epiphany

East to West

My flights went uneventfully yesterday. I left Beijing at 9:20am and arrived in Wisconsin at 5:30pm after changing planes in Tokyo and Detroit.

I had planned to change the last of my RMB at the airport bank, but the one in the lobby wasn't open when I arrived. I decided I needed to check in more than I needed to change my money, so I paid for my airport tax and went to the Northwest gate. Checking in went smoothly. There were no problems with the guitar, though I did have to pay $120 for it as an extra bag (I didn't have a ten, so they didn't make me pay $130), but that was much better than the possible $390 one of the phone representatives had mentioned as a possibility only three days earlier.

But once I had checked in, I couldn't figure out how to go back to the lobby and to the airport bank. I thought that they might have another bank in the terminal, so I went through security and wandered around for a while. Unfortunately, the bank in the terminal wasn't scheduled to open until twenty minutes after my plane left. Since I couldn't change my remaining money (about $100 US), I decided to spend as much as I could on gifts. I have a little left over, but since airport merchandise is desperately expensive, I was able to use most of it.

The flights went smoothly, although the one to Wisconsin left Detroit 30 minutes late (and arrived in Madison 30 minutes late as well). I never really spoke with my seat mates. The in-flight movies were entertaining. Upon arriving in Madison, Mom and I went to Red Lobster for my first meal back in America. Chinese fish dishes normally have all of the bones left in it, and they're hard to eat with chopsticks.

I slept well last night and haven't had much trouble with jet-lag today. We'll see how it goes over the next couple of days.