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Hey guys!Sorry it's been so majorly long since I've posted anything. Internet in Asia with Vista is iffy at best and in China, proper, there's major blocking of all blogs and even wiki!
My brother got the lovely Fedex box from Chris and while back and was even kind enough to nag the freak out of my Dad to wire transfer the money over for me while I was in another country.
I'm flying back to America tomorrow, through *dun dun dun* UNITED. It turns out that their Mileage Plus progam is pretty damn sweet and nice to live with. By the end of the year, I'll have earned enough miles to be a freakin' Premier member so that means free extra inches and all that, but I seriously digress. China has been an experience. I'm kind of regretting not choosing to study abroad here rather than in Japan because as everybody I've met thus far has been quick to remark, life in Japan is hella freakin' expensive. In Beijing, I went out with my little brother and all his Beijing University friends and we got teetotaled for under $10 or 70 kuai. But, I met this one Japanese guy here and he said that Japan is fun, majorly so, you just need to know where to look. He also mentioned something about having a friend of a relative that teaches at Sophia, which I called Jyouriku Uni as opposed to Jyoichi Uni because let's face it, I haven't spoken any Japanese in months.
I'm pretty positive I'll be put into the Japanese for Beginners class, and I'm also sure that I wouldn't mind it. ^^
Now, my only worries from living in Asia as a result of my time in China is this:
- manners? do people have them?
- money? where does it all go?
- bathrooms? no, really... need I go there?
Apparently, from my brother's 1 month stay in China thus far, he has become a rampant nationalist. I can't wait to see what Japan does to the lot of us. For better or worse, yeah?
KK, I need to pack up my suitcase and prep for a huge, blowout, final hot pot dinner.
I hope everybody's break has been awesomely amazingly aaaaaan-believable (i ran out of adjectives starting with a *shrug*)
Love love,
Teresa
- random update -
I just flipped through some previous posts and saw that jen is going to try for UA803 +804 for return flight. I think that's the same one I'm one. When you're booking through student tickets they don't tend to let you pick a seat, but you can get around that quite easily.
Oh, and the flight out of Dulles is run by ANA, so Greg! Don't pay extra for ANA! United and ANA are teamed up for certain flights and you save a ton by booking by way of United.
And back to the way around getting the seats you want. After you get your tickets bought and credit card charged, hop on over to United.com and check your itenenarary through the website. It'll let you secure the seats you want for free. No extra charge needed. No stress induced as to the uncertain nature of nefarious airline seat masters.
I hope that helps!
3 comments:
Welcome back to blog-land Teresa! =D Sounds like you've been having an awesome time in China! XD Though, China internet seems difficult.. my friend was telling me how Google had to agree to filter/censor their search results, lest be banned from the country! I also heard a piece about horror genre manga getting pulled from the shelves because it could harmfully influence children.. Silly China!
We just need to learn to be thrifty in Japan! Look out for those bargains! Maybe that's why Japanese ladies are so crazy about the bargain sale..
I think we'll be ok as far as manners go in Tokyo.. A friend of mine studied in Kyoto and was talking about how like.. if you ask for directions in Kyoto, people will be like "..*heavy sigh* *gives directions", but in Tokyo, as soon as they got off the train, people would see they were foreigners and ask if they needed help with anything! One salaryman stopped mid-run to his next train and carried her luggage for her! She said most salaryman have to learn English for work, so if we need help.. find a man in a suit!
And you gotta let us know what seat you've got =D UVA Plane Partaaay!
And can someone please explain to me how frequent flier miles work? I keep flying to and from IL, but I've never done/heard anything about how FF works.. Do I have to sign up for something? does it work automatically? Where are my free miles!!?
All hail the continuing reign of the post-sized comment.
Yay!!! To Teresa posting again (I've missed you so! You better go back and read everything we wrote bahahaha) and to post-sized comments (cuz I feel I'm about to have one...)!! Hoorahs all around!
So Teresa, I know China is super cheap, but people need to work on attitudes/manners like whoa. Going to that place sometimes puts me in a major bad mood. And YEAH. BATHROOMS. Can you even CALL them that? I've taken pictures of some, been sprayed by others, won't go into most, smell all from a mile away...sigh. Oh, how was the weather??
Yeah, Japan...money-sucking...totally. It'll be okay...somehow.
Ah, so Natalie and Greg, ya hear that?? Go see if you can change your seats!! I'm 40H remember...Yay Teresa, thanks for the tip! And yeah, we officially bought the tickets today, so those flights are definite for us! So exciting!
Also, you sign up to be a part of the airline's program (United's is like, "Mileage Plus"), you get a card and everything, and so each time you travel with that line, you make sure to give them your member ID number and the flight mileage will get added to your account (or when you book the flight through their site, your login is the ID, so it automatically does that, but you can always make sure at the check-in counter). And don't worry, it also works retroactively...to a point...I think. Like flights you've taken within the year, as long as you still have the boarding passes, you can get miles for these past trips. It's also why I try not to switch around airlines too much. And plus, with United, I applied for the Chase credit card (first year's free) and that gave me a bunch more miles just for getting it and each dollar I charge gets me a mile. So yeah...it takes awhile and all, and I never thought mine would actually do anything for me, but it pays off eventually!!
Oh also, Dan told me even after you take the placement test, you can still basically ask for which class you want to be placed in. We're basically shooting for 280 is what he said (and most likely it won't be a problem unless we totally forget everything and their mothers haha...which...is possible...) The advanced class apparently just reads newspapers.
And Teresa, I'm pretty sure you won't have to worry about placement :) Or just get "teetotaled" cuz then you totally don't stop speaking Japanese hahaha ;) <3
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