being so horrible, i've lost a lot of interest. I understand why you don't want instant replay (and I hate how they have it for basketball too for stupid little things like whose ball it is because it's not uncommon for the ball to have gone off of one player but the replay to show that it went off of that player because he got fouled. Plus. For basketball, I feel like if you don't get the ball back even tho you should have, if you're the better team, you should be able to stop them one more time. Ball doesn't lie. If you can't, you don't deserve to win. Simple as that.). anyways, back to soccer. It's ridiculous how fifa doesn't have replay. The final score to a game could be 1-0, so one goal changes the game. It changes how you play (germany-england. England wouldn't have had to attack so much if it had been tied—so less vulnerable to counter attacks). You don't have to have instant replay and let coaches challenge plays, but make it like hockey where somebody just watches the net (like somebody in the upstairs booth who has access to replay) and if it goes in, they hit a button that sends a vibration to the head ref (which is what happens with offsides calls—pretty cool huh?). and if the goal is offsides by 3 yards (cough. Argentina), they can buzz the head ref and tell him because there's enough time between the goal and restarting to check.

Im not sure how to fix things like that mali ref's call because that's just the equiv of somebody getting paid to throw the game. I don't think theres anyway to fix that, which sucks because there's no point in playing if youre gonna cheat. I have never been so outraged at the conclusion of a game that I watched than after the US-Slovenia game and I wasn't even watching with other US fans (to make it worse the coach of Slovenia didn't even admit that they should have lost. I would have if I were a coach.). hahaha at least afterwards, there was a lot of commentary…the funniest of which being: From twitter via deadspin: I haven't seen an African rob an American like that since I gave that man from Nigeria my bank account information.

The US-Algeria game could have ended as badly as the Slovenia game, and I was going to quit watching the world cup if Donovan hadn't scored that goal in the 91^st minute. I think that was the most intense soccer game ive ever watched (on tv. East playoff games were def more intense). Just around the 90 min mark, I had the exact same feeling that I had during the US-Canada hockey gold medal game where we were down 1 and there were only a few minutes left in the game. I had a feeling that we were gonna pull a miracle because we had played too well and too hard to lose in regulation...the game couldn't possibly end like that…and what do you know, Zach Parise scored with 24 seconds to tie the game and Donovan scored in the 91^st minute (I thnik it was 90 sec into the 3 min extra time)to tie. Omg I was so excited that I screamed. At midnight. Jiuma woke up. (she was gonna have to pee around that time anyways).

Joon hates how the us team plays, but I love it. they go all out and don't flop like cristiano ronaldo (who actually is amazing at soccer when he's not flopping…). Sad to see their run over…check out this picture that I edited—as in I compiled 3 pictures of mine into 1 and not off the internet. =DDD (the US coach is Pton '80)
Tim Howard (ninja goalie--10 points if you know what that's referencing...), Michael Bradley (game tying goal vs. Slovenia), Landon Donovan (GW vs. Algeria)

I think the only games ive watched in full were Portugal-Cote d'ivoir, and the USA-Slovenia game (got up at 3:30 and saw only the 2^nd half of US-Ghana). How pathetic. I've been watching a lot of bits and pieces of all the games (aside from the 2:30 games), and I saw this New Zealand defender who looked JUST like will ferrell. I saw him stop the ball and turn on the end line and I was like OMG. WTH IS WILL FERRELL DOING PLAYING SOCCER!?....doesnt it look like him?? It's actually Tony Lochhead

Which one is Will Ferrell?!

I think im now gonna start cheering for argentina b/c I like messi and I want to see him win a world cup and annoy his coach.

I hate you Chinese 305/306.

For some reason, 鸡肉串儿(jirouchuar)has been one of my favorite things to eat since the first time I came to China. I don't know why because it's just chicken with some seasoning on a stick…and it's not like you couldn't make it yourself, but it's great street food.

