T-Munny

Eat More Kitties - The China Chapter
2002-08-26 03:24:17 (UTC)

Murphy's Law Unchained...PS - I'm in China!!

If anyone had told me 2 months ago that on August 24 at
5:30 AM I would be watching a Japanese golf tournament in
Tokyo, I would have patted them on the head and laughed.
After all, everyone knows golf is a terrible spectator
sport, but you know what? It's a lot more interesting when
everyone's speaking gibberish and bowing and bobbing all
over the place like a flock of featherless, black-haired
parakeets to anything with a heartbeat. This is just one of
the many important lessons I learned during my accidental
vacation to Tokyo on my alleged way to Nanjing.

In the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, allow me to "start
splainin." For those of you who aren't aware, my parents
opted to come with me to China and then join a tour group
due to extreme separation anxiety on my mother's part
(occasionally her maternal instincts run rampant like a
rabid squirrel, but it's understandable - she's got me for
her sole offspring, poor woman), and the fact that my
father has always wanted to take a tour of the Orient and
became giddy as a schoolgirl the moment he learned I was
going. And thus we went. Never again, my friends, never
again.

First there was the flight to Detroit, which Dad spent
sprawled across the aisle, snoring and blowing the most
impressive spit bubbles I have ever seen, and I succeeded
in dumping almost a whole coke in my lap within the first
15 minutes. Typical enough, I suppose. Next came the lovely
13 hour flight to Tokyo. The highlight of my trip was
definitely when Mom, eyes wide with awe and wonder, leans
over me to peer out the window and exclaim over
the "fascinating land masses down there." Upon further
inspection on my part, said "land masses" turned out to be
the wing of the plane we were currently flying on. Oh, I
could see then and there it was destined to be a wonderful
trip. Another particular favorite of mine was the little
Japanese man and his 2 young sons who, without fail,
managed to somehow materialize and push in front of me
EVERYTIME I went to the bathroom. I swear, he just hid back
there under a seat with his kids waiting for me to come
down the aisle, and then *poof* there he was, smiling and
bowing as nice as could be at me and my hyper-extended
bladder while he wasted a good 15 minutes attempting to
force his his kids, with their pants around their ankles,
to use the toilet they were obviously terrified of. Not
that I blame them, that thing sounded like it could suck an
elephant right out of the plane. Anyhow, no matter how
sneaky and sly I tried to be, he beat me out everytime. I
was duly impressed, and by the end of the flight I was
regarding the Japanese warily, but with a vastly increased
measure of respect.

It should also be mentioned that my father, in undoubtedly
one of his frequent schemes to force me to eat meat,
conveniently "forgot" to order the vegetarian meal plan for
me. However, it seems that one Mr. Cooper, a vegan (no
meat, eggs, or dairy), had failed to make an appearance
(probably passed out somewhere from malnutrition), so I was
fortunate enough to be able to suffer through his meals.
Lunch and dinner were painful enough, as I munched my
shriveled grapes and carrot sticks while hungrily watching
everyone else's cheese and cookies with a maniacal gleam in
my eye, but nothing could have prepared me for my delicious
breakfast of a strange off-white lump of something that I
can only assume was meant to be an egg-substitute and
stewed, mashed, and otherwise mutilated spinach. Needless
to say, I spent the last 1.5 hours of our flight with my
head in an air-sickness bag, much to the amusement of the
obnoxious little Japanese girl in front of me, who I rather
disliked to begin with due to the fact that she succeeded
in blocking my view of not one, but both in-flight movies
(and I really wanted to find out to the depressed mammoth
in Ice Age, too). If nothing else, that flight definitely
confirmed my suspicion that I hate children.

