Huai? Because!
Happy 2008, everyone.
Let's see, what's interesting lately. . .
Oh, yeah. Remember the japanese class I was taking? The neat lady teaching from her house and all that? It's over already. There were no classes during December due to the teacher being away for the holidays, with a start-up date set for the first week in January. We were supposed to get phone calls telling us when lessons would be. I finally got a phone call. . . but it wasn't the one I expected: "Hello Mr. Sams? Starting this year, I will only be teaching Japanese to young ladies. So sorry, I hope you understand, goodbye." What the. . .? I just got kicked out of japanese class for being a guy?? But I'm such a nice guy. . . which makes the email I got later that week all the more baffling: "Dear Steve, under the current circumstances, I feel it would be best to take your name off the current meetup group, hope you understand." OK, now this is just bullshit. You see, there were two separate groups -- a language class, and a general meetup group. The language class was invitation only, to actually learn japanese, and it had been going on for over a year. The second group was basically an anime club, and it was this group that Chris and I went to a few times. There was some overlap, as all the weekly language people showed up for the monthly hang out. Just a group of people enjoying japanese culture, and a chance to do something different once a month. So, what did I do to be given the heave? H m m m. . . well, the language classes aren't a big mystery. You see, when I started attending, there were just 3 other people attending, all of them girls. There was a mom and her 20-something daughter, and another 19-year old girl. At our first culture meetup, I found out about the lessons, and asked about joining in. I was told that they had been meeting for about a year, and might be above my level, but I was allowed to go to one class and guage my abilities. It turns out that I am right at the same level as the rest of the class, maybe just a bit ahead since I can read hiragana and katakana, and they had just started reading katakana. I was there for a grand total of 4 lessons, I thought they were great, It was just what I have been looking for. HOWever. . . I dare say that all the ladies in this class were of the more, shall we say, sheltered and shy and not-too-confident types. My theory is that I'm not allowed back because having a guy there was too distracting to the fragile females already in class. I'm not even saying that it was me personally, just that any guy would have been too much. See, that much I can understand. But then, why toss me out of the informal get-togethers? There's four other guys that come to those, why single me out? Ya know, I haven't really given this all that much thought, I'm just adding it to my blog. It's been two weeks since I got that first phone call, and then that email, and I haven't lost any sleep over it. I even sent an email to the lady who organized the groups, asking for an explanation. . . and I haven't gotten a response yet. This lady organized these meetups with the intent of providing her daughter with a group of people interested in Japanese culture and anime and such, since nobody in their hometown had any such interest. So then, since I'm interested in sharing all kinds of things about Japanese culture, don't I fit that group? Why toss me out? Why not toss out all the guys? Ha ha. Meh, doesn't bother me really. I really would love an explanation, but all the people there were timid and non-confrontational types. I dare say they will have much less fun without me and Chris being there. I wouldn't really have had much time to go to those this month anyway, because. . .
. . . HUAI IS HERE! She arrived on January 15th, she's doing just fine. Well, she and I both managed to catch death colds, but other than that. . . Oh, it was a fun little trip getting her here. Wanna read all about it? Here we go.
OK, firstly, here was my original plan for there and back: 1. Amtrak from here to Penn Station in NY. 2. NCT Bus to JFK Airport. 3. Meet Huai. 4. Either Bus or cab back to Penn station, depending on time. 5. Amtrak home. Nice and simple, right? I guess I'll break it down into steps.