I got really excited the other day because I saw that there are like 5 people/places behind my uncle's house which make them at night for dinner, and I had wanted to buy one, but as I got closer and see the shiskebobs on their grill which looked like it was made only to cook such things, the only thing I could think about was the lesson from Chinese class about how the author was walking in the street at night and saw these vendors collecting the used sticks off the ground to reuse…

I really wanted to eat a jirouchuar, so I decided to ask my aunt and uncle about it during a car ride, believing that they would just tell me that almost never happens and that it was just meant to entertain…nope. They were like yea im sure that happens all the time...that's not even bad, I mean at least it sat over the fire for a long time…-_-. AND Apparently, years ago, the sticks were made of metal…as in it was from a bicycle spoke…

Thanks for ruining it for me Chih-ping Chou.

Best part of China (Yashow part I)

5 years ago, the best part of china was even awesomer because the conversion rate was $1 = 8 yuan, but now it's just $1 = 6.85 yuan. It makes a big difference. 100 yuan is now $15, not $12.5. It adds up. But still, going to Yashow is still worth it. Xiaojiu and Jiuma took me today and there were both good and bad parts to not going with my parents.

The good is my mom wasn't there, so 1. I didn't have to spend time looking at random crap my mom would want to buy and 2. I didn't have to fight with my mom about who my dad was going to help bargain for next hahaha.

The bad: 1. my dad wasn't there to bargain for me, which I guess was ok because it saved a lot of time because my dad would bargain forever and if we didn't get the price, we would "fake leave" and if they didn't yell for us to come back, then we'd have to go on to the next stand, and usually they didn't agree because my dad would aim for a ridiculously low price and only after trying (and failing) to get the price at 4 other stands would we go back to the first one and pay the lowest price that they had offered (which is partly why we'd spend 5-6 hours there). and 2. my mom wasn't there to keep us there for 5 hours and my uncle and aunt only lasted 2 hours (although we didn't have to spend 3 hours bargaining).

Anyways, in the two hours there, I bought 4 pairs of nikes (100—victor's, 110—I don't know why I bought these, seriously. They just looked hilariously awesome haha), and 2 for 260—kobe's and Princeton shoes haha), a belt (20), and a D&G jacket (100). Yes that's right 4 pairs of nikes for a TOTAL of $70. =D I think that's how much my high school basketball shoes cost...$64.99 + tax + gas to the nike outlet in Smithfield. The best part is that I didn't feel bad at all about spending 590 yuan in one day because I decided last week that I was going to not take the taxi from the subway stop to my office everyday, saving me 10 yuan each trip (20 yuan each day) and about 800 yuan for the summer. I still have 200 yuan to spend!

Hahaha one of my other favorite parts of Yashow is when you see the horrible attempts at fakes. Like this one…except this is sooo off that it makes me wonder if its supposed to be a different brand…ha doubt it. the best part is that there's a real adidas store literally right next to yashow…hahah

I’m Chinese(-American) (Yashow part II)

When I'm in China, I'm really glad that people price you on how you look, especially when I go to shopping at the flea market. Even tho my grammar sounds horrible, and people know im not from china the second I start speaking full complex sentences, I look Chinese so I get the "Chinese" price offered to me instead of the I'm from America and must be filthy rich price. =D. hahah yeeessss (or is ^_^ more appropriate here?...)

I went to the Yashow market (seriously what a horrible pinyin spelling) on Monday with my aunt and uncle and before we left, I saw this jacket that I wanted. (haha it's labeled as D&G too) So I walked up by myself, looked at it and the vendor came up and this is pretty much what happened.

Vendor: do you want it?

Me: how much is it?

Vendor: 320.

I turned and walked off immediately.

Vendor: (shouting) what if I reduce the price?!

I walk back. how much?

Vendor: 150.

Roll my eyes and I leave again w/o a word.

Vendor: 100!

At 100, I decided to buy it. I was quite happy with it b/c my dad always said to try and get 30% of what they offer it for, but looking back, I'm disappointed in how quickly I settled for 100. I should have tried to get 80 b/c she offered 100 which meant that she had to have been making enough of a profit to yell 100.
hahah i also asked her if it was waterproof and she immediately said yes. i think she would have said yes to anything...i wish i had had my water bottle with me so i could pour some water on it...

