Who would have thought that a day where most of your time is spent sitting in an airplane seat could be stressful.
The delay from Chicago to Beijing meant that I missed my connecting flight to Hong Kong. What should have been an easy transfer of boarding cards turned into quite the debacle.
First off, the Chinese apparently do not believe in efficient customer service or working past 5PM. It took over an hour to figure out how to get to Hong Kong without having to spend the night in the Beijing airport. Luckily I made a new friend, Maggie, who was visiting her grandfather in HK and was fluent in Mandarin. I jumped at the chance of a personal translator.
We both made it on a 9PM flight to HK and arrived safely just after midnight.
Because of my late arrival, my previously arranged pick up plans were scratched and Martin and Fi worked on getting me to City U a different way. Fortunately for me they arranged a private car that took me directly to the dorms. Unfortunately for me the driver only took me and My carry on luggage... Two of my bags got lost somewhere along the way.
After a 45 minute ride Kowloon Tong (that's where City U is) I got to the check in desk and finally saw some familiar faces! Like true Hoosiers we all stick together and I walked in to find all of the IU kids ordering McDonalds for delivery. That's right...McDonalds delivers here! I arrived just in time to place my order for a second McDonalds within a 48 hour period and then took my luggage to my residence hall. I also got my first Chinese Coca Cola!
I'm in Hall 10 one of the newer halls and I have a local roommate named Jacqueline.
After a quick dinner together we all headed to bed around 3am and planned to meet at 8:30 am to conquer the first of many orientation tasks.
Location:Beijing to HK
Enough of the McDonald's! Eat noodles and dim sum!
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