Take a looky at this graph and tell me something doesn’t look a little abnormal to you.

Maybe it is March Madness for blogs and no one has informed me, but for some reason the number of visits to my blog has sky rocketed during the first part of March. I can’t figure it out. Nothing much has changed. I know that I have been posting more lately than I did in the past month or so, but geez . . . I nearly got 62 people visit yesterday. Now granted, a few of them were me and Phil as we attempted to make the blog cooler, but the majority were people who visited on their own accord, stayed for a minute and read a post or two. Even my keyword search has increased. In March so far, I’ve had 28 searches lead to my blog. In the entirety of February, 34 visits were through keyword searches. I’ve started putting labels on my posts, but I don’t think that would cause that much of an increase. Whatever has sparked the interest in my blog, I hope that it continues. Comments and traffic keep me going and makes me think that someone out there actually cares what I’m writing. I’m sure other bloggers would agree.

Oh, and before I go, I’d like to introduce you to Ray. He is Chinese and lives in Beijing, but has a English blog. I thought that was pretty cool. If you would like to enter into his daily life via his blog you can go here – http://snow.blogsome.com/. I found it to be a very interesting read.

This picture may have been taken a long time ago(back during the days of Fuyang), but I think it shows exactly how I feel after all the crap that has happened in trying to get to Shenyang.Phil calls it “Power Gabe”.

I call it “I’m going to eat your soul.”

Either way, I now think you have a full understanding of my frustration.

All I’ve got to say is that my students better be extra nice to me or else I’m going to turn into that teacher from Fairly Odd Parents and start handing out F’s in pure pleasure. I wish I could find a better picture of Mr. Crocker, but I think this demonstrates his insanity and what could be mine.

As you can see, we’ve found a way to upload pictures again. At least for the time being. For those of you keeping track, Phil and I are still in Beijing. Our next attempt to get the heck out of this city will be on Saturday the 10th at 11:00 pm by overnight train. So far the weather looks clear so we shouldn’t have a problem in that regard, but at this point I won’t be holding my breath or getting my hopes up. After everything that has happened, nothing can shock me anymore. As long as I get there in one piece, I don’t care how or when I get there.

Because the Internet cafe we use on a daily basis doesn’t have any working ports, we’ve had to upload them via WECL’s computers to our emails and then run across the street and download them to the Internet cafe’s computer desktop where we can then upload them to Blogger. It’s all a crazy mess really, but hey, I get to post pretty pictures again. That makes me happy! : )

So without much further ado, let me introduce you to the lucky five contestants that were chosen for today’s post.

Some elderly people playing Majong at Longmen Village.

I’m not sure who’s driving: the boy or the crazy cat. Located on a wall at Longmen Village.

“Here Piggy, Piggy, Piggy, I’ve got a jiao for you.” One man is about to make all is dreams come true by chucking the equivalent of a penny in this pig’s mouth. It’s the year of the pig, by the way.

I wish this was my front door back home. Everyone would envy me. My memory fails me, but I think this picture was taken at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

One of the 7 dragons on a wall in Hong Kong.

Apparently, the third time isn’t the charm. I wish that I could say that we were in Shenyang, but I’m sorry to say that somehow we are still here in Beijing.

Snow falling Sunday morning in Beijing.

For the second day in the row, the third actual attempt to leave Beijing, we got up at 9:45 and met in the lobby to wait on the ever trusty WECL bus to take us to the airport. It rolled up right on schedule, this time clear of any snow. The majority of it has melted since Sunday. Only a few large clumps here and there remain. It’s still cold, but it is slowly getting warmer or either I’m getting used to it. We threw our bags in the back again, and at 11:00 am we took off for the airport. Our plane was scheduled to leave at 1:30 pm, so we were leaving in plenty of time. Why we didn’t leave this early when we had the snow storm is beyond me – not that it would have mattered; our flight was canceled. We even took the interstate this time too. I guess they just wanted to make sure we got there in plenty of time. And oh, we did. We had more time to play with than we ever wanted or needed.

A car covered in the snow.

We arrived at the airport at approximately 11:30, and decided to have lunch since we had all the time in the world before our plane would take off. Richard paid for it so that was nice. I’ve said it before, but we are running low on cash, and a meal at the airport would have put another dent in our already empty wallet. We went through security and got down at the terminal at around 12:30 where we soon found out that the Shenyang airport would be closed until 2:00. 2:00 came and went, and so did 3:00. We sat and waited until 4:00 when we got the green light for boarding. I was so happy that I started singing the “I’m so excited” song and got funny stares from my fellow travelers. We got on the plane thinking that we would be taking off soon, but found out there would be another delay because there was too much traffic at the Shenyang airport. That was to be expected because the airport had been closed for 2 days and they had to reschedule all the flights that were supposed to have already come and gone.

