The Voyage Home

Beijing airport is a strange one. After 20 minutes of wandering around, I picked a line to stand in, and fortunately it turned out to be the right one. I checked my bags, and had nothing but a bottle of water when I passed through the security check. I set off the metal detector but the security guy never got out of his chair and grunted at me, which I took as Chinese for "Whatever, it's cool." I never passed through customs, and I didn't know why. I sat and waited for my plane to Osaka with about 12 other people. When my plane finally started boarding, The 13 of us went through the gate, into the little tunnel thing, then down some stairs, and onto the tarmac. Everyone looked confused. There was a bus driver who was motioning to us, and after a few brave souls boarded first, everyone else got on. I guess the gate was then closed, and the bus driver got the signal to depart. Then we drove around the tarmac for a half hour. If you thought regular traffic lights were bad, airport tarmac traffic lights are a nightmare. When we finally reached plane at the ass end of the airport, we boarded and the plane took off...and landed in some place called Yantai. After getting off the plane, panicking and thinking I was on the wrong plane (along with about 8 confused looking Japanese people) we were then lead through customs finally. I guess this was the Chinese frontier. After passing through customs, we were led into a dead end room with some duty free shops (no free Remy XO samples like in Japan and Korea). After 10 minutes of wondering what the hell was going on, our flight was called, and we reboarded the plane and an hour later we landed in Osaka. My bronchial cancer asthma itus cleared up almost instantly.

It was the first time I'd ever felt any sort of homesickness, though a lot of it probably had to do with my actualsickness. It was an amazing trip, though traveling alone is sort of lonely at times. Everyday that I was alone, I ended up meeting someone new. Still, for my next trip I'm going to try to drag someone along. $1 Beers should help convince a few of my friends. My dumbass drunkard friends. After a 30 minute train ride that cost more than the combined total of every taxi I took in Korea and China, I arrived home and slept for the next 14 hours. I was hungry and craving something Japanese, so I woke up and ordered one of these:

It was 10 inches and cost as much as 3 days of meals for 3 people in Beijing. And it was worth it.

Day 1 - Fukuoka
Day 2 - Fukuoka to Pusan to Seoul
Day 3 - Seoul
Day 4 - Seoul
Day 5 - Seoul
Day 6 - Seoul to Beijing
Day 7 - Beijing
Day 8 - Beijing
Day 9 - Beijing
Day 10 - Beijing
Day 11 - Beijing
Day 12 - Beijing