Anyways, im trying on this jacket (that's an XXL haha) and this European lookin lady walks by, starts pulling on the jacket by the sleeve (while im still wearing it) says, I want this jacket. (And by this, she meant I want the one she's wearing. Seriously.) I think she thought I was modeling it for people passing by because she was like what size is this? How much is it? hahaha for some reason I didn't say anything. I don't know why. In my head I was thinking 100, but I didn't feel like saying anything (prob b/c I was annoyed that she was pulling on my arm like I was modeling it for them like I worked there). Anyways, the lady helping me looks at her, eyes her up, sees the scarf around her neck and says 500 in a tone of it's 500 and that's my lowest offer. Hahahahaha. I almost laughed out loud about it haha. Glad I didn't b/c im pretty sure she wouldn't have sold me that jacket haha.

I kind of hope she paid 500 for it because when the crazy European lady asked what size it was, I didn't know so I tried helping them find the tag while I was wearing it, but failed(it's about the size of a dime and like 6 inches below your neck). The vendor who had got it for me told this lady and the vendor helping her XXL at least 4 times. Apparently it wasn't good enough for them because 2 minutes later, the two of them proceeded to grab me by the back of the collar, and TOGETHER, they pulled me backwards (like my head was tilted backwards and my back was curved backwards) to check the size...hahah can you imagine this happening at any normal store?

I really wanted to stay to hear how much she ended up paying because I'm pretty sure she was going to buy it regardless.

I'm quite proud of my ability to seem indifferent to all products during this trip.

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Hahaha I doubt this happens, but when we got to Yashow and parked on the side of the road, this lady came up and my uncle was like, how much is parking? Parking lady: 5 yuan an hour

my aunt and uncle: whattt?? That much?! Why don't we just pay 5 total?

Lady in charge: Not possible, you could come back late at night.

Jiuma: Def not. We'll be here for only a couple hours at most. How about you just make it 5 and then when a foreigner comes, tell them 20. Hahahhahahaha

(I think we paid 10) hahah

I love princeton…

For it's VPN network. Funny how the only times I feel really glad that I go to Princeton are all related to Firestone (the other is when I look up a random book from a source and firestone has it!). (for those who don't know, VPN is a virtual private network and makes it seem like im using the internet from the US =D )

Without the VPN, I wouldn't be able to use Pandora, gmail (apparently it's only occasionally), this blog, gchat(it seems like google really has left China), twitter (not that I had an account), foursquare (apparently it just got blocked this month apparently because a bunch of ppl used twitter to organize a mass tiananmen square check in on june 4^th (for the ignorant like me before I took HIS 325 ><)… facebook, youtube, pictures of tank man, etc etc. (im actually kind of afraid to put that link up b/c what if the govt some how could see thru this

Im really confused about how I was able to be online in the first place and have ivy tell me about the VPN because she told me thru gchat. Guess I got lucky =D muwahahahah

 

Dragon boat Festival (duanwujie)

I didn't understand the point of the holiday until just now [thanks Wikipedia. Read it, seriously could make a highly entertaining movie b/c its so ridiculous. So I know the only people who would click on that link are probly my parents and maybe sumin but she's already Wikipedia, so nobody b/c my parents know about the holiday, so im gonna tell you. Basically. Respected Chinese scholar gets accused of bad stuff, gets exiled, drowns himself after writing bitter poems. Townspeople try to save him b/c they think he's a righteous man, fail, and bam. Dragon boat festival. Oh wait, it gets better. (there's no such thing as a short Chinese story. Well it's all relative I guess.) in honor of dead scholar, townspeople throw cooked rice in river in honor until fisherman has a dream. A dream that white fish and black fish could someday stop eating the rice that was meant for the poor dead scholar. Sooo the locals decided to make zongzis instead (heavy packed down rice wrapped w/bamboo leaves) and throw that in…

2^nd version—hungry fish were eating the dead guy and townspeople decide to throw zongzis in to feed the fish…] yay brackets! Haha

Before then, all I knew is that you eat zongzi and it's like the first day of spring in that it's never on the same day (that's how the 1^st day of spring works right?...)anyways, because it was on Wed this year and the government actually supports capitalism and consumer spending, people work Sat and Sun and Mon, Tues, and Wed is a holiday. If it was Thursday, you'd get Thurs, Fri + weekend.