Sunday afternoon, the snow begins to melt.

After sitting on the plane for about 30 to 45 minutes, they passed out that weird Chinese biscuit thing again. It sorta reminded me of a Arby’s roast beef sandwich if I closed my eyes, but of course, I have an over active imagination – so don’t believe a word I say. Then the real waiting game began. We sat twiddling our thumbs until about 8:30 pm – yes, you read that right – 8:30 pm when they said we would have to get off the plane. Everyone grumbled, I cried, but off we went. We got on the little shuttle bus that they had waiting for us and stood there for awhile. One of the workers came in holding two back packs trying to figure out who they belonged to, but know one knew. How in the world can you get off the airplane and forget your belongings?! The other thing is that they didn’t confiscate it like they would have in the States or call the bomb squad. They just chucked it in with us and closed the doors, but we didn’t leave. This part of the story is rather confusing. I don’t why they made us get on the shuttle bus just to open their doors 20 minutes later to have us get back on the airplane. We took it as good news, so we did without too much of a complaint.

The remains of a thousand fireworks and a single leaf in Hangzhou.

After we got back on the plane and got situated again, they came over the loud speaker and informed us that we would still be delayed. Everyone grumbled. The one thing that I found surprising is that everyone took this pretty well. People were laughing and trying to enjoy themselves. I mean, people were asking questions, but for as long as we were on that plane – the people were very well behaved. They rolled the cart back down the isle and gave us dinner and another drink after and then we waited some more. We waited until 10:30 when they finally said that air traffic control had given them the green light. Everyone clapped, but a guy from England sitting behind us sarcastically said, “We haven’t taken off yet.” We taxied to the runway and waited for a few planes to land. And then it was our turn. As we took for Shenyang, I waved goodbye to Beijing hoping not to see it for another four months. If only I had known what was to happen – I probably would have just shot myself and put myself out of my misery. I’m sure a good many others would have followed suit.

Pretty lit up trees in Hangzhou.

Somehow or another, I always end up with the window seat whether it is a plane, a bus or a car. It just happens that way, but it makes Phil angry. After we had gotten in the air and were given permission to move about the cabin, Phil made the comment that once again I had the window seat. I replied, “You had 6.5 hours to change seats with me and now you bring this up?” I stood up and let him squeeze in behind me. Like a little kid he stared out at the darkness below him wondering who the one little light belonged to and why in the world they lived out in the middle of absolute no where. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, so it was actually possible to see the snow covered ground below us. The full moon helped illuminate it too. Sometime during the flight Phil said he thought something was amiss because he had seen the moon, then not seen it, and then saw it again. Also, he had seen the same little city below him a few times. This would have been impossible if we were going straight as we all know. Maybe I was in denial. I wanted to get to Shenyang so bad that I didn’t want to even have the idea that we were turning back in my head. For the first time in a long time, I was the one being optimistic.

The lights in the cabin came on. I thought maybe we were about to begin our descent, but there was no big cities lights down below us. I began to panic. Phil still insisted that we were turning around, but I still refused to believe him. A few minutes after the lights of the cabin had come back on, “they”(the infamous they) came on over the speaker to tell us that there was no room at the Shenyang airport for us and that they had to go back to Beijing. You should have heard the moans and the slight screams that emitted from the rest of the passengers. We were all in shock. This was unbelievable. How could we get this close to Shenyang just to be denied. As Richard later said, “Why does God make us suffer so much?”

A cool picture of a random important statue in Hangzhou.

We landed back in Beijing at about 12:20 am, and then were given the option to get off the plane if we wanted. After discussing it for a minute, we decided that it was probably the best thing to do. So we did. Surprisingly, most people stayed on. They sure were a determined bunch of people. I hope that eventually got there or that they didn’t have to sit there for another 8 hours before they were finally be able to leave – again. They shuttled us back to the airport terminal, we got out, and then started a new waiting game called – where is our luggage. When we left the airplane, they checked our tickets so that the could get our luggage off, but as we waited for the shuttle to take us back, we never saw them pull up a truck or one of those escalator like things. We sat on the carousel that they said our luggage would be, but for the longest time the carousel just circled. At least we were given the opportunity to read all of the advertisements printed on it. In time, our luggage did come. Well, that is not entirely true. Everyone’s but Richard’s got there. He had to go to the lost and found counter and have then look for it, but they couldn’t find it. They said that it wasn’t on the airplane. Richard didn’t look happy, but there was nothing he could do. He gave the people his information, and at 2:00 we finally left the airport.

