My computer crashed about a month ago and UVM graciously sent me a loaner computer via UPS. I received a phone call yesterday informing me that my I had a package in Changchun, which about 1 1/2 hours northwest of here. I confirmed many times that I had to travel to Changchun to pick it up and that they would not be delivering the package to me. Thus, I embarked on an adventure this morning with my compatriot, Jim.
It seemed that the gods were smiling down on us, as we jumped on a bus that immediately left for Changchun. Things were moving like clockwork. We finagled a taxi to customs, otherwise known as 'hai guan' in Mandarin. However, as soon as I walked in, everyone was walking in the wrong direction. Ops, we arrived at break time, 11:30AM. I was on the phone with my would-be package deliverer and my friend, Jim, heard me exclaim, "huh, Xiu xi!" which means break, and in China, it means siesta until 1:30.
We did the best we could and explored that part of the city, which is 4x the size of Jilin; about 4 million people live there. We found some pretty neat stuff including: a Chinese-version of a breakfast burrito, a fried egg with potato-like hash, some magical Chinese sauce, veggies and a man de-feathering 2 pigeons and leaving the carcasses on some fresh cabbage heads and a hospital called: Modern Male Hospital: where the trendy get their medical care.
We returned to the customs office and met up with a short woman in a black trench coat, who reminded me of the clothing designer in "The Incredible," because of her spunk and sassy attitude. I had a good amount of fun with her, notwithstanding being computerless upon exiting.
Man, did we have some language difficulties, but we were putting on quite the show for everyone in the room. At first, I couldn't believe how much they wanted me to pay in taxes. It was great, I was pulling out all my Chinese vocabulary: "that's so much!" "What am I going to do?" "How about if I just change the broken computer that I have here for the one in the airport and call it a day?" Well, I didn't say, "call it a day," but I did ask if I could just exchange it so I wouldn't have to pay. She laughed hard at me. I thought it was a good sign, but it didn't get me anywhere.
In the end, I left with only her phone number and bank card number so that I could deposit my payment in her account. Its sounds a little fishy, I know, but she's good people. I'm going to try to haggle the price down by using my resources here. If not, my contact at UVM told me to have them send it back because I should not be paying close to $400 for it. What an adventure! I'm pretty happy that I was able to somewhat communicate in this customs debacle; I'm a little sad that I am still bereft of a computer, *tear*, or rather that I don't have a functioning computer.
PS: It was flurrying today in Changchun, *double tear*
PPS: It was very, very cold today, *triple tear*
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