I had an actual Chinese meat zongzi and it was incredibly disappointing. I mean I never really liked them to start off with because I thought the rice tasted funny, but the first and only time I ever had a zongzi was when Jack n Jeff's mom made one for us and it was filled with meat…the one in china had a dinky little piece of meat in huge thing of packed rice…-_-.

Anyways, I'm kind of sad that it's over because seriously, it was the most perfectly timed holiday ever. Game 5 was 9 am Monday morning. Game 6 was Wed at 830 am. Game 7 is Friday morning at 830? I have a feeling it's going to be an unproductive Friday…although I might actually get to work on time (*gasp* or even early to) watch the game online…

Haircut!

One of the first things I did when I got to china was get a haircut b/c I learned that I had to work on Saturday (more about this later) and my mom insisted (via skype) that I get a haircut and look presentable for my first day of work. If you don't know, the current conversion rate is 1 dollar = 6.85 yuan. (used to be 8…-_-)

My mom's translated discussion with my aunt (who I call jiu ma)

Mom: is that haircutting place near your home still there? Can you take anna there and get her hair cut? She just wants ot make sure that it's still long enough to put up (I didn't know how to explain this in Chinese so my mom was making sure somebody who'd be able to explain it to the haircutter would understand). How much was it again? Like 7 yuan?

Jiuma: Oh, we don't go there anymore. We go to a different place that's better.

Mom: How much does that place cost?

Jiuma: 48 yuan.

Mom: Oh no, it's ok, take her to the other one.

Jiuma: No, it's not a big deal. This place is better

Mom: No really, just take her to the cheaper place.

Jiuma: no really, it's not a big deal. You can mail me the money if you want tho haha.

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Jiuma took me to the nice place haha. When I walked in, I was thinking 1. whats the difference btwn this place and the other? It looks the same and 2. Uhg somebody was smoking in here just now

When I sat down in the chair and leaned back to get my hairwashed in the basin tho, I thought Ahhh where is that horrible toilet smell coming from!??! Omggg ITS RIGHT NEXT TO ME. I SEE THE HOLE IN THE GROUND. ommggg this place is gonna suck…to make it worse, as im laying in the chair getting my hair washed, this other worker goes into the bathroom, comes out and STICKS HER HAND IN MY BASIN AND RINSES OFF HER HAND. OMMMGG I WAS ABOUT TO FLIP. I just wanted to cut my head off for the minute before I realized that the lady hadn't finished washing my hair and was going to shampoo my hair and then washed it again because otherwise I don't know what I would have done…(other than take a shower IMMEDIATELY after I got back haha). Plus I was also disturbed by the fact that she stuck her hand in for like half a second and considered it washed. Ewwww

But in the end, many thanks to my jiuma! I think this is the first time im actually satisfied with my haircut after I get it cut. Usually I hate how it looks after I get it cut AND it took forever. This one took 20 min to cut and I liked it.

Thanks mom. Glad you didn't come to china with me. 真的吗？舍不得给你的女儿花$7剪头发。钱迷。

Although this reminds me. the haircutter told me that b/c I have too much hair, I need to tang it (I think straightened?) instead of getting it thinned…cept its bad for your hair and idk how long it'd last for…suggestions/Comments?

EDIT: my mom claims that she didn't say 7 yuan. probly true. my grandma said 5, but my mom said something close to 15 b/c i remember she was willing to spend about 2 bucks for my haircut (i converted from the good ole days of 8 yuan to a dollar).