OK, I think I could write a whole novel (perhaps some of
you already think I have) just on that one memorable
flight, but there are more pressing matters at hand.
Naturally, we landed behind schedule and very nearly missed
our connecting flight to Shanghai. Naturally, mother had
lost her boarding pass. Naturally, I got selected AGAIN
(this had already happened in Roanoke - apparently my
criminal genius is starting to shine through, despite my
elaborate blonde airhead disguise...yes, that's right, it's
all been an act...really) for a "random terrorist search."
So I'm getting frisked while Mom's getting yelled at in
Japanese and Dad is alternating between shades of white and
purple at the thought of missing our flight. We're such a
special little family unit. So after running around the
Tokyo Airport for about 30 minutes, we're herded onto a bus
which proceeds to drive all the way back around the airport
and load us onto the SAME PLANE and into the SAME SEATS. It
was like Groundhog Day. I felt my pulse quicken and my
bladder contract as I started glancing around, panic-
stricken, for Captain Bathroom and his Potty Patrol. I
didn't find him, but I did find Perry. Perry is a very,
umm, outgoing young man who took it upon himself (generous
soul that he is) to take me under his wing (and arm) and
give me the dirt, no pun intended, on Nanjing. He lives
there and has apparently appointed himself my official tour-
guide, translator, guardian, entertainment committee, best
friend and town gossip. How thoughtful. The boy is a
circular talker and I now know his entire life story,
whereas he doesn't even know my last name. At any rate, he
gave me all his contact info and warned me not to
get "taken advantage of" by my college. When I asked for a
definition of the above mentioned phrase, he said "getting
toted around as a trophy to banquets, ceremonies, and
building openings." Free food, eh? Personally, I see no
problems here whatsoever - they can use me like the cute
little tool that I am. He also told me to demand that my
students bring me fresh fruit on a daily basis, etc. So
basically I'm picturing a typical class to be me lying on a
sofa being fed grapes and fanned by my adoring pupils. I
think teaching may be my calling after all.

So there I am trying to look like I really care about
Perry's "little hometown in Pennysylvania" and scrambling
to think of an excuse to change seats, when all of a sudden
I'm informed that there's been a medical emergency and
asked if I'm a doctor. Of course any idiot can tell I'm
barely out of high school, but I grabbed the opportunity
and ran with it. Little did I suspect the gentleman curled
into fetal position at the back of the plane would turn out
to be my father. For some unknown reason (you all know what
I look like...so feel free to laugh), the airport officials
assume I'm the one in charge of our little group. They also
assume I'm some sort of medical expert (which I guess in a
sad sort of way I am) and that I'm familiar with
international travel. Why is beyond me, as I no doubt
looked like Deer-In-Headlights Barbie by that point. Of
couse all this happens right before we're about to take
off, so we had to taxi all the way back and make a very
unceremonious exit (amid the irate glares and mutterings of
our so-called flying companions). Perry not only felt the
need to hold my hand throughout this operation, but even
went so far as to kiss me at our final parting. It's so
hard to say goodbye to someone you've known for a whole 10
minutes. Poor guy, I do hope manages to struggle on without
me at his side. Umm, yeah. We all know how much I love
PDAs, so it looks like someone just got demoted from all 6
of his lofty, self-appointed offices in my life. I'll cry
for hours over that one, no doubt.

Right then. Back to my dying father. So I get stuck trying
to explain (all to Japanese people, mind you) to the cross-
eyed luggage attendant how they have to go dig through the
luggage compartment on the plane to get our stuff off, call
an ambulance, deal with the customs people, tell the
paramedics what's wrong, contact Shanghai to leave a
message for the person I'm supposed to meet here, change
our hotel reservations, walk and chew gum at the same time.
Talk about baptism by fire. So I glued myself to Mr.
Haruki, the only remotely English-speaking person in Tokyo
(or so it seemed) and literally drug the poor man in the
ambulance with us. He was beyond nice and even took my
picture with his supercool cell phone and is going to email
it to me. How typical that my first picture taken in the
Orient is in a hospital. So it turns out my pre-diagnosis
of a kidney stone was correct (if there's one thing in life
I know about, it's abdominal pain - call it a gift if you
will...or not). And after Mom very nearly toppled their
ER's entire waiting room (she forgot the cardinal rule in
Japan that almost all apparent walls are actually just
screens or folding panels), we were able to finally leave
and go to a hotel. The only catch was that the next flight
wasn't until the following night, giving me an unexpected
day trip in Japan. Since I have the ability of a
narcoleptic cat to call upon the sleep gods, I didn't
suffer from jet lag a bit. So while my parents moped and
lounged about, I was able to go make a Grade A Tourist
spectacle of myself. But I think I've definitely written
too much in this entry as is, and I'm sorry you all had to
tax your poor brains this much, so I will save my Japanese
Jamboree for next time. All I can say so far is never
travel with your parental units and, for the love of all
that's holy, stay away from stewed spinach. Later kids.




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