Step 1: Amtrak to Penn Station in New York. This was the easy part. I reserved the tickets two weeks earlier, the website is easy to use. I showed up at the Harrisburg station, went to the self-serve terminal, and had it spit out all of my reserved tickets. Turns out it was 5 in all -- my ticket there, and four tickets back. Since there was a train change on the way back, it split up the tickets. No problem. I was there in plenty of time, the train didn't leave until 1pm, I had an hour to kill. While I was sitting in the terminal, it started to snow. LOTS of snow. It only lasted for 20 minutes or so, but it was very pretty. While I was sitting there, reading a book, an older black gentleman approached me, and said, "excuse me sir. . ." When I looked up, he said "now please, don't hurt me or anything, but I just have to ask you a favor. . ." Huh?? Do I look that threatening, that I would just jump up and beat some stranger in the head for saying "excuse me"? Aww, I'm a nice guy. . . Anyway, the guy was headed for Virginia, and didn't have enough money for his next train ticket. He needed $18, he only had $15 on him, and did I have the last $3 I could spare. Turns out I did, he was very happy. See, it was easy to believe him -- he was carrying a bag, he had a train schedule and some ticket stubs with him, and he was holding $15 already, and he went to the ticket window after I gave him $3. . . I'm pretty sure he didn't run off to buy drugs. But I digress. I highly reccommend the Pennsylvanian when you travel Amtrak, it's their special reservation train, it's super comfortable and roomy and quiet, and the only train that has a snack car. I brought a book and my CD player, spent some time looking out the window, it was just a fantastic ride down. It was non-stop all the way to NY, with one 30-minute layover to add another electric engine. I stayed on the train the whole time. I also did something I vowed never to do again: use the train bathroom. I dislike those. The shapes and sizes and angles are all just wrong. . . you can't even stand directly in front of the john to whiz, I imagine to crap you'd have to hover above it with one foot out the window and another against the mirror. Also, there is no water in the bowl. When you get done, you're staring at a gallon of your own undiluted pee, or worse. This time, the train was motionless at the station; the last time I tried to use a train john, it was doing a 55mph samba, and I ended up whipping my junk about like it was an olympic event. But anyway, the rest of the ride was bliss. I think I was too relaxed to deal fully with the next step about to club me in the face. . .
Step 2: Get to JFK Airport. I've never been in New York City before. I don't even like big cities. I don't like crowds. So, when the lovely comfortable train spat me into New York rush hour. . . let's see, I think OVERWHELMED is a fine word to describe my general state of mind. Four billion people, and every one of them was walking exactly opposite to or across my path. There were 12 billion signs, and none of them advertised the one little piece of information I needed -- Bus To Airport. When I was looking for options online, the bus seemed reasonable. Their website made it sound like a parade of kittens would meet me, and float me on a cloud of giggles to the bus stop, and neon manatees would cavort in a sky of all-you-can-eat ice cream while a bus powered by the laughter of children would whisk me through time itself to my destination a day earlier so it would be like I never traveled at all. Well, no manatees or giggle clouds or time travel. If a website can point and laugh, that's what it was doing at 5pm on Tuesday. I was on a time schedule -- plane arrives at 7:10, the bus is a two-hour ride, so I need to catch the 5:10, or else the 5:25, didn't wanna be late to meet Huai. There was no helpful sign or pamphlet or anything in the terminal, so I decided to head to street level. Ya know, to catch one of those above-ground buses. The in-terminal ones are rare these days. Along the way, I stopped at a subway ticket window, and asked the lady if she knew where to catch a bus to JFK. She said "bus? nope, don't know" and turned away from me. OK, thanks. Once I was on the street, I didn't feel like I was gonna burst into song about how awesome New York is. Not even a little. C'mon, that's what the old movies make it seem like -- you go to New York, you get your own song and dance number. I did find a couple of bus stops, they had schedules listed, but none going towards the airport. I walked all the way around the block where Penn Station is located, found more bus stops that weren't the right ones, and ended back at the entrance to Penn Station. I asked a policeman -- POLICE MAN -- near the entrance about busses to JFK, and he said "huh? uh uh" and went back to talking with two other policemen. To Protect And Serve, and all I get is three h's and four u's? My tax dollars at work! OK, not really my tax dollars. . . whatever. OK, I