Landed

The jet lag is hitting me hard this time, more than ever before on the million and one trips from a U.S. time zone to an Asian time zone. So, I'm up at 3 a.m. (again) trying to tire myself into sleep at the right time. Either that or I'll have to take up a night job. But it will pass. Perhaps it was the absolutely mind boggling trip that it took to get here. Worst than a circa 1980's flight to the East. Delay, upon delay, upon delay in Chicago, canceled and rescheduled trip, more delays at airport the next day, then 3 hours on the tarmac, a missed connection in Beijing, 2 hours waiting for a bus at the Beijing airport, only to be shuttled in a teeny little bus with suitcases piled high to a random hotel, eat mediocre hotel buffet, sigh, a bath, 3 more hours, back to the airport to catch an early (and final) connection and to beg the miffed Air China check in person NOT to charge me for my 3 enormously large suitcases (upwards of $400) because it should have been a seamless transfer the night before, he didn't in the end, I was stubborn and tired there was no way this goat was gonna bend. Anyway, I arrived. I'm here. The rest is a distant memory, though with all the packing and itemizing, planning and running about, I wonder if maybe that's why my mind isn't resting yet!

S had us sorted in our temporary new digs at the Somerset Residence until we get into our much anticipated new awesome home overlooking the Jialing River. Yeah, I love saying that new awesome home overlooking the Jialing River and it's not the last time. Overlooking a river is always a good thing. S had a not dissimilar epic trip here, with 3 massive suitcases as well, 2 carry ons, landing in Chongqing late and finding out that they had not booked our residence for him on Sept. 21st, but rather some person had written 10-21 instead of 9-21, um, oops?! More like thump you over the head with a heavy suitcase! So, poor guy, everything else was booked up in Chongqing for a few days (that he would have liked to stay at in any case) and he ended up in a random hotel where they didn't speak much English and well, his Mandarin isn't really there, yet, plus with an British accent to boot, it was a struggle. This part is rather funny. After the fact.

Our room is on the 23rd floor and we have a great view of downtown Chongqing (Jiefangbei), you can hear the commotion from Golden Week all the way up here! This is one of two week-long national Chinese holidays implemented in 2000 to improve (and congest) domestic travel so people can visit their families. Needless to say, I am LUCKY I got another connection to Chongqing the next morning of my missed flight as with 1.3 billion people plus another who knows how many (probably over a million from what I've heard) expats living here and travelling then too it could have been very messy. With 3 monstrous bags, 2 heavy carry ons, and little ol' moi dragging em up and down and all around, it wasn't pretty but I did it with a somewhat resigned smile. A good mess is always a little funny. I met some great people along the way. The guy I mentioned before who designs collectors items toys from Squibbles Ink., then another great guy from Iceland who is a former pilot and now trains many of the Chinese pilots, and then a whole slew of people on a China tour from Virginia who got stranded in Beijing with me. People from the South (that is considered the South, yes?) are lovely, so polite, interested, funny, sweet, flawless. We had nice conversations to ease the frustrations. I hope they made it to Hong Kong, their intended original destination after a canceled Chicago flight, herded onto our Beijing flight, stranded overnight, and then I have no idea what happened....

The one thing I wanted to do immediately upon getting a little settled in was to go grocery shopping. Since S was still nursing a cold, we went for the local store right by our residence and I'm now itching to get a freshly killed chicken (right before your eyes in the grocery store so you know it's been done right there and then). Some may squirm, but if you do, ask yourself how you can eat a chicken if you can't experience it's expiration date? Shrink wrapped chicken breast is not my thing, so this could be a good culinary endeavor. The only question I have is whether it's a chicken jacked up on hormones but that's another story for another time. I'll figure it out. I avoid Purdue like the plague and as my husband pointed out, these chickens were probably in a more decent environment before leaving this planet than most of those Purdue chickens, stacked up high in crates, too fat to walk so you can have those ginormous chicken breasts shrink wrapped for you in the cooler section of a giant supermarket. Ah! Yes, I had to go there.

We're off to Shanghai today to get our resident permit and we'll be back in Chongqing when that is done, could be a week, could be two. At this point, I'm flowin' like the Jialing River I'll be soon overlooking from our awesome new apartment :)