Loonnnggg flight = lonngggg post

Wed June 9^{th /} Thursday june 10^th –arrive in Beijing

It's not like I wasn't looking forward to going to China, but I was so not ready to leave home. Everybody just got home and I had to leave two days later. I wish I could have just stayed home all summer and bummed around, hung out and played basketball but I know that people would have been buisy later through the summer and not there. But still I wish I had at least another week.

I went to bed around 4 am, knowing full well that I had to get up around 7 to leave for the airport at 730 am for a 930 flight. I woke up and felt like complete shit, zonked out on the flight to Detroit (actually this is a lie. I got really lucky and woke up JUST as they were doing snacks and so I got a biscoff cookie! Ahh I love delta. It was a package of two huge biscoff cookies. I was planning on asking for another one when I got off but then I was like ehh w/e ill get one on the next flight….NOT. they didn't have any on either of the two flights =( )…anyways I felt like I just slept poorly the night before at the Detroit airport. I had a 4 hour layover so I spent the first hour walking the length of the terminal, which was actually like a 20 min walk one way. (like 40 gates one way).

I got back to my gate like 3 hours before the flight and waited in line to try and change my seat for the flight to Narita, only to hear after standing for 40 min that they weren't changing seats. Then two min after, Dad calls me and says, anna I changed your seat to the front row for nartia and to the emergency row for nartia to beijing. Hahaha at first I was kind of annoyed b/c I had wanted my own tv on the plane instead of watching the big screen, but once I got on the plane, I was really glad later b/c it was a crappy ass old plane with a drop down screen and projection thing that didn't have your personal tv in the head rest. AND the leg room in the other seats were TINY. Not that the leg room for my seat was as big as I had imagined it would be for the first row, but it was way better than the other rows. Thanks dad!

 

The flight to narita to beijng was horrible because of the lack of tv. I didn't watch any tv b/c I was sitting so close and b/c the movies they showed on their fuzzy screen were also HORRIBLE. Dear john? Really?? Tooth fairy? Ommggg. I don't even know what the others were. I thnik the best thing they showed was BBC's nature documentary which was interesting because of the horrible ugliness of the fish haha. I spent the majority of the flight napping for 20-30 min before my neck jerked and I'd wake up, try to read an SI story that I had torn out and then pass out. It was really hard sleeping on the plane b/c I had to be super conseientious of my SI joint/posture when I selpt. I feel like that wasn't possible but I put a pillow behind my back to help as much as possible. About halfway through my ride, I finally realized that I needed to actually get up and walk around, which I did and by the time I got to the back of the plane, I realized that it was a great opportunity to stretch. Haha so I stood in the back of the plane and spent like half hour stretching my quad, hamstring, calves, gluteus medius, hip flexor. I did this at least three times. By the end of it I actually felt pretty good. I somehow managed to not have to pee on the plane during the entire trip. Hahah I needed to chug like 4 liters of water when I got to my uncles/the day after before my pee finally was a normal color again. hmm haven't decided if im gonna do that again on the way back. Concern for my health > Fear of tiny public toilets? We'll find out in 10 weeks.

 

I love how you can talk to random people on your flight and it's not weird and they're usually very willing to talk because there's nothing else to do on the plane (particularly this one) except talk to people and pass time. I met this woman who was coming from visiting home in Alabama for a few weeks and going to japan because her husband worked there so she was actually going back to her home. She was really nice and told me about how she took French in college but now she needed Japanese but still managed b/c there are tons of army bases so as long as you're nearby you can get by w/english. Anyways, she had the MOST ADORABLE son ever. Seriously THE cutest little boy ever. His face reminded me of the toddler in The Incredibles

 