was starting to panic, because it was 5:25 and I still thought it would take close to two hours to get to the airport. My last option was a taxi, but they charge a flat fare of $45 plus tolls plus tip, ouch. I headed back underground, I saw an information kiosk -- INFORMATION KIOSK -- and I asked the gentlemen behind the desk if he knew where to catch a bus to JFK Airport. He shook his head and said "Sorry, man." OK, I'm zero for three getting useful information. So, after hyperventilating and rushing aroung for a bit, I just stopped and thought and looked around. OK. I'm in New York. I just got off the Amtrak Train in Penn Station. . . I looked up. . .??? I was looking right at the ticket board for the LIRR, the subway system. Oh yeah, there's a subway system in New York! Forgot all about that. OK, maybe there's a map. . .there we go. I know that JFK is in Jamaica, NY. . . well, how about that, there's a direct line from Penn Station to Jamaica. . . and a seperate line called "Air Transit" from Jamaica station to JFK. Cool. I went to the ticket window -- the one right beside the lady I had asked for bus info before -- and a very friendly gentleman helped me out. "JFK?" I asked. He said, "ah, you need to go to Jamaica, and then take Air Transit. It's a separate rail system, you'll need to buy that ticket in Jamaica." The subway ticket was $7 -- holy damn, that's less than the cost of the bus! -- and the nice man told me it was about 20 minutes to get to Jamaica. Huai is very lucky; right then, I really wanted to have the LIRR as my girlfriend. See, part of the return plan hinged on getting back to Penn Station by 9pm for an early train home; otherwise, we have to wait until 3am. So, got the next departure ticket, next departure time -- 4 minutes from now? SHIT! -- and ran for the right track, wow I feel so New York-y! The subway was packed, it was 5:39pm, still rush hour. While I was standing there, not looking at all the people not looking at me, I noticed that roughly 5 out of 3 people (not a mis-type) had Ipods or Shuffles. Know what else? Nobody just listens to them. Everyone I saw with one, was pushing buttons on it non-stop. Hm. Do they just not work, or does everyone who gets one have a four-second attention span? Meh. Subway dumped me out at Jamaica, so I hit the beach and braided my hair and ha ha ha sorry sorry had to make the joke at least once, no really there were well-marked signs and walkways to Air Transit. A very helpful lady assisted me in buying a pass for myself and one for Huai (still airborne at this point), and I grabbed an Aircar to Terminal One. I really like Air Transit, it's just a special loop train that circumnavigates JFK Airport, hits a terminal every two minutes, hits three external stops, ten minutes in between each. Despite being a gigantic wuss about cities, I have successfully completed Step 2 in record time, and I'm an hour early for ~
Step 3: Meet Huai. By now, I'm all excited. I'm at the airport, I spent a fraction of my budget getting there, and I'm way ahead of schedule! JFK Airport has 8 terminals, and lots of international flights arrive at Terminal 1. Huai's flight is Air Korea, found that no problem. So, I'm standing there where they get kicked out of Customs, with about a hundred people of mostly asian ethnicity. I got to hear conversations in several languages -- russian, japanese, really badly spoken english, french -- and watched happy couples reunite. The Arrivals display listed her flight -- "KE 85, 1910 (24 hr time), ON TIME". Well, good. Then it got better -- "KE 85, 1910, EXPECTED 1835, EARLY". Well, HOT DAMN. I get here early, and her flight gets in early. Looks like we might make the 9pm train! Then, since I got too happy and had too many strokes of good luck, it all balanced out with: "KE 85, 1910, 1945 EXPECTED, DELAY". Ah, well then. At least I don't have to worry about that 9pm train anymore. So, I stood and watched people arrive, and leave, and arrive. There were some interesting people waiting. . . several of them holding signs with asian names and looking more bewildered than me. There was a darling little girl, maybe 3 years old, that was running around all over the place; she was with a large group, and there was always someone about four steps behind her. Several times she'd run right by me, and I'd make eye contact with whoever was on trail duty, just smile and nod. I watched several waves of flight attentdants come through, the most impressive were the ones from Japan Airlines. They were almost creepy -- they looked like they were all cast from the same mold, out of porcelain. . . they all did look like copies of the same doll. Their mouths didn't move when they talked, and their hair didn't move when they walked out into the wind. Kinda creepy. So, it was actually a little after 8pm when the most beautiful girl in all of China came down the aisle, and shot me right through the heart with her weary smile. Lots of hugs later, we and her luggage made our way upstairs to begin . . .
