Ok,
Sorry for the long delay in posting that Hongyun and I have actually met face to face, in real life and all that fun lingo,
hey, we finally met, she just left my hotel a little while ago, mama was with her, laughing at my terrible Chinese and the fact that I can't understand 3/4s of what either of them were saying in Chinese.
Reason for the delay, I absolutely hate Delta airlines now. My flights from Flint and Minneapolis were actually leaving and arriving early. Not too often you here that with any airline. Luck ended there. I arrived in Seattle, plane was already delayed a 1/2 hour, supposed to leave at 6 pm pacific, finally boarded at 7, finally took off at 8, turned around at 9:30 because the plane was a flying manure brick. So we were not close enough to Anchorage for a redirect, back to Seattle, overnight, they told us we would be off at 8 am, ok, I can deal, sleep on the plane be wide awake on arrival... No, they decided we would wait until 2 pm, then they delayed us another half hour on the flight. We get boarded, I've gone from 22 to the back of the bus, no big issue I did not pay for a picked seat. We are on the plane, everyone seated and waiting patiently when the pilot announces he is still waiting for one member of the flight crew, his #3 pilot to show, he's currently on the other side of Tacoma and they expect him at the airport in roughly 1/2 hour.... no, we were really not getting upset at all by this time. Of course now I am not able to jump online, because we are on the plane and we are supposed to have all devices in the "off" position. We finally get wheels up and the one positive thing I have to say, the #3 guy was actually the pilot flying the plane that day and he shaved almost an hour off our expected arrival time. Lands about like an RAF pilot on a bender-yes I have seen some rough landings our of those RAF flyers with their cargo planes-This guy dropped our 767 sideways onto the runway at Beijing Capital, the right gear came off the ground, fortunately we did not pull any dynamic maneuvers on the runway, the gear dropped back onto the pavement, but it was a rough landing. When I was crewing I would have slapped a pilot helmet for that type landing on a runway.
Back to life after landing, her friend she was staying with in Beijing decided that something happened because my flight number was not on the board. I got no warm greeting at the airport, just a howdy from the officials at the airport. Tried calling her, couldn't get through, figured I was dialing wrong, asked the phone card girl who told me it wasn't a local number. She dialed the number for me, the people on the other end didn't understand a thing I said in English or Chinese and hung up me. Jump on the WiFi at the airport misunderstood the message she left for me, run over to information desk, they send me to the bus to Beijingzhan, where I am told I'm too late come back tomorrow. Came back the next morning and they sell me a ticket out of Beijingxi. Grab a taxi, run across town, ride the train to Handan, get here, get to the hotel, finally get her on the phone, to find out she is on her way back from Beijing on a later train....
A few minutes Hongyun came back, and I got phone grilled by her friend in Bejing-calls herself Hongyun's Beijing mother-because it's my fault-what's new in life-and I'm not good enough for Hongyun-I think she's a yank hater-funny her real mother here seems to like me. This trip started great, seems fine when she's here, but has some really bad rough spots. I really like this girl and I think she really likes me, but whoever the wicked witch of the east is, I have to figure out how to get past her for some kind of approval.
So, I'm gonna have me some water, because I'm dried out from the trip here and get some rest, because I'm so stinking tired right now I don't know which way is up. We're meeting in the morning at 9, so I'm planning on just doing my thing and not worrying about the Beijing issue.
I will update everyone later,
Lloyd
