Shanghai China Day 1

Today was my first full day back in Korea after my too-short trip to China.

Frankly before going, I wasn't all that excited about going to China. I've never really been that interested in going, but now, having gone, I'd like to go back. Besides, everything is so cheap that why not?

Anyways, to recount my time:

Friday: I left school early and took the bus to the airport. Got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Me and another guy on my team were on the same flight. Our flight was about 20 minutes earlier than almost everyone else in our group who had gotten a group ticket booked. So, we went through security after agreeing to meet near the baggage claim at Shanghai's Pudong Airport. The flight was just under three hours, which Mike and I spent talking about a whole slew of things. We arrived at the airport, and went through security without any hassle. Mike bought some bourbon at the duty-free shop, and we sat down by the immigration counters and waited for our friends. After checking the boards we saw that two different flights from seoul/incheon (in addition to our own) had landed. We figured the one after ours had to be the right flight, so we waited and waited. Still no friends. After continuing to wait nearly an hour, we were severely confused. Where are our friends? Did they collectively miss the flight? HOW? We finally asked someone at an information booth (which was incredibly difficult to find, by the way), and then we discovered that there were in fact two terminals, each with domestic and international flights, which is completely counter-intuitive and annoying. We had figured that they had left, but went to terminal two to try to figure out. There was no sign of our team so a woman helped us get into a taxi which took us to our hotel.

Now, at the hotel, the Jinjiang Inn, there was a nice gentleman who spoke only a very little English. We indicated that we were with the Korean frisbee team and would like to check-in to our rooms. The clerk kindly asked us for the password. "Password?" I asked, "I don't have a password." He looked bewildered as he asked incredulously, "you don't have a password?" Now hopefully my frisbee team hadn't already checked in and left Mike and I stranded by making up a password that I didn't know. "KUPA" I said hopefully, thinking maybe they had chosen the name of our ultimate association. The clerk just looked at me in disbelief.

We asked to call a contact we had at the Shanghai tournament. Upon calling, I said to him, "the front desk clerk is asking for a password." The TD replied, "Password? What password? Just say Korean frisbee" which we had already done twice. He asked to speak to the desk clerk. They spoke in Chinese for a short time and he was put back on the phone with me. "Password? I thought you said password! Sorry. Just give them your password and you'll be fine." Wait, excuse me? Did I misunderstand? Is this gentleman telling me to give them the password that I already told him I don't have? What the hell? "I don't have a password." I reply calmly. "YOU DON'T HAVE A PASSWORD?" he asks in shock. At this point I began to wonder if I had mysteriously entered some kind of fourth dimension of three stooges whose on first routine. "No, I don't have a password, how can I get my room?" I ask nervously. "Well, if you don't have your password, you'll have to go to the police station." he said. "THE POLICE STATION??" I practically yell into the receiver. Mike, in the

background says, "who is at the police station??!" The man on the other end says in confusion, "yes, I don't know how you got to China without a passport." Wait, what? passport? I have a passport. Sure, of course I have a passport. I finally realize that initially the desk clerk HAD said password, but then after speaking with the TD realized his error. However, I wasn't expecting anything about a passport, and there was a substantial bit of background noise at the registration party, so I didn't know he had said, passport everytime thereafter. So, I sheepishly gave my passport to the clerk and we got our keys almost immediately. And that was that.

Welcome to China.

Friday night I went and got some food at a restaurant. We had fried rice, beef dumplings (mandoo as it's called here), and some kind of spicy noodle soup that had an egg dropped in. It was good, and super cheap. Enough food for even the hungriest of us at about 2 USD a head.

Went to a convenience store and found hello kitty lip gloss which I promptly bought. Went back to the hotel with Turbo, my roomie, and passed out. We had an early morning ahead. Story for tomorrow to come.

Notes about my Korean life these days:
1. Both my school which won't turn on the a/c until exams which are a month off and my apartment which has the shittiest a/c ever (it is currently blowing hot air in spite of the fact that it is set to 18 degrees celsius) My body is in physical pain right now over this.
2. This weekend I am going to try to see bigbang.
3. this weekend i am getting a new tattoo.

xoxo

A