Step 4: Return To Penn Station. By now, it was 8:30pm, and any chance fo the 9pm train was gone. Good thing we weren't in a hurry, because from this point on, Huai's luggage took on a life of it's own. It wasn't that she had lots of luggage (2 carryon bags, laptop bag, 1 large and 1 medium suitcases), or that it was super-heavy (it just seemed that way after 15 hours of standing and walking and no food), it was that I was completely retarded in dealing with it. Huai had it all on a push-cart, generously supplied by American Customs as a gesture of welcome, for $3. HA. Everyone that came through customs had one of these carts. Thing is, I never saw a queue to return carts to. We went to the Air Transit landing, and we wondered if we could take the carts on the train. . . I made a snap decision (no! we cannot!), and we tried to grab all the luggage at once. . . and the train left before we could get on. D'oh! We got our strategy together in the next 10 minutes, and when the next train arrived, on we went. We sat down right next to, um. . . a person with a luggage cart. There were three people with luggage carts on the air train. Dammit. Sorry, Huai, your guy is mildly retarded. Ah, what happened next was almost Return of Son of Revenge of The Baby Gate. To exit the Air Transit terminal, you need your previously purchased swipe card to get through the gates. I swiped the card, and dragged a piece of luggage through with me; I tried to swipe the card again. . . and nothing happened. So there I am on one side, and there Huai is with all her luggage on the other side, with a bum card. Luckily, an attendant saw our plight, and scanned our card. . . it still had the credit on there, no idea why it wasn't working. . . ah, there we go, now it works. Now is where a funny thing happens. The lady that first sold me the AirTransit pass told me that I could just buy my subway fare back to Penn Station on the same MetroCard. I trusted her, why wouldn't I, so I didn't buy a subway ticket in Jamaica. I thought I had the fare with me. We waited on the super cold, super windy subway platform for 12 minutes for the next train. ('tis no great mystery why we both have nasty colds now) By now, it's 9:30pm, and the trains are almost deserted. We're sitting in our own seat, plenty of room for the luggage, having a great time. . . then the lady comes around to ask for tickets. I give her my Metrocard and tell her the balance should suffice for me and Huai. Oh sorry, she says, the Metrocard I gave her is not good for the subway. Za? Apparently, they have this problem all the time. The two systems are not linked in any way, but people get the notion that tickets for one will work for the other. The nice ticket lady and I discuss the matter while she looks up the price I have to pay for tickets. It turns out I owe her $20. . . but she very kindly knocks that down by half, since I'm obviously retarded and in New York for the first time. What a nice lady. We arrive back in Penn Station, 400 tonnes of luggage in tow, for which we now have a system (you grab that one, I'll sling this one over here, put that one on this one and I'll roll them both, you hold that one, and WE'RE OFF!) Since we have until 3am -- oh dear GOD, do we have 5 HOURS to kill?? -- we decide to look around for a bit. We find the Amtrak terminals and decide to stay there, since they are nicer than the subway terminals. We find a pizza place and make a fort out of the luggage, and we have the first food either of us has had for a bunch of hours. OK, 4 hours to kill. Huai suggests we check out a lounge area she saw earlier, it looks like there's people and chairs and maybe electric outlets there. I saw the same place earlier, but they had an entrance to it blocked off. However, there was another gated entrance to it, because it's a lounge for people with Amtrak tickets, waiting for their trains. Oh hey, that's us! What I saw wasn't an entrance, but just remodeling going on. Huai kept telling me and telling me we could go in there, and I kept not believing her. . . I feel soooooo sorry for Huai, having to put up with me. Anyway, it was a nice quiet place to sit and relax for the next 3 hours. Huai got out her laptop, and we watched Dream Girls. Good movie, them ladies can sing. Finally, it was time for. . .
Step 5: Amtrak Home. We finally got the boarding call for the train, and I had an embarassing moment trying to manhandle her obviously oversize suitcase into the overhead rack. But then we got to rest on the train for a nice 100-minute ride. This time, we had a train change and an hour layover in Philadelphia. I like that station on 30th Street, nice and clean and roomy. I bought us some water (yum!), and we waited. Finally, boarding call! One luggage manhandling later, we're on our way. We pulled into Harrisburg right on time, 7:10am. Beautiful weather, maybe a bit on the cold side. Another lovely Amtrak ride. I had to park in the, um, 5th Street garage? The Chestnut Street one was full the day before. Huai was really tired, so I had to carry all the luggage up the stairs in two trips. We finally got home around 8:10am. By now, I had been up for about 30 hours, and Huai had been up for 37 (she wins), so we both ran through the shower, she unpacked, showed me the gifts she brought for my family, and we both passed out sometime around 10am.
Whew. So there it is, "There And Back Again: A Steveit's Holiday". ya know, instead of a hobbit's holiday. Because I'm not a hobbit. and my name's Steve. Ah, shaddup, whaddya know from funny, you bastards. Anyway, Huai and I both managed to get nasty colds (we decided it's all my fault), and we're managing to get over them. Huai has been here a week now, and I already know I'm going to miss her ferociously when she leaves in February. We're gonna be making trips to see things and say Hi to friends, and I hope I can keep her from being too bored while she's here.
Oh, and here's a photo taken on the subway. See the huge lump of bread dough with a face, next to the attractive young lady? That's me. sigh. [[photo will be uploaded soon]]
Let's see, what's interesting lately. . .
