The Arrival

Well it is officially the end of day one, or two, or three, depending on how you look at it. I'm still not totally sure what day it is. My watch says May 15th, but somewhere across the international date line I never saw yesterday. And speaking of watches, I forgot to pack my good running watch before I left the states. I remembered Tuesday before I left so I ran and picked up a $7 Wal-mart special thinking that it just has to last me a few weeks. Turns out it only lasted 6 hours. The stupid thing didn't even make it out of the DFW airport before it just flickered out. Luckily once I got here my friend M_ and I went and picked up another one (which also cost $7, so a fair trade I guess). The flight over wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered. The flight from L.A. to Hong Kong was still 14 1/2 hours but my travel agent is a genius and got me a seat at the back of the plane. I discovered that on the last 3 rows of a Boeing 747 there are only 2 chairs on the row next to the window instead of the normal 3. They stagger the chairs and this means that there is a good foot and a half gap between the window seats and the side of the airplane. Because I was on the next to last row I could stretch out my legs for the entire flight. So, other than not being able to talk to anyone for 14 hours, the guy next to me didn't speak English, I can't really complain. I got to catch 3 movies: The Bucket List, The Golden Compass, and Dan in Real Life. The first and last one were good, the middle one... not so much. A few flights later and I found myself at my final destination. I met a couple guys in the L.A. airport that were headed over here also and we actually took the same connection out of Hong Kong. Luckily I stayed around with the guys to pick up their luggage because mine came off the plane also, so I'm pretty sure it would still be lost over Asia somewhere if I hadn't grabbed it. Once I got in I was picked up by my friend here and we went and exchanged some money and ran a few errands, such as getting a watch. I got an invite to his house for dinner and got to hang out with his family, and a few other friends that are over here. It was good to catch up. I still don't know a lot of the schedule for being over here. I do know that tomorrow we are heading out to a remote village or four days. It should be an adventure. One of my friends warned me about culture shock being out there. She said she spent a few days out in one of the villages and it was pretty rough. So we'll see what happens. I'm thinking that this trip will be a lot different than when I was here 3 years ago. There will be a lot of solo time. Speaking of which, I still have no idea how I'm going to find lunch tomorrow. I need to get some rest and try and get over jet lag. It has been a long day (or three) so I'm hoping that I can sleep through the night.