The other person I remember on the flight to Narita was John, this average white guy from Boston who sat next to me. He went to Umass-Amhearst for UG and Grade school and just got his Masters in entomology and was planning on getting his Ph D to become a professor. During the flight he read thru this packet of articles that was like 1.5 inches thick. So impressive, esp since it was like all about ticks…hahah He was planning on spending $500 total on his entire trip to china—including travel, food, lodging. Which sounded ridiculously hard b/c they were gonna be here for 12 days and also go to shanghai, until he told me that he and his two other friends got both their tickets for free because they were visiting a friend who worked in China nad flew back to the US a lot and had tons of frequent flyer miles and got them all free tickets and the ticket to Shanghai was only $40 by train (or maybe it was 40 yuan) and then they were staying w/a friend in beijing and at a hostel for $20 a night in shanghai. (I think it was $). Anyways, me and john stuck together for the trip to Beijing. Once we got off the plane at Narita we went and explored the Narita airport and found the lounge with all the chairs. I had remembered that they were comfy massage ilke chairs, but when we got there, it was horribly disappointing b/c they were not that comfortable. I had planned on napping there but instead we left after a few minutes. Our seats weren't close together on the flight from narita but I met up with him again after and we went through customs and then to baggage claim together, which made it a lot less nerve wracking because I was afraid xiaojiu wouldn't be there when I got there and I would have no way of contacting him.

 

I also talked to the flight attendants. The first one I talked to told me that the crew splits into groups and each gets a 3 hour break during the 13 hour flight. Towards the end of the flight, I was thinking about how much it would suck to make this flight multiple times a year...so I asked the other flight attendant what their schedule was like and he said that he had 19 hours before he had to make the trip back….WTF. I needed like a day to recover from this, so I was like, there HAS to be some incentive to be a flight attendant…right? Like free flights? Nope! It's not like they can pick and be like I want to work the flight from Detroit to narita and then from narita to san Francisco 4 days later because it's on the company time. Apparently back in the day, there used to be like 4 days of layover (like the return flight narita-detroit would be 4 days later), so they would have 4 days to explore the city…well now you have 19 hours to explore the city you're in…what are you waiting for??? BETTER GET STARTED

 

The last person I talked to was on the Narita-Beijing flight before it took off b/c I literally passed out moments after it started moving (I think I was out before it even got off the ground…something about moving vehicles just makes me sleepy…). He was this Chinese kid who went to boarding school in Michigan (I didn't know that Michigan even had boarding schools…), and I don't remember what I even talked to him about, I just remember that he was completely out too when I was awoken by the loud asian flight attendant who was going around with the meal cart. Not only did she wake me up, but she shook the guy next to me pretty roughly to wake him up and ask him if he wanted chicken or pork…he said no, and fell immediately back to sleep and made me realize that I actually wanted to sleep instead of the chicken. Anyways, first significant differences between asian and American airports/airplane service. On the flight from Detroit, manned by Americans, they didn't wake anybody up. They made an announcement and said if you want a meal, please put your tray down. If you were sleeping, you were skipped, but you could go get food from them later. The other difference I noticed was that they are slow as hell and inefficient in America. It took at least several minutes for them to prep the airplane and let us get off from RDU to Detroit (smaller plane too), only a few minutes in narita for the line to start moving, and like seconds for the plane in Beijing. Asians are more efficient. So what's new?

 

Friday June 11     

I adjusted to the time difference in one day. (I got to my uncles house at midnight, went to sleep at 2 am, woke up at 5, forced myself back to sleep, woke up at 630, and only managed another half hour, so I got up had a snack and napped from 8-9, and woke up just in time to watch game 4 of the NBA finals. Life is good haha). Im quite proud haha esp since I slept the entire flight from Narita to Beijing that was 3.5 hours long and was worried that i'd have a messed up sched.

i am tall! finally!

i decided to make this a blog so i could write about whatever random stuff came to mind from china because an email chain would make me feel like i was writing a journal.

i'm quite proud of this blog name haha. i couldnt think of a blog name that wasn't taken and all the suggestions kept adding my gmail account to my suggestions and finally i was like OMG. my gmail is so not necessary in china becuase I AM TALL. so tall that i tower over the old people and can see the (and easily over) tops of moms and some dads! hahah i feel like im 5' 9!