Oh, yeah. Remember the japanese class I was taking? The neat lady teaching from her house and all that? It's over already. There were no classes during December due to the teacher being away for the holidays, with a start-up date set for the first week in January. We were supposed to get phone calls telling us when lessons would be. I finally got a phone call. . . but it wasn't the one I expected: "Hello Mr. Sams? Starting this year, I will only be teaching Japanese to young ladies. So sorry, I hope you understand, goodbye." What the. . .? I just got kicked out of japanese class for being a guy?? But I'm such a nice guy. . . which makes the email I got later that week all the more baffling: "Dear Steve, under the current circumstances, I feel it would be best to take your name off the current meetup group, hope you understand." OK, now this is just bullshit. You see, there were two separate groups -- a language class, and a general meetup group. The language class was invitation only, to actually learn japanese, and it had been going on for over a year. The second group was basically an anime club, and it was this group that Chris and I went to a few times. There was some overlap, as all the weekly language people showed up for the monthly hang out. Just a group of people enjoying japanese culture, and a chance to do something different once a month. So, what did I do to be given the heave? H m m m. . . well, the language classes aren't a big mystery. You see, when I started attending, there were just 3 other people attending, all of them girls. There was a mom and her 20-something daughter, and another 19-year old girl. At our first culture meetup, I found out about the lessons, and asked about joining in. I was told that they had been meeting for about a year, and might be above my level, but I was allowed to go to one class and guage my abilities. It turns out that I am right at the same level as the rest of the class, maybe just a bit ahead since I can read hiragana and katakana, and they had just started reading katakana. I was there for a grand total of 4 lessons, I thought they were great, It was just what I have been looking for. HOWever. . . I dare say that all the ladies in this class were of the more, shall we say, sheltered and shy and not-too-confident types. My theory is that I'm not allowed back because having a guy there was too distracting to the fragile females already in class. I'm not even saying that it was me personally, just that any guy would have been too much. See, that much I can understand. But then, why toss me out of the informal get-togethers? There's four other guys that come to those, why single me out? Ya know, I haven't really given this all that much thought, I'm just adding it to my blog. It's been two weeks since I got that first phone call, and then that email, and I haven't lost any sleep over it. I even sent an email to the lady who organized the groups, asking for an explanation. . . and I haven't gotten a response yet. This lady organized these meetups with the intent of providing her daughter with a group of people interested in Japanese culture and anime and such, since nobody in their hometown had any such interest. So then, since I'm interested in sharing all kinds of things about Japanese culture, don't I fit that group? Why toss me out? Why not toss out all the guys? Ha ha. Meh, doesn't bother me really. I really would love an explanation, but all the people there were timid and non-confrontational types. I dare say they will have much less fun without me and Chris being there. I wouldn't really have had much time to go to those this month anyway, because. . .
. . . HUAI IS HERE! She arrived on January 15th, she's doing just fine. Well, she and I both managed to catch death colds, but other than that. . . Oh, it was a fun little trip getting her here. Wanna read all about it? Here we go.
OK, firstly, here was my original plan for there and back: 1. Amtrak from here to Penn Station in NY. 2. NCT Bus to JFK Airport. 3. Meet Huai. 4. Either Bus or cab back to Penn station, depending on time. 5. Amtrak home. Nice and simple, right? I guess I'll break it down into steps.
