Getting to China

I finally have a free chance to jot some things down, so I decided to go ahead and do just that. Last I checked in I was in San Fran and after a hurried dash across the airport, which I had no idea had a whole other terminal I lost my good folio but caught my plane. On my flight from Pit to San Fran, I had to buy my drinks and a can of Coke was $2, go US Airways. Air China on the other hand to Beijing gave me all the food and drinks I wanted, and actually poured a lot of wine down my throat. Long story short, I had a great flight through which I slept a lot. No one sat next to me for four seats, so I actually got to lay down the whole time.

When I arrived in Beijing, it was a bit crazy being in a foreign airport but I found my way around no problem. As I was waiting at my gate, the guy at the podium made some sort of announcement in Chinese, of which I only understood the word for 'phone.' At hat point there was a bit of a brew ha ha and everyone took out their cell phones and made calls. I didn't really have a cell phone that made calls, so I just put my head down again and read. I didn't notice that there was no one around me anymore until there was almost literally no one and some Chinese girl came up to me and asked, "You don't speak Chinese, do you?"

Thankfully, she informed me that my flight to Dalian was cancelled. She was a student in a Canadian university and spoke English pretty well. She served as my translator for the guy at the podium who told me that they would bus me to a hotel with all of the other passengers for the night and bus us back in the morning for our flight.

I won't go over the details but long story short, I spent a night in a nice hotel, got some free meals and had incredible culture shock. They gave me some Yuan the next morning (for what I had no idea) and I somehow got my company in China in the know about picking me up in the morning, though I had no idea what time I was getting to Dalian. I made it to Dalian and the girl, whose name I don't remember was vital to my trip. I have no idea what I would have done had she not been there.

Anywho, I arrived in Dalian at about 8AM on Sunday to be greeted by one of the two people I had been e-mailing in China. It was nice finally putting a face to her name. In fact it was very nice putting a face to a name seeing as how she is smoking hot. So I spent the day being escorted by a very attractive and feisty Chinese woman. I was taken to my apartment, got money exchanged, went grocery shopping, etc.

I will post pictures of my Japanese style apartment, as well as other hot spots of Dalian when I get my camera back from the office. I love this city, and am getting used to this country. The other teachers in the program are pretty good too. There is an older guy here from the Mon Valley, which is weird. I don't want to get into the other people in the program on the public internets seeing as how anyone can read this, including them. If you're interested, send me an IM and I'll dish the dirt on the lot of them.

Well, this blog post is super long and not very exciting, I'll get better at this I hope. Cheers!

Dangerous business going out your front door...

With my big black boots and an old suitcase
I do believe Ill find myself a new place
I don't want to be the bad guy
I don't want to do your sleepwalk dance anymore
I just want to see some palm trees
Go and try and shake away this disease - Everclear

This is a quick first post. I thank Liz right now for the In the Beginning post, what an entrance. Currently, I am stealing electricity from the San Francisco International Airport to power my laptop.

I can't write too much other than welcome to the adventure. I hope this blog works to keep everyone I know as updated as possible about the China experiment. As all of you should know, I don't...Internet, so I will try to make this whole blog thing better as I go on. In the meantime, I have to catch a flight heading into Beijing, I'll keep you posted. Cheers!

In the beginning.

Miles was once a simple man. A simple man who loved lacy cravats, Sunchips and Bob Wildauer. Miles was a simple man, until he left for China. In order to stay in touch with the world of Pecan Sandies and Porkys, Miles enlisted the help of his good friend and APO Big, Liz Hudson, to create and maintain a blog of his adventures in "Asia-Land."

Over the next few months (or maybe even years) Miles and Liz will attempt to keep this updated with stories of his adventures on the other side of the world.

So while you may miss his laugh, his curly mustache or his late night cravings for greasy pepperoni pizza from Porkys, you won't have to miss his wit.

The adventure begins August 22.