Oh my goodness, the adventures begin!

Woah...what a start! First things first, how bout you meet the cast for the next year of my life? We've got The Scotts- Flannery and Andy, who happen to be my closest neighbors and live upstairs; Christine Jones, who goes by Jones and will be called that from now on; Katie Derner; Lilia Glubisz, err....however you spell that; and my SAI sisters Becky Hanson and Stephanie Araoz. You'll probably hear about some special guests like Lory, our CCNU contact in the International Affairs Office, and our "landlord" but those are the seven that you'll probably hear about the most until I find a life away from my English home.

ANYWAY! Let's get this travel stuff on the road! So the eight of us show up to O'Hare the two hours early that you're supposed to, and JAL informs us that we have no tickets waiting for us as had been promised. Luckily Lilia had the presence of mind to call Dr. Moline's office at Augie and his secretary actually managed to straighten everything out for us! It was CLOSE - as in the tickets were delivered to us at 10:30 a.m. and our plane was boarding at 11:05, BUT WE MADE IT! I was trying not to appear nervous, but let me say, that it was a little bit stressful (to say the least). My sister Michelle informed me that the program seemed as disorganized as I am... I told her that's why we fit together so well!

Lilia and I were seated in the second deck of the plane - with the row of three booked just for us two! Not that this was big news as the plane was rather empty and the people around us had at LEAST one seat inbetween if not the whole row to themselves! Lucky kids! Anyway, we where in that very first row, which had some advantages such as extra leg room and an adjustable movie screen, but it was also right in front of the bathroom and the armrests didn't move like the other armrests. Oh well, it was fun! I had trouble sleeping (as usual) but I did manage to sleep for a little while. There was a kid who was going into his junior year as Juanita College (in Penn) that was in the room next to us who was going to spend the year studing at a University who was QUITE talkative (or...antsy depending on how you're looking at it) and he helped make the time pass quickly. For some reason I can handle the thirteen hour Tokyo flight better than some of the shorter flights, but maybe that's because I expect it to take FOREVER and then all of a sudden it's over! OH and the best thing about JAL is their "original drink" Skytime! If you're ever on a JAL flight, I HIGHLY recommend it!

The flight was rather turbulent, but it didn't bother me that much, and we arrived safely in Tokyo around 2:15 pm Tokyo time. We had a three hour layover, which left plenty of time to buy some Hi-Chews, Milk Candy, and Aquarius (a little shout out to the Asian term kids who know what I'm talking about!) While we were waiting Brian from Michigan joined us and told us about how he was going to Xi'an to teach either in grade school or in high school. We chatted for a little while, but mainly he just listened the the eight of us talking to each other - we've got a pretty good chemistry so far! I think it helps that all of us have been to China (except for Andy, who's married to the best Chinese speaker we've got on the trip, so he doesn't need to worry much) and we were just ready to get on the plane and GET THERE already. Shortly before we were going to board Jones and I were headed towards the Ladies room when an olderish man stops me and asks me if he could "ask me a serious question," to which I said sure..cautiously. He asked me if I knew who Jennie Johnson was, and I said yes I did (thinking he meant the Jennie I know from Augie) and he told me she was a personal friend...which i found odd but wasn't gonna mention. Then he starts mentioning some greek letters, and I realize he means the Jennie Johnson who is the national president of SAI! I was like OH OH yes, I know who that is! I was wearing a Sigma Alpha Iota shirt on the plane and he just had to ask when I was walking by. And he asked about what we were all doing and such and wished us the best of luck and told me that he was going to tell Jennie that he met three nice SAI girls in Tokyo on their way to teach in China! It's an oddly small world isn't it?

Anyway, on the short little three hour trip from Tokyo to China, the plane was practically empty, and I was FINALLY able to sleep because I could just lounge out over two seats! It was stellar, and the trip was SOOOO short cause we were all exhausted and passed out as soon as the plane was airborn. I woke up when the dinner was being served, and let me warn you kids, the Moonfish is nothing to write home about. Actually, it was just awful. Regardless, I sleep the majority of the time, was the last person off the plane due to the fact that I didn't realize the plane had landed, and was able to get through airport security with all of my luggage in tow. (By the way, we were all very lucky and none of the luggage was lost!) When we passed through customs, Lory from CCNU was waiting for us.

Lory told us that we would be spending the night at a close airport hotel because we would be FLYING the rest of the way to Wuhan the next day. While this is a nice short flight and that's great...we were all under the impression that we would be taking the overnight train and felt less restricted weight-wise since JAL allows nearly 140 pound of luggage a piece while China Airlines allow 20 kg, or 44 pounds per person. Lory suggested we cash some travelers checks to RBM so that we could pay the overweight price the next day.... That took a little time but it wasn't so bad. We all moved to the basement level to be picked up and after a short wait went to the airport hotel and checked in for the night.

Lilia and I shared a room, and we tried for almost an hour to make a long distance call to home and connect the computer to the wireless nextwork so that we could at least let everyone know that we were here safe! We finally gave up and called the front desk who told us to go to the front dest at 11pm to make our call. We did and boy howdy was that an expensive call! 10 RBM a minute! That's roughly $1.25 a minute! Mine was really short as my mom didn't answer the phone, and I was EXHAUSTED, so it was nice that I had already showered and was ready for bed as soon as the calls were made. The bed was as hard as a rock, but I slept like a baby and got about 8 hours of sleep before I woke up, then about 2 more before the alarm rang! And right now I'm still really tired (not quite adjusted yet...) so I'm going to write more tomorrow! Have a great day!

La_Noodle