I know you have all been waiting with bated breath to find out the results of my cell phone bill.
Well. I was fully expecting to receive a cell phone bill in the amount of $839.52 because as we all know, the most expensive phone call in the world is to China. Remember being a kid and your mom saying, "Hang UP! Quit messing with the PHONE! Are you trying to CALL CHINA?!" But my brother got in his car accident and ended up in the ICU and there were phone calls to my mom, and all of my four sisters about his condition (he's fine now, don't worry).
Before we even left on our trip I called Verizon to see what I would be charged and the woman did not know the answer. Very frustrating - but I decided not to worry about it because she also told me that my phone would most likely not work. But, it did. Really well in fact - I had four bars the entire time. And so, while we were there, I emailed a few people from home asking if anybody could tell me how much my phone bill was going to be. I got responses anywhere from $1.29 per minute plus long distance to $4.00 per minute. Nobody could answer the sodding question. I tried looking online at my bill but it had all the charges "except roaming."
So, naturally I was extremely worried and have spent the last two weeks freaking out and checking into getting a Home Equity Loan to discuss payment options. Just kidding. ANYWAY...drum roll...
The bill was $166. My regular monthly bill is $99. It cost me only $67 to call home.
So, I went shoe shopping to celebrate.
Hope everybody's settled back into life and doing well!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, November 24, 2008
This Blog is just emails I sent to friends and family while in China in January of 2007
Read in order, from posting "1" through "10".
1
Hello everybody! I love China. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE IT.
It's weird the time change though. I am writing to you from the future. It is 6:11PM on Friday. In Minnesota it is 4:11AM Friday. So I have 14 more hours experience with Friday than you do. HA!
So far the crappy parts of my trip include:
24 hours of traveling to arrive in Beijing, only to have our guide be late and it took 2 hours just to get out of the airport.
Going to the "Panda Zoo" where there were like three half-dead pandas doing nothing. Sort of reminded me of the Como Zoo only at least at the Como Zoo the polar bear goes around and around in that circle. I went into it thinking I would be holding baby pandas, and playing with those 12 new ones from that email. Not so.
Going to the Red Sandalwood Museum. BORING.
Eating at KFC for dinner tonight. Just as gross here as it is at home.
So far the highlights of my trip include:
Getting a twenty dollar-90 minute massage in my room.
Meeting a fun young couple from Salt Lake City named Kellie and Rich, and Rich speaks Chinese.
Standing in Tieneman Square.
Having my picture taken with Chairman Mao's picture.
Visiting the Forbidden City.
Getting lice from an old man on the street.
Not sure about that last one, but I have been taking some amazing pictures today. I spent the afternoon alone, my group went on an optional tour to the Gaobedian Village. I was just sick of being on the bus, so I ventured out into Beijing by myself. My plan was to go ice skating on Qianhai Lake. I couldn't find a taxi that knew what the H. I was talking about, so I just decided to go shopping instead. So I took a cab to Wangfujing Dajie, kind of like the Beijing Nicollet Mall...anyways I saw some cool people dressed as pandas, so I just took their picture and lost all my previous inhibitions of taking strangers' pictures on the streets. (I have always been so nervous to ask people if I can take their picture. Missed a couple awesome shots in Morocco because of that.) Anyways, the Pandas even interviewed me on camera. Not sure if that means I will be on TV? After that I just started taking tons of pictures of people. Cute little kids, old ladies, etc...And that brings me to the old man with the lice. I was walking along and I passed this awesome old gentleman, more like a stinky old street person, and I turned around after I was ahead of him by about 20 yards and pretended to take a picture of something else. He saw me and smiled so I walked up to get a close-up and took his picture. He had a 1 yuan in his hand, and I guess I took it to mean he was a beggar, so I pulled out my wallet and gave him a 20 yuan note, (only about $2.50 US) and he smiled so big and cute and so I hugged him, and now I am quite sure I have lice.
If so, I will be coming home looking like Sinead O'Connor.
p.s. when I got my massage, I was naked except for the towel the lady put over me. When she was rubbing my leg, she pushed my knee into my chest to stretch me out, and I'm pretty sure my stuff was hanging out, and I was so embarrassed. Then she started rotating my knee around and around and then I knew for sure she saw my pee pee.
I hope its OK to type that in China.
Love you mom.
If your name is on the following list, I have bought you a present.
Mom, Kim, Keri, Kelly, Kasey, Cory
Everybody else, sorry I haven't seen anything that jumped out at me yet. Plus I've only been here two days, jeez!
Alisha, I am going to try to visit an orphanage while I am here.