One of the many fireworks for the New Year celebrations in Hangzhou.

For the second time in three days, we headed back to Richard’s car. Once again we somehow fit all of our luggage and our four bodies in it. The Beijing Airport is rather dead at 2:00 am in the morning. There’s no traffic on the interstate either, so that made getting back to school rather easy. We got back at around 2:30 and fell fast asleep. We were all so very exhausted. We don’t know when we are leaving or how we are leaving, but we think it may be by train and sometime during the coming weekend. The thing is – another snow storm may or may not be coming for Shenyang on Friday and Saturday. I don’t know if it will be as bad or if it will happen. If it does, I don’t think we will be leaving Beijing by plane, train or automobile for sometime. For now, we are stuck. This sucks. I think that this is the most insane trip I’ve ever had. I almost feel like I’ve entered the Twilight Zone or something just as strange. Like I said Shenyang doesn’t want us; Beijing doesn’t want us to leave.

Fireworks in the middle of the street and cars driving through them in Hangzhou.

Remember that snow storm?

We woke up bright and early(5:00am)to a blanket of beautiful snow on the ground. It was a complete surprise for me as I had only expected it to snow in Shenyang. It was a bit of crazy situation trying to roll our suitcases that we are having shipped through the sludge all over the streets and sidewalks. China, for some reason, doesn’t believe in the art of throwing salt where snow has fallen. They prefer to wait and let it melt and have the sweepers get what they can. It’s amazing that I didn’t bust my butt trying to carry 30 KG down the snow covered stairs. That would have just been hysterical.

I took some pictures of it, but as you know, I have no ability to post them. The snow was pretty though. It was the first I’ve seen in a good long while and the first since I came to China. At 6:00am the WECL van pulled up out front, completely covered in snow. The driver was driving even though he couldn’t see out the windshield. He hadn’t bothered to clear off the snow yet. We piled all our stuff in and off we went. All in all in what a pretty scary ride. The driver drove faster than I would have in those conditions. For some reason he liked to drive in the drifts instead of the tracks already made. And he took the back roads that didn’t have a lot of traffic, so it took twice as long to get to the airport. At one point, I was pretty sure we weren’t going to make it, but Richard(the guy in charge of us) called and told the driver to get on the interstate – where we probably should have been the entire time.

We made it to the airport with enough time to spare, got our boarding passes, went through the ever simple Chinese security, and got our comfy seats on the plane. As we were sitting there, I was happy to know that we were only one hour and ten minutes away from final destination after all this time. I was happily eating my strange Chinese biscuit and sipping on my orange juice when an announcement came on over the speakers. First in Chinese and then English. It went something like this . . .

“I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen, but the snow storm has made it unfavorable for landing at the Shenyang Airport. We don’t know how long the delay may be, so we are going to ask that all passengers exit the plane at this time. Please take all of your bags with you. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

I said a lot of cuss words, but did as I was told. I don’t think I’ve ever stood on the tarmac and had snow flying in my face. It was all rather interesting.

We sat at our terminal awhile to find out that the airport was going to be closed until at least 6 :00 pm. We decided that there was no reason to sit at the airport for 8 hours and left the airport. The bad part was that the van that had taken us there was gone. We had to somehow fit all of our luggage in Richard’s car – who had met us there. I don’t know how we did it, but we fit 3 large bags, 5 carry-ons and 4 bodies. Richard rescheduled the flight, and back to WECL we went.

Come Monday, we woke up and began to do the whole shebang again. Just as we went to open our apartment door to leave, Christine knocked on it to tell us that we had to stay in Beijing yet another day because of the bad snow storm.

It turns out that the snow storm that hit Shenyang was the worst March snow storm in 56 years and had closed the airport and 5 of the interstates as well as 900,000 schools. Some people lost power and water. In some places in Shenyang, the snow was a 1 meter high.

Hopefully, tomorrow we will be able to board our plane without a hitch. I know that it is way below zero there, so I have no idea how they expect the snow to melt, and that which does will just turn into ice. I guess we will find out when we wake up tomorrow. You know what they say though – third time’s the charm.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed. I just want to get to my new home, get settled, and start to be a teacher again. Ha, listen to me – I’m actually asking for work. I guess after not working for 53 days some part of your soul start missing it. How strange. How strange indeed.

