Just a lot of ramblings

I'm not sure why I am surprised by anything...but I am. I get back to school after my trip to Hong Kong (which sucked initially and became awesome quickly) and the head director of the primary school hands me this pamphlet of admissions. I look at him and ask "Am I applying for school now, what’s this?" He said it’s our new brochure for incoming students. I open it and my eyes widen when I see my face (really bad picture) along with a few other teachers inside the brochure. The head teacher says "your picture is the best". That’s not saying much, but it was kind of true. Judge for yourself. I thought the pic was for the hallway board of "Look at all the shit we do in our class" type thing. No, it’s a damn official publication for public viewing. Whatever...

Hong Kong, the short story...got on a plane in Shanghai, then had to change planes 3 more times (1st plane = landing gear no good, 2nd plane = the cabin door wouldn't stay closed, I'm not even joking, 3rd plane = no clue what the problem was, but we landed in some small city call Jinjaing about hour away from Hong Kong . Waited for 2 hours until they got us a “good” plane) I finally get to Shenzhen (my border running town) and the damn plane lands in a field 30 mins from the airport. (we can’t get taxied to a freaking gate after all our troubles…) It was pitch black and we had to exit the plane on some sort of makeshift scaffolding stairwell-esque type contraption (taking ghetto to another level) We board buses to take us to the airport. I’m thinking that I’m a hostage at this point and who would actually pay money to get me back. I laughed out loud to myself while looking around at all my fellow hostages/flight-mates. No one would pay for any of us. I get to the hostel and thank them for letting me check in WELL AFTER check in time. I go to my room and my roommate is a lovely girl from Beijing named Wang Di aka Wendy. I tell her I’m from Shanghai and explain my lil adventure of how a 2hr flight became a 6hr hostage situation to her and she patiently listens to me bitch and complain. She happily replies by telling me that we should go to Hong Kong together and that we will have a lot of fun. (Asians are so positive and upbeat sometimes) She’s planned a whole day of things to do. I tell her ok and we talk all night about all her traveling and people she’s met and her living in San Diego a few years. I really need to start traveling more. I know that I sound like an asshole with the France thing just around the bend, but there are soooo many places to see. Anyway, at some point we have another person that wants to go to Hong Kong with us. His name is Lin and he insisted on speaking Chinese to me (his English was just fine) because he said I “looked like I understood”. I told him I speak very little “he yidian dian”. We get up at 6am and return at 12am. Wendy is in her last year of university studying hospitality. The girl knows what up. I spent 200RMB ($30USD) We hit up all free sample shops and free showings of everything. We covered more ground than I did my last visit. All Hong Kong new territories were visited. We took a ferry ride, saw fireworks, and visited a mall on the highest peak of Hong Kong…and so on. I was dead tired when we got back. My flight was early the next morning. (No extended stays this time round, I have to work) Lessons learned this trip: NEVER TAKE CHINA EASTERN…YOU WILL DIE AND/OR NEVER ARRIVE, OR END UP IN A FIELD IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE.

Please enjoy a few photos of Anne’s adventures