Step 1: Amtrak to Penn Station in New York. This was the easy part. I reserved the tickets two weeks earlier, the website is easy to use. I showed up at the Harrisburg station, went to the self-serve terminal, and had it spit out all of my reserved tickets. Turns out it was 5 in all -- my ticket there, and four tickets back. Since there was a train change on the way back, it split up the tickets. No problem. I was there in plenty of time, the train didn't leave until 1pm, I had an hour to kill. While I was sitting in the terminal, it started to snow. LOTS of snow. It only lasted for 20 minutes or so, but it was very pretty. While I was sitting there, reading a book, an older black gentleman approached me, and said, "excuse me sir. . ." When I looked up, he said "now please, don't hurt me or anything, but I just have to ask you a favor. . ." Huh?? Do I look that threatening, that I would just jump up and beat some stranger in the head for saying "excuse me"? Aww, I'm a nice guy. . . Anyway, the guy was headed for Virginia, and didn't have enough money for his next train ticket. He needed $18, he only had $15 on him, and did I have the last $3 I could spare. Turns out I did, he was very happy. See, it was easy to believe him -- he was carrying a bag, he had a train schedule and some ticket stubs with him, and he was holding $15 already, and he went to the ticket window after I gave him $3. . . I'm pretty sure he didn't run off to buy drugs. But I digress. I highly reccommend the Pennsylvanian when you travel Amtrak, it's their special reservation train, it's super comfortable and roomy and quiet, and the only train that has a snack car. I brought a book and my CD player, spent some time looking out the window, it was just a fantastic ride down. It was non-stop all the way to NY, with one 30-minute layover to add another electric engine. I stayed on the train the whole time. I also did something I vowed never to do again: use the train bathroom. I dislike those. The shapes and sizes and angles are all just wrong. . . you can't even stand directly in front of the john to whiz, I imagine to crap you'd have to hover above it with one foot out the window and another against the mirror. Also, there is no water in the bowl. When you get done, you're staring at a gallon of your own undiluted pee, or worse. This time, the train was motionless at the station; the last time I tried to use a train john, it was doing a 55mph samba, and I ended up whipping my junk about like it was an olympic event. But anyway, the rest of the ride was bliss. I think I was too relaxed to deal fully with the next step about to club me in the face. . .
Step 2: Get to JFK Airport. I've never been in New York City before. I don't even like big cities. I don't like crowds. So, when the lovely comfortable train spat me into New York rush hour. . . let's see, I think OVERWHELMED is a fine word to describe my general state of mind. Four billion people, and every one of them was walking exactly opposite to or across my path. There were 12 billion signs, and none of them advertised the one little piece of information I needed -- Bus To Airport. When I was looking for options online, the bus seemed reasonable. Their website made it sound like a parade of kittens would meet me, and float me on a cloud of giggles to the bus stop, and neon manatees would cavort in a sky of all-you-can-eat ice cream while a bus powered by the laughter of children would whisk me through time itself to my destination a day earlier so it would be like I never traveled at all. Well, no manatees or giggle clouds or time travel. If a website can point and laugh, that's what it was doing at 5pm on Tuesday. I was on a time schedule -- plane arrives at 7:10, the bus is a two-hour ride, so I need to catch the 5:10, or else the 5:25, didn't wanna be late to meet Huai. There was no helpful sign or pamphlet or anything in the terminal, so I decided to head to street level. Ya know, to catch one of those above-ground buses. The in-terminal ones are rare these days. Along the way, I stopped at a subway ticket window, and asked the lady if she knew where to catch a bus to JFK. She said "bus? nope, don't know" and turned away from me. OK, thanks. Once I was on the street, I didn't feel like I was gonna burst into song about how awesome New York is. Not even a little. C'mon, that's what the old movies make it seem like -- you go to New York, you get your own song and dance number. I did find a couple of bus stops, they had schedules listed, but none going towards the airport. I walked all the way around the block where Penn Station is located, found more bus stops that weren't the right ones, and ended back at the entrance to Penn Station. I asked a policeman -- POLICE MAN -- near the entrance about busses to JFK, and he said "huh? uh uh" and went back to talking with two other policemen. To Protect And Serve, and all I get is three h's and four u's? My tax dollars at work! OK, not really my tax dollars. . . whatever. OK, I