The Long March to China

At about 11:30 am Eastern Standard Time, Melissa and I piled into the Zwicks' Prius to be dropped off at Cleveland Hopkins Airport, which marked the beginning of our long journey to China. We said our good-byes to the Zwicks and headed to the baggage drop off area, where we were miraculously able to shift our items around to meet the weight restrictions without paying an exorbitant fee (however, we DID have to pay for each of our bags for some reason...).

We had our last American lunch at Max & Erma's (similar to Applebee's) delightful airport location and somehow found ourselves unable to eat the Ben & Jerry's that presented itself to us. We left for Chicago without indulging in our guilty pleasure assuming that Chicago would provide this for us.

Chicago was a total disappointment, as Ben & Jerry's was nowhere to be found... Off to LAX at 6:00pm (Chicago time).

We arrived at LAX at around 9:00 pm (Pacific time) and did a few icebreakers with our fellow volunteers. This airplane trip was a real pain, but proved to be nothing compared to the grueling thirteen hour purgatory that was the trip from LAX to Hong Kong. This flight left at 1:30 am. Fun.

Somehow, Melissa and I got a row of four seats all to ourselves, so we were able to stretch out and take turns lying down and going to sleep. I fell asleep first for maybe an hour when I was woken up by the 'dinner' service. Melissa took a nice long nap, and I was able to get a few more hours of sleep.

We arrived in Hong Kong at maybe 6:00 am (Hong Kong time) and were startled to find that the elusive Ben & Jerry's unveiled itself to us here. Sadly, at this point we were far too sick of everything to even consider having an ice cream breakfast. Instead, we went to a restaurant where I ordered the most awful pancakes I have ever eaten in my entire life. They must have been microwaved, as they took about two minutes to arrive at our table.

Next was the trip from Hong Kong to Changsha, via DrangonAir. All us volunteers met at a far-away gate and boarded a bus that took us to the airplane in the middle of the tarmac. The plane left at around 9:00 am and landed at Changsha at 10:30 am. As we descended, I was struck by how rural the area looked, but then my concern shifted to the airport itself, as it seemed little more than a lonely outpost of a facility. Once arrived, we went through customs, handed our luggage over to a flatbed truck and boarded a bus. The bus ride was about forty-five minutes and took us all the way across Changsha, which provided a slight glimpse into the life we have chosen for the coming year. We will obviously come to this very soon in our next postings.

When all was said and done, our journey took us about twenty-four hours, probably more, but we made it!

More postings to come...

~ Cullen