Can anybody help me figure out how much money it costs to talk on my cell phone here? I have used 26 minutes and I'm afraid it's going to be super expensive. I have Verizon, and nobody there knew before I got here, and I didn't think my phone would work, but it DOES. I couldn't believe it. Anyways, I went online and it doesn't say what my charges are going to be and I'm scared.
To be continued.
It's weird the time change though. I am writing to you from the future. It is 6:11PM on Friday. In Minnesota it is 4:11AM Friday. So I have 14 more hours experience with Friday than you do. HA!
So far the crappy parts of my trip include:
24 hours of traveling to arrive in Beijing, only to have our guide be late and it took 2 hours just to get out of the airport.
Going to the "Panda Zoo" where there were like three half-dead pandas doing nothing. Sort of reminded me of the Como Zoo only at least at the Como Zoo the polar bear goes around and around in that circle. I went into it thinking I would be holding baby pandas, and playing with those 12 new ones from that email. Not so.
Going to the Red Sandalwood Museum. BORING.
Eating at KFC for dinner tonight. Just as gross here as it is at home.
So far the highlights of my trip include:
Getting a twenty dollar-90 minute massage in my room.
Meeting a fun young couple from Salt Lake City named Kellie and Rich, and Rich speaks Chinese.
Standing in Tieneman Square.
Having my picture taken with Chairman Mao's picture.
Visiting the Forbidden City.
Getting lice from an old man on the street.
Not sure about that last one, but I have been taking some amazing pictures today. I spent the afternoon alone, my group went on an optional tour to the Gaobedian Village. I was just sick of being on the bus, so I ventured out into Beijing by myself. My plan was to go ice skating on Qianhai Lake. I couldn't find a taxi that knew what the H. I was talking about, so I just decided to go shopping instead. So I took a cab to Wangfujing Dajie, kind of like the Beijing Nicollet Mall...anyways I saw some cool people dressed as pandas, so I just took their picture and lost all my previous inhibitions of taking strangers' pictures on the streets. (I have always been so nervous to ask people if I can take their picture. Missed a couple awesome shots in Morocco because of that.) Anyways, the Pandas even interviewed me on camera. Not sure if that means I will be on TV? After that I just started taking tons of pictures of people. Cute little kids, old ladies, etc...And that brings me to the old man with the lice. I was walking along and I passed this awesome old gentleman, more like a stinky old street person, and I turned around after I was ahead of him by about 20 yards and pretended to take a picture of something else. He saw me and smiled so I walked up to get a close-up and took his picture. He had a 1 yuan in his hand, and I guess I took it to mean he was a beggar, so I pulled out my wallet and gave him a 20 yuan note, (only about $2.50 US) and he smiled so big and cute and so I hugged him, and now I am quite sure I have lice.
If so, I will be coming home looking like Sinead O'Connor.
p.s. when I got my massage, I was naked except for the towel the lady put over me. When she was rubbing my leg, she pushed my knee into my chest to stretch me out, and I'm pretty sure my stuff was hanging out, and I was so embarrassed. Then she started rotating my knee around and around and then I knew for sure she saw my pee pee.
I hope its OK to type that in China.
Love you mom.
If your name is on the following list, I have bought you a present.
Mom, Kim, Keri, Kelly, Kasey, Cory
Everybody else, sorry I haven't seen anything that jumped out at me yet. Plus I've only been here two days, jeez!
Alisha, I am going to try to visit an orphanage while I am here.
Can anybody help me figure out how much money it costs to talk on my cell phone here? I have used 26 minutes and I'm afraid it's going to be super expensive. I have Verizon, and nobody there knew before I got here, and I didn't think my phone would work, but it DOES. I couldn't believe it. Anyways, I went online and it doesn't say what my charges are going to be and I'm scared.
To be continued.
2
I forgot to tell you that when I was at the Los Angeles airport I had tons of time to kill so I went up to a restaurant and had a cheeseburger and a couple beers. When I was done, I had to get back to check in (I had all of my luggage...the Air China counter didn't open until about an hour after I arrived in L.A.) so I loaded up all my stuff onto this luggage cart. As I was walking away, I noticed that the luggage cart said, "Do Not Remove - Daily Grill" but my server told me to take it, so I was all nervous about that. I ended up getting onto an escalator going down, and of course the luggage cart pointed down as I got on it, and all of my luggage fell forward off the luggage cart and went barrelling down the entire escalator. I was so glad nobody was on the escalator in front of me. And of course 6,000 people saw it - it was right in front of the international terminal check-in area.
