Nikki and I had discussed country hopping long before we had even known that we were going to Japan. Before our interviews, we imagined how cool it would be to explore Asia while we were living in Japan, and after we felt confident that we would be going to Japan, the pact was made: we were definitely going to have to take advantage of the close proximity.
For summer vacation, we both got about two and a half weeks off, and so we decided that it was the perfect time to travel.
Since I had my GRE on 31 July down in Tokyo, I traveled down on the twenty-ninth to spend a couple days with Kimie. We celebrated Grandma and my birthdays with a delicious fruit-covered cheesecake.
On the morning of the thirty-first, we met Nikki over at Shinjuku station. It took a little bit of wandering, but we were finally able to find her and the three of us set out to where my test was held. Stuffing our baggage in lockers (how I LOVE Japan for their easy locker system), we explored a little bit of Tokyo before I had to return to the test center. I left Nikki and Kimie to continue exploring and arrived an hour early for my test. They were awesome and let me in immediately.
After my test finished four hours later, I met back up with Nikki and Kimie. We retrieved our belongings and then went over to Ueno station, where we got some Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. It was delicious, but A LOT of food. It didn't help that Nikki and I both ordered a chocolate shake.
From there, we ran to catch our train to Narita. This became literal as the last train was leaving two minutes after we got to the ticket station. Luckily for us, one of the employees helped Kimie buy our tickets, and then we quickly made our way down to the train. We arrived on the platform to a train door that wouldn't open. The employee who had helped us get the tickets met us downstairs, and called for us to follow him. We had to run the length of the train to our proper car, and luckily they held it for us. I think the moment we were on the train, it started moving.
We entered to a bunch of laughing Japanese. They had watched us run pass their windows and found it pretty amusing. Thankfully, so did we. Nikki had almost fallen, so all in all we were just very grateful to be on the train. It was a great way to start our adventure--though I do not ever recommend running full-speed, carrying heavy luggage, on over-stuffed stomachs. It was not pleasant.
At Narita, we quickly found our hostel and settled in for the night. The next morning, we woke up, got ready and headed for the airport to catch our flight to China.
The first part of the flight was nice. We flew from Narita to Shanghai, and had about an hour layover. At least it was suppose to be. We were confused at first because we only had one ticket, and it said Narita to Beijing. No one provided us with any information, just ushered us off the train and onto a tram to the terminals. It was there that we found flight attendants with signs for Beijing, and we followed them as they fast-tracked us through customs, immigration, and security so we could make our flight. They told us we had ten minutes until boarding would begin.
Almost two hours later, boarding finally began. They gave us no information and only had the original boarding time displayed. At about an hour and a half, a lot of Chinese people were approaching the counter to yell and complain. On the plane (the same one we had taken from Japan. The same seats, even), they apologized for the delay and said that there were weather issues. We arrived in Beijing two hours late, and we arrived in the domestic terminal, but our luggage was still in international, so we had to find our way over to reclaim it. Our guide, who picked us up from the airport, was not very happy and not very pleasant.
Welcome to China ^.^
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