was starting to panic, because it was 5:25 and I still thought it would take close to two hours to get to the airport. My last option was a taxi, but they charge a flat fare of $45 plus tolls plus tip, ouch. I headed back underground, I saw an information kiosk -- INFORMATION KIOSK -- and I asked the gentlemen behind the desk if he knew where to catch a bus to JFK Airport. He shook his head and said "Sorry, man." OK, I'm zero for three getting useful information. So, after hyperventilating and rushing aroung for a bit, I just stopped and thought and looked around. OK. I'm in New York. I just got off the Amtrak Train in Penn Station. . . I looked up. . .??? I was looking right at the ticket board for the LIRR, the subway system. Oh yeah, there's a subway system in New York! Forgot all about that. OK, maybe there's a map. . .there we go. I know that JFK is in Jamaica, NY. . . well, how about that, there's a direct line from Penn Station to Jamaica. . . and a seperate line called "Air Transit" from Jamaica station to JFK. Cool. I went to the ticket window -- the one right beside the lady I had asked for bus info before -- and a very friendly gentleman helped me out. "JFK?" I asked. He said, "ah, you need to go to Jamaica, and then take Air Transit. It's a separate rail system, you'll need to buy that ticket in Jamaica." The subway ticket was $7 -- holy damn, that's less than the cost of the bus! -- and the nice man told me it was about 20 minutes to get to Jamaica. Huai is very lucky; right then, I really wanted to have the LIRR as my girlfriend. See, part of the return plan hinged on getting back to Penn Station by 9pm for an early train home; otherwise, we have to wait until 3am. So, got the next departure ticket, next departure time -- 4 minutes from now? SHIT! -- and ran for the right track, wow I feel so New York-y! The subway was packed, it was 5:39pm, still rush hour. While I was standing there, not looking at all the people not looking at me, I noticed that roughly 5 out of 3 people (not a mis-type) had Ipods or Shuffles. Know what else? Nobody just listens to them. Everyone I saw with one, was pushing buttons on it non-stop. Hm. Do they just not work, or does everyone who gets one have a four-second attention span? Meh. Subway dumped me out at Jamaica, so I hit the beach and braided my hair and ha ha ha sorry sorry had to make the joke at least once, no really there were well-marked signs and walkways to Air Transit. A very helpful lady assisted me in buying a pass for myself and one for Huai (still airborne at this point), and I grabbed an Aircar to Terminal One. I really like Air Transit, it's just a special loop train that circumnavigates JFK Airport, hits a terminal every two minutes, hits three external stops, ten minutes in between each. Despite being a gigantic wuss about cities, I have successfully completed Step 2 in record time, and I'm an hour early for ~
Step 3: Meet Huai. By now, I'm all excited. I'm at the airport, I spent a fraction of my budget getting there, and I'm way ahead of schedule! JFK Airport has 8 terminals, and lots of international flights arrive at Terminal 1. Huai's flight is Air Korea, found that no problem. So, I'm standing there where they get kicked out of Customs, with about a hundred people of mostly asian ethnicity. I got to hear conversations in several languages -- russian, japanese, really badly spoken english, french -- and watched happy couples reunite. The Arrivals display listed her flight -- "KE 85, 1910 (24 hr time), ON TIME". Well, good. Then it got better -- "KE 85, 1910, EXPECTED 1835, EARLY". Well, HOT DAMN. I get here early, and her flight gets in early. Looks like we might make the 9pm train! Then, since I got too happy and had too many strokes of good luck, it all balanced out with: "KE 85, 1910, 1945 EXPECTED, DELAY". Ah, well then. At least I don't have to worry about that 9pm train anymore. So, I stood and watched people arrive, and leave, and arrive. There were some interesting people waiting. . . several of them holding signs with asian names and looking more bewildered than me. There was a darling little girl, maybe 3 years old, that was running around all over the place; she was with a large group, and there was always someone about four steps behind her. Several times she'd run right by me, and I'd make eye contact with whoever was on trail duty, just smile and nod. I watched several waves of flight attentdants come through, the most impressive were the ones from Japan Airlines. They were almost creepy -- they looked like they were all cast from the same mold, out of porcelain. . . they all did look like copies of the same doll. Their mouths didn't move when they talked, and their hair didn't move when they walked out into the wind. Kinda creepy. So, it was actually a little after 8pm when the most beautiful girl in all of China came down the aisle, and shot me right through the heart with her weary smile. Lots of hugs later, we and her luggage made our way upstairs to begin . . .