I got sick again, and coughed all night last night. I am so annoyed. I was just about over my cold before I left and a whole new cold started right up again. The air here is very smoggy, so I just don't feel 100%. People are walking around with surigcal masks on their faces. They look like those sars maks, but I think maybe the people have asthma or something. The air here is very polluted. They make cute ones with little animals on them, and there are different brands of masks. You can tell that some are almost like, designer masks. I have seen probably one hundred of them, nobody's embarrassed to be wearing them. It's interesting. They're made of cotton too, not the paper kind you're probably thinking.
Today I am going to the Great Wall. Pretty exciting. I'll write more about it later.
-Kady Mao
I got sick again, and coughed all night last night. I am so annoyed. I was just about over my cold before I left and a whole new cold started right up again. The air here is very smoggy, so I just don't feel 100%. People are walking around with surigcal masks on their faces. They look like those sars maks, but I think maybe the people have asthma or something. The air here is very polluted. They make cute ones with little animals on them, and there are different brands of masks. You can tell that some are almost like, designer masks. I have seen probably one hundred of them, nobody's embarrassed to be wearing them. It's interesting. They're made of cotton too, not the paper kind you're probably thinking.
Today I am going to the Great Wall. Pretty exciting. I'll write more about it later.
-Kady Mao
3
OK. Wow. The Great Wall. What can I say? It was amazing. Truly amazing. I climbed it, tons and tons and tons of stairs. I climbed an elevation of 1600 meters from where I started to the absolute top of the Great Wall. They talk in meters here. I have no frame of reference for the metric system. All I can say is that it was really hard to do. Am I right when I say it was 16 football fields? Or so? And that's straight up in the air, so it was far to walk, but that was just the difference in altitude when we started to when we got to the top. Mark, climbing the stairs at the Interchange Building was great practice. Some tourist from another group counted the stairs and there were 1650. Not sure how many steps at the Interchange, but it was 21 floors. Multiplied by 20 steps per floor, that makes about 400 steps or so? And this was in 20 degree weather (that's Farenheit) and SO windy! I know this is just a weird fear, but it felt like the wind was going to knock me right off the mountain. Apparently when they were building the Great Wall, when workers would die they would just build them right into the wall. So here in China they call it the Longest Tomb. We also went to the Ming Tomb today. I thought it was kind of boring. Then we went to the Sacred Way, and there were some cool statues all along this walkway. I got my picture taken by a few of them. We saw Chinese silk carpets and tapestries being made also. That was pretty cool. It takes 3 weavers a year and a half to make a 8 x 10 rug. And they sell for $6500 US including shipping. That made me sad because if you think of it, how much could the weavers make for a wage? Not much. They work for a year and a half, the factory makes $6500, even if the workers got to keep all the cash, it would be $2100 each for a year and half's work, but you know the factory keeps most of the money and the weavers only get a tiny portion of that. They make one square inch per day of carpet. The rugs were beautiful. Boy is this the math email or what? And my math is probably all wrong. Oh well. I'm getting another massage tonight. Yay - My legs are sore from the stairs. More later...
4
Hey everybody. Massage went better last night, got a different girl, and she seemed better. Kept my grungies on too so no chance of exposure. That helped me relax. Today the group went on another optional tour so I have been by myself all day. I got up and ate breakfast in my pajamas with the group at 7am. Then I went back to my room and watched TV and slept until about 10:30, and got up and showered and went out for the day. I took a cab to the Pearl Market, where you can get real pearls for cheap cheap cheap. They are imperfect, slighly lopsided pearls so that's why they are inexpensive. I bought a necklace, a bracelet, earrings and a strand of pearls. I negotiated hard and got a good price. The lady laughed at my first offer, but I think I did OK in the end. Especially since I'm not much of a jewelry wearer and will probably never wear the stuff. Joke's on me.
If your name is on the following list, add yourself to the people I bought presents for:
Miyo
haha that's it. But Kasey, you're going to die when you see what I got her. I am SO excited to show you.
After the pearl market I ventured out into the Hutongs, or shanty-town type neighborhoods where people live in cramped conditions. I took several pictures. This one guy followed me the entire time I was in there and it made me very nervous because I was alone. He kept stamping his feet. I would turn around, make eye contact with him, and then STAMP! He pointed at my camera once. I could NOT figure out what he was doing. But he stayed near me the entire time I was in the Hutongs. So I only stuck around for about an hour, especially since I was so hungry and there was no way I was going to eat at a street vendor in the ghetto of Beijing. A student aged kid came up to me and said, 'Excuse me, are you American? Welcome to China' in the CUTEST most broken English I have ever heard. I thought that was so cool. A beggar asked me for money, and I pulled what I thought was small change out of my pocket, and I went for the wrong pocket, so he got my cab fare. 20 Yuan. ($2.50 US) I was like, crap how am I going to get home now? But I hailed a cab anyway and made the driver wait at my hotel while I changed some money. Of course there were ten people in line at the changing table. Eventually the cabbie came in the hotel looking for me so I gave him a 10 Yuan tip because I felt so bad.
