hey.
it has been an intense week.
the fact that i am not yet at winter camp will be explained in a bit, but i need to take some time first for my co-worker steve na.
yesterday, my roommate told me that steve fell ill at camp and was sent to the hospital where he lost consciousness. he died today.
because i haven't talked to anyone at camp directly, i don't know the full story, but the whole thing is very sudden and shocking. the picture above is one i took at our thanksgiving dinner, just over a month ago. i didn't know steve all that well, but he was a good teacher and led the youth group at hanyoung church. please please please pray for his family and the teachers here that were close to him. he will be missed, but he's with Jesus and I'm sure he's never been better.
any transition i make to the events that transpired this past week before all of this doesn't really fit, but it's quite a story.
i set off for the airport last tuesday with only sketchy details of meeting at the beijing airport and no address for the place i was to be staying. let's just say i won't do that again.
the subway ride to the incheon airport was beautiful with a light icing of snow in low morning light. we took off on time for the short one-and-a-half-hour flight to shenyang. not long into it, the pilot informed us that we were to land in qingdao, the shenyang airport closed due to snow. when we landed, they made us sit on the plane for two hours in case shenyang opened soon. we watched all of julie & julia before they let us off.
looooong story short, three other foreign English teachers in Korea on that flight were connecting to Beijing and, not knowing when the airport would open, we decided to get tickets for a direct flight to Beijing from Qingdao instead of waiting to go to Shenyang first, with the promise that our other flight would be refunded. having those three others was quite a blessing, as well as seeing one of my students at the Qingdao airport as he was flying in to be with his family over break. we made it to Beijing five hours later than scheduled and i hoped that the friends meeting me there would not have been waiting that whole time. since i knew my friend anna was flying in sometime later that night, i decided to wait and try to find her. i had no idea what flight she was on, and after two hours i realized there were also two other terminals. it turns out i was in the wrong one and the subway was closed by now, not that i had an address to look for anyway. or a phone number to call. (by the way, in the qingdao airport, i had access to internet and i looked for clues on how i might get there and sent an e-mail informing them about the delay).
[mom, you should probably close your eyes right about now]
so i spent the night in the airport, which was really only about three hours, wrestling with cold and dozing every once in awhile in a lounge chair in a cafe area. there were quite a few other people in the same area too and although no flights were coming in, it turns out that airports never sleep and i didn't really either.
[proceed with caution]
once the subway opened, i took the three trains to East Gate of Peking University stop because one of the only things i knew was that the friend (kyle) was teaching english at a program somehow related to the university. i made it there (p.s. i was carrying my backpacking pack on my back and my north face daypack on my front this whole time) and walked around until i found a building with a computer which happened to be the library. i had to get a visitor library card, scanned my way in, and found someone to get me log-in information and paid my 5 kuai to use the internet for an hour. i looked everywhere until i finally re-checked my e-mail and found that there was an address at the bottom of an e-mail (in the signature). despite the travel stress and the lack of sleep, i hadn't been extremely worried about the situation but was so relieved that i wouldn't be spending a week in china wandering around by myself (which, of course, i knew wouldn't happen). twelve hours after i landed in beijing, i was finally headed, by way of taxi, to at least the right area. the driver dropped me off in front of a gate and i wandered around some buildings, going into a few. the first person i found knew kyle and pointed me straight toward his room and you should have seen the look on his face when he opened the door...they had NO idea how they were going to find me.
[okay, mom, you're safe from here]
my less-than-a-week in Beijing was exactly the vacation i needed. it was windy and cold for the most part, but spending time with amazing people and seeing how God was working in and through this English program was extremely refreshing. of a very much abridged version of my trip, the highlights include:
<--kyle, anna, chen
- meeting kyle's co-workers. they live in a dorm and the community within those walls is incredible and something i've been missing. i felt so at home right away and that is rare for me. i came knowing one person well and it was hard to leave all those new friends behind.
- making pancake shapes with erichen. (that's not really his name, it's eric chen, but in my head i usually just squash them together.)
- spooning with anna after a really cold day at the Wall.
- geeking out photo-style with kyle.
- new year's eve broccoli pizza and catchphrase. weird (different), but very very good. (i missed the rydmans, though!! we even played apples to apples and i thought of you guys!)
- God's provision and travel mercies, to say the least.
- throwing a disc in tian'anmen square AND inside the walls of the forbidden city :)
- climbing and photoing a new (for me) part of the Great Wall with great people.
- all four of us wearing panda hats throughout the forbidden city and on our rickshaw ride.
