Fang Xiang (Directions)

August 4th-5th, 2009

I woke up about 45 minutes after I had fallen asleep last night to mom crying in my doorway. She then proceeded to move the stuff off my bed and crawl in bed with me. She hugged me and said she “wasn’t ready to do this yet.” A couple hours later, it was time to get out of bed and prepare for a very, very long day! I made sure that I shoved everything in that I could, dressed comfortably and gathered all the much needed documents.

We left the house about 15 minutes past what we wanted to. When we went to curbside check-in, the e-ticket I had printed was not working. I had tried to do something about it the day before, but Delta would not let me check in early on their website. I kind of figured it would be a problem. We got it all situated easily once inside, and even though my big bag was 50lbs over, they didn’t charge me. (yay!)

The flight from Miami to New York was interesting. I sat next to a Jewish lady and her son. She was reading the book of Psalm. She said that by the end of the month, she will have it finished. We got to talking about some things (politics being one of them...), but I think His reason for sitting me next to her was to get me in the Word on that flight.

Once I got to New York, I did not have a boarding pass printed, so I knew I needed to figure out where Air China was located and get there. I had fun talking to lots of people along the way to make sure that I was headed in the right direction. They assured me that I was, and eventually I came down an escalator and voila!....there was Air China right in front of my face. I ended up sitting at the gate for a bit and talked to a girl from Ohio State. She is returning home for a bit while she writes her thesis for her Masters Degree. This other dude joined us in conversation too. We ended up meeting up again in the Beijing airport when we landed.

On the stinkin’ long plane ride to Beijing, I found myself surrounded by children. In any other situation, I would be pretty excited. I just knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep. Almost immediately though, I got over it and enjoyed conversing with the little boy next to me, Ivan, and his mom Stephanie from Brooklyn, NY. They were voyaging to her hometown in China for 40 days. I have to say that this soon-to-be 1st grade boy was extremely active and was rather mouthy! I asked her if he said stuff like he was saying before he entered Kindergarten in the public school system, and she said no. Interesting! Of course, he is being raised in Brooklyn. That probably has something to do with it! There was a little baby girl traveling back to China with her grandparents. I was pretty certain that the grandmother did not speak any English, so we smiled at each other a lot. The little baby girl did so well on the plane—she slept for most of it, and when she wasn’t sleeping, she would sooth herself by rubbing her head or her back. It was pretty cute. I also saw her afterwards at baggage claim, and she was strapped on the back of her Granny. Cute stuff!

Anyway, I’m sitting in Beijing airport now. I rushed through the quarantine checkpoint where they check your temperature with infrared and a computer—that was pretty crazy! Then I went to get my final boarding pass with Air China for the flight to Kunming, and they informed me that I had to re-check my bags for a domestic flight. Oops! I did that and then asked the lady at the counter which gate I was at. My pass did not have a gate number on it. She whispered something, and I couldn’t hear her, so I asked her to repeat. She did so, and I still couldn’t hear her, so I just shrugged and walked where everyone else was walking. I ran into an officer next, and asked him where to go. …Long story short: I just had to go through security because the whole terminal was designated for domestic flights. Yea, they think I’m a stupid American, I’m sure. I’m waiting for the flight to Kunming (it’s late), and I’m anxious to see what He has in store for me—on this flight and in the next week, month, year, and beyond!