Journey to the Other Side of Earth

So a few weeks ago I traveled back from Taiwan to my homeland of America. The trip was memorable enough that I thought you might enjoy hearing about it. It's a lot of reading, but I think it's a good story.

The day before we left, we spent basically the whole day packing. Our plan was to bring as much of Ruo-Ci's stuff from her parent's home in Taiwan back to our home as possible. Can I also say next time PLEASE don't ask us to bring back dog dishes, coffee packets, a blender, and other assorted items that you just CAN'T get in your own country? (Ruo-Ci can't say no.) Anyway, in the end we had four bulging suitcases that each weighed 49.9 pounds, along with my horn and three other carry-on bags.

1) Our trip started Sunday around noon, as we hopped in the car and drove an hour and half from Taichung to the airport in Taipei.

2) On the first airplane, there was a lot of pre-flight confusion, as one fellow apparently got moved from business class to economy. A father wanted to change seats with someone so he could sit next to his son, which this first person agreed to. A few minutes later some Chinese flight attendants came over and said that the seat was for someone else. The first guy wanted to hear nothing about this and became quite belligerent. After 10 minutes of awkward shouting and demands for an aisle seat, it appeared that the boy and his father were in the wrong row. A few minutes later, another cute and petite Chinese flight attendant confronted the first guy, told him she heard that he had been drinking, and ripped him for bringing his own alcohol. It was also somewhat uncomfortable. From that point on, the guy was rather quiet.

Oh wait, there's more. There was an Indian couple a couple rows away from us. Before liftoff this poor fellow got sick. Apparently it happened in the lavatory, and the same cute and petite Chinese flight attendant yelled at him for "getting sick" in the sink, not in a bag or the toilet. That was somewhat awkward. All of these events seemed to contribute to a takeoff 45 minutes late. Fifteen minutes into the flight, this poor fellow got sick again, at his seat. He managed to use a bag, but apparently he was a little slow because he vomited on his shirt, too. His wife was totally pissed off. Anyway, he took off his shirt, I guess his wife went back to clean it for him, and he wrapped in a blanket for the flight. The worst part: this poor fellow had probably been flying already for 15 hours from a country where they don't bathe as regularly as most Americans. Suddenly there was a breeze of his odor that swept through the cabin and almost made me nauseous. A flight attendant brought some perfume air freshner but it had no chance. The passenger next to him sat turned facing the aisle holding his nose for the remainder of the flight. I think a flight attendant brought the poor stranger a facemask.

I almost got some sleep on the flight, but right as I began to doze, a little boy stood up in his mother's lap and just screamed for half an hour. It was hard to sleep after that.

3) 10 hours later we had a brief stop in Anchorage, Alaska, mostly spent in line for customs, and then we boarded again for JFK. This flight was not quite as packed. After getting settled, we noticed that there was a whole free row not too far from us. We grabbed our books and bags and slid into the seats just before pulling away. It took us about 3 seconds to realize that this was a very unwise choice as our new seats smelled like vomit and intense body odor. We looked back in horror as two girls had slid over into our old seats and the plane was already in motion. We were trapped. We quickly found the blankets and pillows that were "unusable" and threw them under the seat as quickly as possible. My wife was wise enough to have grabbed her pillow and blanket from before, but I only managed to find the one from the poor stranger in the aisle seat. I guess it didn't matter because once anything touched the seat it became contaminated. We asked a flight attendant for an air freshener or something but it could only help so much. It was a very uncomfortable flight.

4) We arrived at JFK in New York at like 11pm, where we walked all our luggage to the AirTrain, struggling to get past all the zealous taxi drivers who wouldn't take no for an answer. Can't blame them too much, as a haggardly young couple dragging 4 suitcases plus four bags at 11pm in New York looks a bit pitiful. As we were walking, we realized that neither of us really investigated the logistics of it, and as it was the first time we've done this trip, we didn't really know where we were going. And midnight is not a recommended time to start calling people to get directions. But anyway, we figured out what train we needed.

5) We got to the Jamaica Station terminal at around 12:30am, not a recommended time to be in the rough neighborhoods of NYC. We asked an information attendant where we should go, and they accurately told us to take the E Train to 42nd street. After dragging all our stuff in and out of a crowded elevator we met some employees who informed us that the E Train track was under construction so we had to go back up the elevator, go outside and take a shuttle to another station. So here we are at like 1am walking around on the streets of New York. Can't say I felt very safe. And again, we didn't exactly know where this shuttle stop was. But we did see several interesting (shady) characters.