- maple twist/cafe latte night, staying up late enjoying and talking to wonderful new friends and old.
- a "fructiferous bargaining sesh" at the silk market (i wish i made up that phrase, but i got it from
the insider's guide to beijing the first time i was there). i even got a death threat; it was that good.
if you would like to see some China photos,
please click here!
i wish that was all of the adventure because i had plenty at this point, but getting back to korea is a whole 'notha story. can you handle it?
[mom, maybe you should just skip to the last paragraph]
the night before, it started snowing lightly. after what happened with my flight to shenyang, i asked with a slight worry, "is it supposed to snow all night? i hope nothing happens to my flight tomorrow..." "it is supposed to snow maybe 9 millimeters" "okay, that sounds good".
after sleeping for about two hours (as a result of staying up late and having to leave at 6 am), i stepped outside with my bags into at least three inches of snow. i got to the airport easily via a taxi and an airport shuttle bus (which was much easier than carrying my baggage onto three different subway lines, although cold because they apparently don't use heat on buses in china).
checking in at around 8 am for my 10 am flight to Dalian (followed by a 6 pm flight to Seoul), the lady behind the counter said "maybe come back tomorrow". "what?" "flight is delay, so wait one hour and ask manager". after one hour "dalian, no time. wait one hour". this happened a few times. finally, at 11, "dalian (yeah, i didn't even have to ask. he remembered me), check in". i checked in and headed to gate 26 where i was for the next seven hours. i read two books, ran down half the battery on my iPod, wandered around, ate the weird tv-dinner-style-food they gave us, watched the never-ending
steady snow fall, and took a few photos before they suddenly announced that they were taking us to a hotel to take a rest. waiting in line to check in to the hotel, an older woman i had seen at the airport asked if i wanted to stay with her. i hadn't talked to her at all before, but i said okay. that night i had dinner at a very decent hotel with my roommate, an Australian English teacher in Dalian and a Norwegian businessman. it was nice to have someone to talk to and they both have fascinating stories. it was nice to be able to take a wonderful, warm shower and sleep well after a whole day in the airport.
the next morning, we sat at gate 37 for about seven hours. i found a newspaper which confirmed that this unexpected snowstorm is one of the biggest and coldest for at least fifty years. this airport time was better because i had a friend who would watch my stuff so i didn't have to take it with me every time i had to get something (like i did the day before) and it's odd but i knew (by face) almost all of the people waiting for our flight (the airport was crazy because most flights were delayed the day before) and which of them could speak English. every time they announced something about our flight, it was of course in Chinese so i would watch for reactions from those people. people started yelling at about 2 pm and we were on a plane at about 7, though we didn't actually take off until about 8. we got TWO chinese-tv-style meals in the airport this time. we finally reached Dalian at 9:30 and i said good-bye to my roommate who said i could visit her in Australia and then i ran around that airport trying to figure out my next flight. we left Dalian for Seoul on a midnight flight on a quarter-full plane and touched down at 2 am, korea time (one hour later than china). because it was so late, it made sense to once again find a nice chair or bench in the airport until the subway opened at 5:30. the seoul airport is pretty dang cool and after walking around for awhile, i found a winner - the stargarden. sheltered, slightly warmer, and empty save for a man sleeping on a bench at the other end, i was able to sleep for at least an hour here before i woke up freezing a little before 5 am.
[alright you should be okay now]
i took the subway and walked back to bucheon through the snow-covered city, getting in at 7:15 am, only 46 hours after i had planned to be back. i wasn't able to contact anyone at school while i was in the airport, but i knew i had missed the bus to Cheong-Cheun, where our winter camp is being held, and i called our vp who told me to hang out here for awhile. there was a record snowfall here as well and the roads are a mess. i still haven't gotten a time for when i will be heading out there, but i think i'm leaving sometime tomorrow (which is really later today...). honestly, i'm glad i had a bit of time to recover from the whole ordeal. i lost a lot of sleep over those two days and was fairly sick on top of it, catching some sort of something in china that made me even lose my voice for half a day. i'm feeling a lot better now and i'm pretty much packed and ready to go. although i have been to the campus before, i have idea what to expect. new students, new classes, plus this unexpected passing of one of our teachers...it will be a much different atmosphere.
phew. now i know what it
really means to have a flight delayed. so many new experiences and we're less than a week into 2010. in all of this, God has been so faithful. i never felt in danger, was hardly ever frustrated, i just kind of rolled with it. i even found a lot of it funny. i was exhausted, for sure, but it is definitely a story, if nothing else.
it's going to be a good year.
