Day Five

Without an alarm, I woke up exactly at 4:30, my desired waking hour. We ate a bit of breakfast, consisting of salad, sausage, grapefruit, milk & 'really thin pancakes'... We then took a taxi to one of the out-lying elevated train stations then we waited for a train (~20 minutes) & rode it to Narita (~90 minutes). My experience in the airport was rather hectic, but eventually we got through customs, immigration & security (which is a lot less ridiculous than the US). Despite our ridiculously early departure from Nerima, we didn't have to sit around the airport for too long. Now I'm sitting on the airplane enjoying some non-peanut snack mix & a Sapporo Draft (in a can). I think iPods are prohibited but I'm bored so I'm going to use mine anyways. // OK, the Beijing aiport was pretty crazy, we got off the plane & had to deal with security & customs immigration, but it really didn't take that long. When we got out, Ruoya was surprised that there wasn't a subway at the airport. So we looked around & decided that a shuttle could set us close enough to the city to take a taxi to his aunt's apartment. So we rode the shuttle for a long time & finally, at the last stop, we got out & tired to cross the road (we almost died), but as I forgot to mention, Chinese drivers are retarded. More retarded even that WDW drivers. Anyway, we got to the apartment there are rather a lot in the area) Ruoya was unsure of both the building & which apartment it was...So after 3 incorrect attempts, Ruoya found the right apartment. Inside were his grandparents, who were really nice but they didn't speak English, which makes things interesting. Anyway, we waited for his aunt to get home from work in order to take us to her old apartment where we were to live. While we waited, we showered & checked our email, then sat around until dinner. We had dumplings & some other things, it was good. I think I forgot to mention how fucking dirty Beijing is, so here it is, it's really, truly, a dirty, nasty city (or so I thought at the time). Anyway, so his aunt. who speaks English with a British accent, took us to her old apartment way across town to stay there. The surrounding area is pretty crappy, but the apartment itself is pretty nice. We were both pretty tired after the day of traveling (oh and the traffic is the worst too!) so we went to bed shortly after arriving.