This year, Zhong Relations training was in Spring Arbor which was fun. I was able to stay home for a few more days and my family was able to meet most of the team, which is up to about 15 people this year. My school has the same group: Me, Kirk, Daniel, Cory, Rebecca, plus a new teacher Mandi, who is from Louisiana. I think we're all going to work well together, so I'm excited for this year. I hope to get a picture of the group up soon.
Training went well. It was strange to be one of the "experts" this year. Last year, I had no clue what to expect. I knew that some of the new teachers were feeling that way this year, so all the returning teachers tried to prepare them the best we could.
Our trip from Detroit to Wuhan was smooth and problem free. Psych! Here is a chronological list of "highlights" of our trip from Detroit to Chicago to Los Angeles to Shanghai to Wuhan.
- A few days before the trip, we learn that our flight from Shanghai to Wuhan had been changed. We were supposed to transfer airports in Shanghai. The airline never told us. Rebecca was double-checking and found this out. We were able to get a solution figured out for everyone except Kirk and me. The two of us flew back to America on Air China, so we had a ticket code under them. However, our flight back was on China Eastern. Both airlines were saying they couldn't fix it because it wasn't their flight or it wasn't their ticket code. We just decided to try to argue our way onto a flight once we got to Shanghai.
- We arrived to DTW airport at 3:00am. If you want to meet some strange people, try this sometime.
- We had no problem with our layover in Chicago. Landed in LA on time.
- Our flight from LA to Shanghai was our first China Eastern flight. We decided to try to argue with the airline there instead of Shanghai since they speak English. As we were doing this, we realized that at that time, all of our flights were messed up, not just Kirk and mine! We would have to change airports in Shanghai. With all of our luggage. During the world expo!
- We knew it was very possible that we would miss our flight while transferring airports besides the fact that we paid for tickets out of the same airport. We argued for about 30 minutes. All the while our departure time from LA was getting closer and closer. The China Eastern workers were saying there were absolutely no flights out of the same airport they could transfer us to. We were pretty sure that wasn't true at all, so we refused to go away.
- Finally, one of them (from out of nowhere) said "Okay, we have it fixed. We have you on a flight you want from Shanghai to Wuhan." We were ecstatic, but this new flight gave us only an hour to land, go through customs and security, and board. The workers made sure our luggage would go straight to Wuhan since we wouldn't have time to get them in Shanghai. Plus, they would have a worker waiting for us in Shanghai to guide us through everything quickly. We were pumped! From here on out, no more problems. Smooth sailing. And it was just like that....only the exact opposite.
- We arrived in Shanghai after a 14 hour flight. No worker there to escort us. We waited for a few minutes, then decided that we would have to go it alone. Just in case, we decided to check to see if our luggage had been unloaded here. We were hoping to find all of it (to transfer it to Wuhan ourselves) or none of it (meaning it had been transferred straight to Wuhan). We found exactly half of our bags. Awesome! We just had to hope that the other half were going straight to Wuhan and re-check the other half.
- We busted our butts through bag check and security to make it to our terminal a little before our boarding time.
- We boarded our flight in Shanghai at about 7:00pm . We were almost there. We would arrive in Wuhan at about 8:30pm. Or not. Our plane sat on the runway for almost four and a half hours before taking off! We never found out for sure, but we think it had to do with lightning.
- At about 1:00am on August 27th, we landed in Wuhan....and found all of our luggage! If this year is anything like that trip, it's going to be crazy.
We've been in Wuhan for about a week. It's been similar to last year so far. Getting our schedules figured out, finding an office, cleaning my VERY dirty and moldy apartment. I finally feel settled in and ready to start classes on Monday. I will be teaching most of my same students from last year which is really cool.
Looking forward to the new year and what it could bring!
On a side note, please keep thinking of my uncle Tom whom I mentioned last year. He is still fighting brain cancer and just received some more bad news recently. Thanks!
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