Well, we found out that we are boarding yet another plane tomorrow to head to Shenyang. Because the plane will allow only 50 lbs per person, we are having to ship the remained our of junk via train. Hope it gets there OK. I’d sure hate to lose it. I’m personally glad we aren’t taking the 8 hour train ride there. That would have been painful. I much prefer the 1 hour 10 minute version. The tickets(paid for by Richard) only cost 140 RMB. That’s $17 bucks people!! Where in the world can I can tickets that cheap back home. I think something needs to be done about that. Of course, the 140 RMB price comes after the rush of the holidays. Before it would have been several hundred more RMB than that.

Like usual, our plane leaves early – 7:40am. That means that we have to get up at 5:00 and be waiting in the lobby of the school at 6:00 in order to make it the airport by 7:00. Last time we did this, we almost missed our plane because the driver had no idea where to drop us of at. He left us in a parking lot and pointed the direction we should go. Somehow or another we managed. Richard, the guy in charge of us is coming with us. So, if we somehow miss the plane, it won’t be our fault, or our responsibility to buy a new ticket!! And another plus is that he is Chinese, and getting to our destination will be much easier to get to.

As you can see, we are flying directly into our first winter weather storm. The ever trusty weather men and women are forecasting 4 – 6 inches of snow tomorrow. This should make things very interesting to say the least. I haven’t seen snow in a long time, and usually I wouldn’t mind, but you have to remember that we will be dragging our crap all over Shenyang tomorrow trying to get to our apartment. I know how crazy the taxi drivers and other drivers for that matter can drive – so I can only imagine how well they drive in the snow. I just hope that someone turns on the heat in our apartment before we get there. The high is only supposed to be 29 degrees.

Alright, well, this should be my last post until we get settled in Shenyang. Then I can start posting my pictures and talking about everything that has happened recently.

Until then.

This is G signing out.

And then we got bounced like one of those toy rubber balls all over China. You know, the ones that will bounce up and hit the ceiling if you throw it hard enough. Man, someone chucked us good and hard. The picture is of Phil’s money right before we departed Fuyang for good. It was approximately 12,000 RMB(maybe a little more) and I had the same amount. So, if you do the math, that would be 24,000 RMB between us. That should have been more than enough to keep us afloat for our 45 day vacation, but like I’ve mentioned before – things didn’t go quite the way we planned. After our crazy ass journey from North to South and back again, we currently have about 3,000 RMB remaining between the two of us. And some of that is money we recently had exchanged because we feared we wouldn’t make it until our next paycheck. We still don’t know exactly when that will be. If the rumors are correct, we might get paid on the 5th. We’ll need it for sure because I am almost certain we will need to buy things to make our new apartment feel like home. The aparment may come “furnished”, but that doesn’t mean we will have plates, utincles to eat with or pots and pans to cook with. Our bed may not even have sheets. I’d be very excited if any of the above pictures were in USD instead of RMB. Then I could say we really were rich, but in actuality, it is only about $1,538. It is a lot in Chinese standards, as long as you don’t try to live a western lifestyle. Well, this post is making me depressed looking at all the money we burned through in the last month and a half – so I better stop writing about it. I blame our poverty on the planes we had to take and our visit to Hong Kong. It was nice, it was fun, but damn, was it expensive!

When I think of the places I’ve gone, it seems like a lot when I start counting the countries on my fingers, but after looking at the map below – it looks like I still have a few places left to visit.

If you want one too, create your own visited country map here.

For those of you curious, here is the order in which I have visited said countries.

1. United States of America(Go Figure)
2. Mexico
3. Bahamas
4. Costa Rica
5. Portugal
6. China

. . . and several more dozen to go.

Oh, and thanks, Lou, for sharing this.

The word is that we will be leaving Beijing(thank God) for Shenyang either on the 3rd or 4th, but I have no idea which mode of transportation we will be using. I vote for the plane, but we have too much junk. Supposedly, they will pay to have our stuff shipped there, so I see no reason to take the train if that is the case.

Currently, to bide our time, we have been watching season after season of Smallville and House. We’ve also stocked up on a whore of movies that we picked up at various DVD stores for about 7 yuan each. They are all pirated, but strangely I feel no guilt handing over the money for them unless I get home of course to find that they don’t work! I guess that is what we will continue to do until we leave. It is the cheapest way of saving money, and right now are funds are pretty limited after are trip to and from Hong Kong. I sure hope we get paid soon.

Oh, and the best part about finding out when we leave is finding out when we start teaching. That would be the 5th. The Chinese sure know how to wait to the last minute. I don’t know how they expect us to teach with no preparation. I guess we will manage some how. We always do.

Shenyang is a big city and we will be smack dab in the center of it. That being the case – we should be able to pick up on a wireless signal. If not, it may be longer to post the pictures, but I will get to them. It just might take me a bit. Believe me, it is just as frustrating for me, as it is for you. I want you to see them too.