Moving couches

I have arrived!!

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts for my travel. It was a very crazy day/days of traveling but the father was faithful and I made all of my connecting flights and even had an empty seat next to me on my international flight!! I am in the process of settling in to my apartment, getting all registered with the police and getting my student visa Friday. Orientation starts on next Monday and then classes on the 1st. I still dont have internet in my apartment yet but am at a little coffee shop with wireless down the street. I'll write more about my apartment and Changchun (my new city) soon. I thought today I would give a little overview of my first full (very full) day in China! Enjoy and thanks again for thoughts and continued thoughts as I adjust to China time and get over jet lag!


Sunday, August 17
12.30 AM-wake up wide awake thinking its time to leave and realize that no, it isnt time to get up yet. I then went back to sleep but was on and off awake until about 3.30 when I just laid in bed til about 4 AM when I then decided it was late enough to get out of bed! I got up and went to take a shower. Killed a roach on the way in the kitchen. Took a shower then unpacked some, ate a luna bar and some warm orange juice (couldn't figure out how to turn my fridge on the night before so yeah). Around 5.15 I left the house for the train station. I took the 6 AM to go up to Harbin (my old city) to get my things from last year. I had a sleeper train so I slept almost all of the 3 and a half hours to Harbin which was great. I was awakened by the train guy getting my ticket and got out of the train to the familiar Harbin.

I took a taxi over to my old school, stopped at the supermarket to put some money on my phone and headed up to my apartment. One of my good friends met me at my apartment as we waited for the movers. They were supposed to come around 10.30-11 but we kept calling and they kept not showing up. Finally around 1 they showed up and were surprised to find out I had other things besides the couch (we had told the company but I guess there was a little miscommunication-or a lot). There was a lot of looking around, sighing, calling the company, sighing, telling me it was going to be very expensive to package everything again, sighing, and after about 20 minutes later they started moving things out. The couch was quite the event moving it out of the apartment. Finally we got everything moved out around 2 (I had a 3.30 train back so we are feeling a little rushed) and headed off for the moving company.

When we get to the moving company (after a random stop to get large boxes from some friend of the movers) they start taking things out of the truck to move to the bigger boxes. As I watch them throwing my boxes of glasses and things clearly marked as breakable I am cringing thinking about how I am going to have to buy all new dishes! I am telling them "please be careful" and they are like "oh, huh..." They are still telling me how it is going to be expensive to use the company to package everything again in bigger boxes. They tell me they (the guys moving the stuff) can do it that night for "cheaper." I am thinking their price is not cheaper but they also say they will be very careful with everything. They even offer me a ride in their truck, which I decline (4-5 hours in a hot truck on Chinese highways with 2 random Chinese men as opposed to my fast train (1.5 hour airconditioned) ticket this afternoon-no thank you). Anyways, it starts just getting tiring with all the talking and I finally get the men's ID information (for safety of my stuff) and decide to go with them instead of using the company-at least I know who will be throwing my stuff around! I pay them the initial deposit and head to the train station. Once to the train station I go and sit in the waiting room, enjoy a little "Scarborough Fair" for listening enjoyment (in the train station, not my ipod!) and get on my train.

On the train after about 15 minutes we slow to a stop. Confused I ask the next to me if this was a scheduled stop and she informs me that the air conditioning in the back of the train is broken. I then also see this as shirtless men are walking to the front cars through ours to go bring back bottles of water to cool themselves off. After not too long we get going again (I guess they fixed it). I arrive back in Changchun after about 2 hours and head back to my apartment, climb the 7 flights of stairs (that's right-7th floor no elevator). I drop my stuff off and go out and get some Subway (yea Subway in Changchun) and head back to my apartment and start making room for all my stuff and couch. The rest of the night I watched some Olympics, cleaned up some, killed a roach, took another shower, ran from a bigger roach, and took about an hour nap. Around 12AM I called the movers to check up when they were going to make it. They didnt know how to get to my apartment. About 12.30 I go outside and find some punk kids hanging out and got them to give the movers directions to my apartment. Finally the movers arrive and complain a big about how they can't park closer to my apartment door and say how the couch won't fit through the doors. We climb the stairs and they look around my apartment for a bit. They then start carting stuff up the stairs (using my headlamp because the lights in the stairwell are broken except on 2 floors). They take some rests and we watch Olympics as they cool off and wipe the sweat off. Finally its down to the couch around 3AM. I go down to help. They say the cant bring up the couch. I ask what are we going to do. They pick up the couch and the one part (its two parts) makes it up the stairs no problem (well, at least without too much trouble-its never easy carrying a couch up 7 flights). The second part required us to take off one of the legs but we made it all. I pay the man the rest of his money. And I take another shower and go to bed. One day down in China!