Step 4: Return To Penn Station. By now, it was 8:30pm, and any chance fo the 9pm train was gone. Good thing we weren't in a hurry, because from this point on, Huai's luggage took on a life of it's own. It wasn't that she had lots of luggage (2 carryon bags, laptop bag, 1 large and 1 medium suitcases), or that it was super-heavy (it just seemed that way after 15 hours of standing and walking and no food), it was that I was completely retarded in dealing with it. Huai had it all on a push-cart, generously supplied by American Customs as a gesture of welcome, for $3. HA. Everyone that came through customs had one of these carts. Thing is, I never saw a queue to return carts to. We went to the Air Transit landing, and we wondered if we could take the carts on the train. . . I made a snap decision (no! we cannot!), and we tried to grab all the luggage at once. . . and the train left before we could get on. D'oh! We got our strategy together in the next 10 minutes, and when the next train arrived, on we went. We sat down right next to, um. . . a person with a luggage cart. There were three people with luggage carts on the air train. Dammit. Sorry, Huai, your guy is mildly retarded. Ah, what happened next was almost Return of Son of Revenge of The Baby Gate. To exit the Air Transit terminal, you need your previously purchased swipe card to get through the gates. I swiped the card, and dragged a piece of luggage through with me; I tried to swipe the card again. . . and nothing happened. So there I am on one side, and there Huai is with all her luggage on the other side, with a bum card. Luckily, an attendant saw our plight, and scanned our card. . . it still had the credit on there, no idea why it wasn't working. . . ah, there we go, now it works. Now is where a funny thing happens. The lady that first sold me the AirTransit pass told me that I could just buy my subway fare back to Penn Station on the same MetroCard. I trusted her, why wouldn't I, so I didn't buy a subway ticket in Jamaica. I thought I had the fare with me. We waited on the super cold, super windy subway platform for 12 minutes for the next train. ('tis no great mystery why we both have nasty colds now) By now, it's 9:30pm, and the trains are almost deserted. We're sitting in our own seat, plenty of room for the luggage, having a great time. . . then the lady comes around to ask for tickets. I give her my Metrocard and tell her the balance should suffice for me and Huai. Oh sorry, she says, the Metrocard I gave her is not good for the subway. Za? Apparently, they have this problem all the time. The two systems are not linked in any way, but people get the notion that tickets for one will work for the other. The nice ticket lady and I discuss the matter while she looks up the price I have to pay for tickets. It turns out I owe her $20. . . but she very kindly knocks that down by half, since I'm obviously retarded and in New York for the first time. What a nice lady. We arrive back in Penn Station, 400 tonnes of luggage in tow, for which we now have a system (you grab that one, I'll sling this one over here, put that one on this one and I'll roll them both, you hold that one, and WE'RE OFF!) Since we have until 3am -- oh dear GOD, do we have 5 HOURS to kill?? -- we decide to look around for a bit. We find the Amtrak terminals and decide to stay there, since they are nicer than the subway terminals. We find a pizza place and make a fort out of the luggage, and we have the first food either of us has had for a bunch of hours. OK, 4 hours to kill. Huai suggests we check out a lounge area she saw earlier, it looks like there's people and chairs and maybe electric outlets there. I saw the same place earlier, but they had an entrance to it blocked off. However, there was another gated entrance to it, because it's a lounge for people with Amtrak tickets, waiting for their trains. Oh hey, that's us! What I saw wasn't an entrance, but just remodeling going on. Huai kept telling me and telling me we could go in there, and I kept not believing her. . . I feel soooooo sorry for Huai, having to put up with me. Anyway, it was a nice quiet place to sit and relax for the next 3 hours. Huai got out her laptop, and we watched Dream Girls. Good movie, them ladies can sing. Finally, it was time for. . .
Step 5: Amtrak Home. We finally got the boarding call for the train, and I had an embarassing moment trying to manhandle her obviously oversize suitcase into the overhead rack. But then we got to rest on the train for a nice 100-minute ride. This time, we had a train change and an hour layover in Philadelphia. I like that station on 30th Street, nice and clean and roomy. I bought us some water (yum!), and we waited. Finally, boarding call! One luggage manhandling later, we're on our way. We pulled into Harrisburg right on time, 7:10am. Beautiful weather, maybe a bit on the cold side. Another lovely Amtrak ride. I had to park in the, um, 5th Street garage? The Chestnut Street one was full the day before. Huai was really tired, so I had to carry all the luggage up the stairs in two trips. We finally got home around 8:10am. By now, I had been up for about 30 hours, and Huai had been up for 37 (she wins), so we both ran through the shower, she unpacked, showed me the gifts she brought for my family, and we both passed out sometime around 10am.
Whew. So there it is, "There And Back Again: A Steveit's Holiday". ya know, instead of a hobbit's holiday. Because I'm not a hobbit. and my name's Steve. Ah, shaddup, whaddya know from funny, you bastards. Anyway, Huai and I both managed to get nasty colds (we decided it's all my fault), and we're managing to get over them. Huai has been here a week now, and I already know I'm going to miss her ferociously when she leaves in February. We're gonna be making trips to see things and say Hi to friends, and I hope I can keep her from being too bored while she's here.
Oh, and here's a photo taken on the subway. See the huge lump of bread dough with a face, next to the attractive young lady? That's me. sigh. [[photo will be uploaded soon]]
posted by Luminazuma @ 8:40 AM
0 comments
