The Journey to China

As Soren and I awaited our flight in the Salt Lake Airport, I was filled with hope: hope that everything would run smoothly, hope that the school would be ready for us, and hope that we’d get to the school early enough to do some training meetings.  I was hopeful…but I was also expecting the worst.

My expectations were met.

Surprisingly, all the flights went exceptionally well and everyone got their luggage when we reached Shanghai.  We met up with all of our teachers and they are great.  Their names are Maddie, Morgan, Krista, Heather, and Jenna.  I was feeling bad for Maddie because the day we flew out was her birthday, but Korean Air (which is a fantastic airline) ended up giving her a cake on the flight.  Not just a slice of cake…a whole cake. She shared it with us during the layover in Seoul.  We were all feeling pretty good about things as we landed in Shanghai.

At the baggage claim I tried to ignore the worries that plagued my mind: what if we don’t get all our bags? What if there’s no one to meet us? What if…what if…what if?  But once we had our bags, my mind eased a little bit.  We breezed our way through the customs line and found ourselves entering a cattle run surrounded by dozens of people with names on signs.  There were so many signs that I wasn’t sure where to look first.  We made it all the way through the cattle run without seeing a sign for the Nanjing ILP teachers and I was worried that I might have missed it.  I pulled our group over to the left and discovered, to my dismay, that all the other ILP groups were doing the same. 

There were four ILP groups that had traveled to Shanghai together: Nanjing, Changzhou, Nangbo, and Bungbo. None of us saw signs for our schools.  This was the exact kind of situation I had wanted to avoid.  The other Head Teachers and I spent the next hour and a half going back and forth between an information desk with a phone and our groups, trying to get a hold of someone.  I tried calling my school, but none of the numbers I had went through.  One of the groups was able to get in touch with their school and they told us that an email had been sent to them from ILP informing them that the teachers wouldn’t be arriving until Saturday.  It was Thursday. 

I kept trying to hook up to the Internet, but the airport connection required a password, and the instruction page was only in Chinese.  We convinced the lady at the information desk to let us use the Internet there for a small fee and we sent ILP an email.  Nothing seemed to be working and I was getting worried.

Finally, I resorted to borrowing Maddie and Morgan’s iphones to text the ILP directors. That established a direct line of communication.  They let us know that the schools were on their way.  In the end, my group spent about 7 hours in the Shanghai airport.  We took up a huge section with all our luggage. It must have been pretty funny to the airport staff.

We rode on a bus with the Changzhou group and I don’t think the school had anticipated how much luggage we would have.  The Changzhou group had 20 people and our group had 7.  Each of us had two big bags along with two carryon items.  When the bottom of the bus was full, they had to fill the back of the bus with the rest of the luggage.  The men in the groups formed an assembly line to get it all back there.

I was told that the Nanjing group would be dropped off on the highway somewhere until our own bus could come to pick us up.  Fortunately, this ended up not being the case.  The bus took us all the way to the Changzhou school and we met our bus there.  Once again, we had to form an assembly line to get all the luggage off the first bus, and then a new assembly line to get it on the second bus—or I should say van. 

We were finally on the last leg of our journey.  I sat next to our coordinator (her name is Phoenix), and began to sort things out for the semester.  Upon arriving in Nanjing, she took us to McDonalds and then took us to the school.  We arrived at about 11 p.m. and began to haul our luggage up the 5 flights of stairs to our dorm rooms. You could say we were exhausted, but that would be an understatement.

I’m grateful for the experience.  If we can get through that big of an ordeal, we can get through just about anything. Right?

Maddie and her birthday cake

Waiting in the Airport

Still Waiting in the Airport

The luggage in the back of the bus

 

Facelift

I’ve decided that the blog needed to undergo a facelift since I’m no longer just me, I’m part of a we.  The new title of this blog is “Two to Tango” for the following reasons: First of all, Soren and I love to dance and the Tango is one of the most difficult and complex.  Both partners have to work together in perfect synchronization to complete even the most basic steps. The second reason is that since getting married I’ve come to realize that married life works a lot like a Tango—you have to work together if you’re going to succeed. None of the moves work if only one partner is doing them.  We’ll still trip and fall and make mistakes, but we’ll be there for each other.

So, as Soren and I dance into a new world of adventure and excitement, we hope you’ll glide along with us, because even though it takes two to Tango, there’s plenty of room on the dance floor!