These emails are a little boring right now I know. It's because I have internet in my hotel, so I'm writing more often, and not much happens in between visits to the computer. I will tell you that I washed all of my laundry in the tub today. I felt very do-it-yourself-y. The laundry service at my hotel is insane crazy expensive (50 Yuan for one pair of pants. 18 Yuan for one pair of underwear. 8 Yuan per dollar.) So I washed them myself. But the joke's on me again, because we have to have our luggage ready by 10PM tonight for our flight to Xi'an and there's no way all my stuff will be dry by then, so I'll be wasting valuable shopping time blow drying my socks.
Oh well.
Love to all,
More later
Kady Tsang Tse Yang
If your name is on the following list, add yourself to the people I bought presents for:
Miyo
haha that's it. But Kasey, you're going to die when you see what I got her. I am SO excited to show you.
After the pearl market I ventured out into the Hutongs, or shanty-town type neighborhoods where people live in cramped conditions. I took several pictures. This one guy followed me the entire time I was in there and it made me very nervous because I was alone. He kept stamping his feet. I would turn around, make eye contact with him, and then STAMP! He pointed at my camera once. I could NOT figure out what he was doing. But he stayed near me the entire time I was in the Hutongs. So I only stuck around for about an hour, especially since I was so hungry and there was no way I was going to eat at a street vendor in the ghetto of Beijing. A student aged kid came up to me and said, 'Excuse me, are you American? Welcome to China' in the CUTEST most broken English I have ever heard. I thought that was so cool. A beggar asked me for money, and I pulled what I thought was small change out of my pocket, and I went for the wrong pocket, so he got my cab fare. 20 Yuan. ($2.50 US) I was like, crap how am I going to get home now? But I hailed a cab anyway and made the driver wait at my hotel while I changed some money. Of course there were ten people in line at the changing table. Eventually the cabbie came in the hotel looking for me so I gave him a 10 Yuan tip because I felt so bad.
These emails are a little boring right now I know. It's because I have internet in my hotel, so I'm writing more often, and not much happens in between visits to the computer. I will tell you that I washed all of my laundry in the tub today. I felt very do-it-yourself-y. The laundry service at my hotel is insane crazy expensive (50 Yuan for one pair of pants. 18 Yuan for one pair of underwear. 8 Yuan per dollar.) So I washed them myself. But the joke's on me again, because we have to have our luggage ready by 10PM tonight for our flight to Xi'an and there's no way all my stuff will be dry by then, so I'll be wasting valuable shopping time blow drying my socks.
Oh well.
Love to all,
More later
Kady Tsang Tse Yang
5
Ok this is weird, they put me at a Chinese computer this time, I left some of the characters at the bottom of this email to show you what it looks like, hopefully they show up.
I had to write one more time before leaving Beijing. I had a fun day shopping today, after what I typed today I left the hotel and went back to the Wangfujie place I went the other day. A couple funny things happened. first of all, I went shopping in a dress shop and was trying on beautiful gorgeous dresses. I thought I might splurge and buy myself a dress, kind of like when I was in Spain. Well I tried on several dresses and they were all too small, the lady couldn't zip them up for me. I laughed, she laughed, we sort of bonded over the dresses not zipping up. Which I didn't think was a big deal. I figured that if I found one that I liked, we could worry about sizes later. Surely they would have more sizes in the back. Well, after the fourth dress not fitting me, and being too small to zip, I pointed at another dress I wanted to try on. The lady sliced her hand through the air and said "small" and stuck her nose up in the air and wouldn't look at me anymore. Meaning, you're too fat to wear these dresses, get out of my store. I was so hurt I almost started crying. I couldn't believe it. I guess they only have one size there, and there is no getting a bigger size if you like the dress. Whatev!