6) Okay, so it wasn't too hard to find the shuttle stop. The hard part was getting in. The door of the bus was small and the steps were rather high. I could only fit one suitcase though at a time, but I stumbled twice trying to get the bags in. And there was no way my petite wife was going to lift two fifty pound suitcases up four steep steps onto the bus. There were like five people behind us who had to wait like 5 minutes for us to get all our crap safely into the bus. One stranger asked my wife if she was transporting bricks. After the 15-20 minute bus ride, taking the bags off one at a time once we reached the stop was also a laborious task.

7) The four steps of the bus were a warm-up for what was left. Subway trains are down underground. Many steps down. So we had to organize a plan for two people to carry four suitcases and four other bags down about 50 steps. And we didn't really want to leave anything unattended at the top or bottom of the stairs (this was a subway entrance on the street of a NYC neighborhood at like 1am, ya know). This is much too much thinking after we've been traveling already for 25 hours. Anyway, one bag at a time, one half the way down at a time, we made it through. The attendant was kind enough to open the handicapped ticket door so we could pull our bags through. At this point, we looked a little handicapped anyway. On the subway, we sat inside our little luggage fortress. This crazy looking kid got on and asked if we were moving to New York City. Yes, we are moving in at 1am. He was a very chatty fellow, going to culinary school to be a chef so he wanted to visit every country in the world to try every cuisine. Good luck, young man.

After getting off after a long subway ride, of course there was no elevator from the platform to the concourse but there was this long winding ramp with a dozen turns. Three quarters of the way up this lady coming down made us get out of the way so she could pass. Seems like it would be a little easier for everyone if she waited 20 seconds so these two crazy people could drag their oversized cargo to the top first and clear the ramp. Nope. The exit doorway was one of those turnstyle things, you push the bar and walk through. It was too narrow for our bags. The wheelchair door was locked. So I had to lift each bag over the bar and walkway and hand it to Ruo-Ci. We found the exit to the bus station entrance (which had a nice ramp), but of course the exit was closed at 1:35am (actually, I think it locked at like 1:30). And of course, there is no elevator. More stairs. We walked a couple blocks to the bus station, of course passing the locked subway exit with the ramp that we were at 15 minutes earlier.

By the way, I was a bit tired at this point.

8) So we got to the Port Authority Bus Station in Manhattan at like 1:50am. The first bus departs for Hartford at 3:30. The regular entrance (with elevator) was closed and guarded by very busy police officers so we were lucky enough to take more stairs down to the terminal. It took me a little longer this time. At the next level we walked past the dozens of weary travelers that looked more haggardly than ourselves and claimed our section of the floor.

While waiting for our bus this huge black guy started hollering at a bookstore clerk who thought the man had taken an unpaid-for book with him out of the store. He repeatedly reminded the poor clerk that he was born in America, not some stowaway foreigner like the clerk who rode a boat to America with a couple nickels looking for opportunity. He claimed that the book was his. The police came. The man could not believe that this fellow had followed him down the escalator to inquire whether he had shoplifted the book. "He followed me! That racist clerk! I'm an American!" That was a lot of excitement for 2:30am.

After waiting what seemed forever we finally got to board the Greyhound bus. There seems to have been some confusion (understandable for 3:30am) and two busses seemed to be combined. Every seat was filled, which means my horn had to go under my feet, which wasn't very comfortable. On the road home someone near the front started snoring violently. I didn't think much of it at first, but it continued, and became much louder and disgusting. It was unbelievable. The people next to him tried to poke him or wake him to no avail. This crazy guy snored for two hours straight. Every time I began dozing off I was startled by a hack, choke, or a snort.

9) Pulled into the Hartford bus station with the sun up at like 6am on the 4th of July. We were prepared to walk the mile home (we were in no hurry), but the taxi service was a pretty good deal. We even gave him a nice tip.

10) Unfortunately, this was not the end of the trip. The most difficult task was the last: carrying all our bags up the stairs to our 4th floor apartment. At this point I was starving and dead exhausted. But with the end in sight and my nice soft bed in my mind I found the drive to get it all up, one bag, one floor at a time.

And that's how we got around the world in 31 hours, from Sunday 12:30pm in Taiwan to Monday 6:30am in Connecticut, via car, two airplanes, train, shuttle, subway, bus, taxi, and lots of walking up stairs.