I took this picture while up in the air… I was leaving Seattle!

While waiting in the wonderful airport in Seattle, I frantically ate my last “American” meal, called all my loved ones about 200 more times… What can I say? I’m really going to miss these people! Then waited until I got to get on the plane to do one of my biggest fears… I was going to do this all alone, besides having my Pooh Bear with me! He’s like my little security blanket/ a little piece of home. He’s been all around the US, but this was his first time out of the country (when I went to Europe he was replaced by a much smaller one… I didn’t want to lose the special one!)

Anyway, now that I have embarrassed myself, lets talk about what I saw at the airport! Imagine a backwards “L” shape, I’m sitting in the corner and a 40 something year old Chinese woman is sitting in the long part of the backwards “L” shape, but really there are two seats in between us, which is just enough room for a little Indian girl. This little girl was so adorable! She would point out the window and would just say, “Plane! Plane! We ride on that plane!” she would then smile and giggle a little. This went on until the Chinese woman started asking her all sorts of questions; which entailed of, questions that any three year old should know. The Chinese woman then went on to touch her hair! I was expecting the girls parents to RUN over and take their daughter away! So, did they? Of course not! They saw nothing wrong with this at all! It was so strange, being in America still and having a stranger touch your daughters hair, interact with her, and tell her how beautiful she is I couldn’t believe that this was happening right in front of me and the parents were fine with it! That’s when I started talking to the little girl. Before we got on the plane, she ended up snatching up my phone, almost sitting on my lap, watching “rhymes” on YouTube and playing Angry Birds.

The plane ride wasn’t bad at all! I upgraded myself to sitting in a seat that reclined 25% more and had two more inches of legroom, that happened to be the best idea I’ve ever had! The flight was a total of 10 hours long, I slept for 6 of it, and then the other 4 I spent watching movies and I tried talking to the guy who was sitting next to me. This was the my first encounter of a language barrier. When I got off the plane, I immediately began to sweat; what I don’t know is if it was from being glad I just got out of a metal box, that it was HOT EVEN WHEN THE SUN WAS DOWN!!!!, or if I was nervous about my suitcase making it and how was I going to find Sara?

I made it through customs, got my bag, and found Sara all under an hour! We got into the Taxi, that’s what should have made me the most scared, but really I was too busy looking out the window and asking WAY more questions than I should have! The sky wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen before, but because of the “wonderful” layer of smog in the air and all the light pollution, the night sky looked like it was a brown color. Sara then said that it was going to rain later that night; being from Oregon, I wasn’t really looking forward to MORE rain, but I knew how to be in the rain and not melt! The thing that shocked me the most; besides all the skyscrapers, on every city block (there’s are like 4 of ours… no joke!) you could go without seeing a fast food restaurant!

Once we made it to the hotel, traffic made the trip longer than it should have and it was 11:30 PM! I got to meet Master Liming Yue in the lobby, say goodbye to Sara for now, and meet my roommate Courtney, oh and I guess finally go to sleep! I wish I could say that when my head hit the pillow I got a restful eight hours, but sadly I only got about three. I wasn’t used to the boards they call a mattress or the overly fluffy pillows. I then turned my trusty friend Mr.Kindle. I was in the process of reading, “Pretty Woman Spitting”, it’s about a woman who spends a year teaching English at a University in a rural area of China. She talks about the squatty potty and how it’s almost best to wait until you get back to the hotel, how not to eat anything off the street– the venders, learn some of the language, and to just enjoy all the sites China has to offer.

The book that gave be insight to China before arriving.

Well, I guess I should get some sleep before we start our adventures! Good Night!