Then I bought myself a purse at a cute little purse store. I tried to use my Visa card to buy it, but they only took cash. So the lady behind the desk said that her co-worker would bring me to the bank so I could get some money to buy the purse. We started walking to the 'bank' and it's freezing out mind you. Walking walking walking walking, we walked like six blocks to an ATM machine. She brought with her the change and the purse all wrapped up. So when I got the ATM money, I gave it to her and she gave me my change and my purse. It felt like a drug deal. What stunk was that we walked the six blocks I had just walked while shopping, so I had to back track and walk all the way back to continue shopping at stores I hadn't been in yet. So on the way back, I looked down a side street, and there was a lot of lights and commotion, so I went down there. Turns out there is like a bazarre just off Wangfujie where they sell 'snacks'. Meaning scorpions on a stick. Grasshoppers, crayfish, starfish, centipedes, baby shark, snake, octopus, snails all on stick. Like the Fear Factor Minnesota State Fair. The smell was so gross. I couldn't believe it. I truly thought it was a joke, like for fun. But people were eating it! There were thousands of people there, lined up and all of them were eating this gross food. There was about a city block long of different stalls, all selling essentially the same thing, and each one had lines of ten people deep waiting to eat this gross stuff. A couple stalls were selling chicken and beef and fruit on a stick too, but mostly the yucky stuff.
Well, off to Xi'an tomorrow morning at 4am! Not sure when I'll have access to email again. Love you mom and dad, it was good to talk to you today! I'll write that in Chinese for fun:
L????????, ?????????????
This computer translates my words into ??. (Chinese)-
Wow that is cool. I hope it shows up on your computers like that.
There are such nice people on this trip with me, a lady just saw me in the computer room, and asked if I was feeling better. I said no I feel like crap and she went up to her room for some medicine for me. Her name is Lorraine. She wears a furry Dr. Zhivago hat. I love it.
Ok, guys - I love you. I'M HAVING SO MUCH FUN!
BYE
I had to write one more time before leaving Beijing. I had a fun day shopping today, after what I typed today I left the hotel and went back to the Wangfujie place I went the other day. A couple funny things happened. first of all, I went shopping in a dress shop and was trying on beautiful gorgeous dresses. I thought I might splurge and buy myself a dress, kind of like when I was in Spain. Well I tried on several dresses and they were all too small, the lady couldn't zip them up for me. I laughed, she laughed, we sort of bonded over the dresses not zipping up. Which I didn't think was a big deal. I figured that if I found one that I liked, we could worry about sizes later. Surely they would have more sizes in the back. Well, after the fourth dress not fitting me, and being too small to zip, I pointed at another dress I wanted to try on. The lady sliced her hand through the air and said "small" and stuck her nose up in the air and wouldn't look at me anymore. Meaning, you're too fat to wear these dresses, get out of my store. I was so hurt I almost started crying. I couldn't believe it. I guess they only have one size there, and there is no getting a bigger size if you like the dress. Whatev!
Then I bought myself a purse at a cute little purse store. I tried to use my Visa card to buy it, but they only took cash. So the lady behind the desk said that her co-worker would bring me to the bank so I could get some money to buy the purse. We started walking to the 'bank' and it's freezing out mind you. Walking walking walking walking, we walked like six blocks to an ATM machine. She brought with her the change and the purse all wrapped up. So when I got the ATM money, I gave it to her and she gave me my change and my purse. It felt like a drug deal. What stunk was that we walked the six blocks I had just walked while shopping, so I had to back track and walk all the way back to continue shopping at stores I hadn't been in yet. So on the way back, I looked down a side street, and there was a lot of lights and commotion, so I went down there. Turns out there is like a bazarre just off Wangfujie where they sell 'snacks'. Meaning scorpions on a stick. Grasshoppers, crayfish, starfish, centipedes, baby shark, snake, octopus, snails all on stick. Like the Fear Factor Minnesota State Fair. The smell was so gross. I couldn't believe it. I truly thought it was a joke, like for fun. But people were eating it! There were thousands of people there, lined up and all of them were eating this gross food. There was about a city block long of different stalls, all selling essentially the same thing, and each one had lines of ten people deep waiting to eat this gross stuff. A couple stalls were selling chicken and beef and fruit on a stick too, but mostly the yucky stuff.
Well, off to Xi'an tomorrow morning at 4am! Not sure when I'll have access to email again. Love you mom and dad, it was good to talk to you today! I'll write that in Chinese for fun:
L????????, ?????????????
This computer translates my words into ??. (Chinese)-
Wow that is cool. I hope it shows up on your computers like that.
There are such nice people on this trip with me, a lady just saw me in the computer room, and asked if I was feeling better. I said no I feel like crap and she went up to her room for some medicine for me. Her name is Lorraine. She wears a furry Dr. Zhivago hat. I love it.
Ok, guys - I love you. I'M HAVING SO MUCH FUN!
BYE
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