Day 1: Long Plane Ride and Spicey Grandmas

Prompt: China so far

I have been awake for 24 hours, or more. This morning my family and I for to school about 6:40. The principal had doughnuts for us and they were good. We then said goodbye to our parents and boarded the big yellow bus. It took shorter then I thought to get to O'Hare. During security check I had too many liquid bags but the lady let me threw because I was freaking out and about to cry. We were early so we chilled in the terminal for awhile. I got a bagel, water, and a magazine to for waiting in the terminal and for the epically long plane ride ahead for me. When we boarded the plane we all boarded together because the we were a group and the workers saw our matching neon green t-shirts.

My plane buddy was Tyler, which was nice because he was really quiet and was fine with the window seat. The plane ride seem to never end. I knew it was going to be long but once I got bored it seemed to moving even slower. During the plane ride I watched Dear John and part of Alice in Wonderland, I read 140 pages in my summer reading book, The Kite Runner, read a whole People magazine, listened to my i-pod, ate nasty airplane food, and maybe got 2 and a half hours of sleep. Once our plane landed, I was not freaking out as much as I thought I was. Going threw customs was a pain because it was really hot in the airport and the line was really long. When Lexa got up to the counter she fainted! She did not hit her head because Schags go to her before she did. After everyone was cleared threw customs we got on a jam packed train car to get to where the tour bus and tour guide were. On the train people told me when I sleep I make a frowning face, which was interesting to know. When we got off the train we met out tour guide David and boarded our bus.

The ride to the hotel was not that bad because David was entertaining us. When we got to the hotel we learned that we were going to be in rooms of 2 not 3. That meant that me and Lexa were going to be roomies. After a 45 minute break we went to dinner which was at the hotel. Dinner was okay I had rice, sweet and sour chicken, and egg rolls. We then had 15 minutes to get ready to go to Wanfujing Street which is a giant street to go shopping.

At Wanfujing Street Team Swag, which consist of Lexa, Nick, Claudia, Sam, and me ended up in a mall and we went to look at a directory to see what stores were there and Lexa found a place called Spicy Grandma. Hearing this name we had to go and see what it was. When we found it, it was a restaurant. We then found Hagen daz and had ice cream and joined with Ewen's group to go down the food area of Wanfujing Street. There I learned that when the cooks put the scorpions on the stick, they are still alive and moving. Lexa then had her first bartering experience. She got a mini Terra-Cota warrior for 25 Yuans and the original was 65. Then the lady who was selling things almost stole Nick's calculator because it was American, even though it said Made in China on the back. Overall I am pretty happy because it is much more then I expected in cleanliness and how the people act.