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Zhong Guan Cun District, Beijing
3:50. Really? No, can’t be. It feels like I slept all day. Yep, 4:10 AM. Still pitch dark outside. This must be that jet lag people kept warning me about.
I’m already unpacked, no chance of going back to sleep. I spend the next 45 minutes watching the end of Karate Kid 2, dubbed in Mandarin, with Chinese sub-titles. I was totally lost until the big dramatic fight scene at the end."><meta name=author content="Gary Allen Vollink"><link rel=canonical href=https://blog.vollink.com/in-china/2007/10/getting-there-is-not-half-the-fun/><link crossorigin=anonymous href=/assets/css/stylesheet.min.043dbe50dd3b5aeece8e1fd6b52fdb9ce2bb5c714d321cc709b5e740e61345eb.css integrity="sha256-BD2+UN07Wu7Ojh/WtS/bnOK7XHFNMhzHCbXnQOYTRes=" rel="preload stylesheet" as=style><script defer crossorigin=anonymous src=/assets/js/highlight.min.6678583e8ba75836322e87f67e9501154da6e0be204902d2a38f301bdeb2ac0b.js integrity="sha256-ZnhYPounWDYyLof2fpUBFU2m4L4gSQLSo48wG96yrAs="></script>
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Zhong Guan Cun District, Beijing
3:50. Really? No, can’t be. It feels like I slept all day. Yep, 4:10 AM. Still pitch dark outside. This must be that jet lag people kept warning me about.
I’m already unpacked, no chance of going back to sleep. I spend the next 45 minutes watching the end of Karate Kid 2, dubbed in Mandarin, with Chinese sub-titles. I was totally lost until the big dramatic fight scene at the end."><meta property="og:type" content="article"><meta property="og:url" content="https://blog.vollink.com/in-china/2007/10/getting-there-is-not-half-the-fun/"><meta property="article:section" content="in-china"><meta property="article:published_time" content="2007-10-15T12:00:00+08:00"><meta property="article:modified_time" content="2007-10-15T12:00:00+08:00"><meta property="og:site_name" content="On My Mind..."><meta name=twitter:card content="summary"><meta name=twitter:title content="Getting there is NOT half the fun"><meta name=twitter:description content="October 14
Zhong Guan Cun District, Beijing
3:50. Really? No, can’t be. It feels like I slept all day. Yep, 4:10 AM. Still pitch dark outside. This must be that jet lag people kept warning me about.
I’m already unpacked, no chance of going back to sleep. I spend the next 45 minutes watching the end of Karate Kid 2, dubbed in Mandarin, with Chinese sub-titles. I was totally lost until the big dramatic fight scene at the end."><script type=application/ld+json>{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"In China","item":"https://blog.vollink.com/in-china/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Getting there is NOT half the fun","item":"https://blog.vollink.com/in-china/2007/10/getting-there-is-not-half-the-fun/"}]}</script><script type=application/ld+json>{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Getting there is NOT half the fun","name":"Getting there is NOT half the fun","description":"October 14\nZhong Guan Cun District, Beijing\n3:50. Really? No, can\u0026rsquo;t be. It feels like I slept all day. Yep, 4:10 AM. Still pitch dark outside. This must be that jet lag people kept warning me about.\nI\u0026rsquo;m already unpacked, no chance of going back to sleep. I spend the next 45 minutes watching the end of Karate Kid 2, dubbed in Mandarin, with Chinese sub-titles. I was totally lost until the big dramatic fight scene at the end.","keywords":["blog","in-china","history","work"],"articleBody":"October 14\nZhong Guan Cun District, Beijing\n3:50. Really? No, can’t be. It feels like I slept all day. Yep, 4:10 AM. Still pitch dark outside. This must be that jet lag people kept warning me about.\nI’m already unpacked, no chance of going back to sleep. I spend the next 45 minutes watching the end of Karate Kid 2, dubbed in Mandarin, with Chinese sub-titles. I was totally lost until the big dramatic fight scene at the end.\nI found an English speaking news channel on television. I love watching news from places where I’m not from. It seems like a long format news station (much like a news magazine). The perspective is not nearly as anti-American as American news is anti-Everyone_Else. It really struck me as to the difference in news styles. It was more like the BBC. It was more like, well, news.\nMy head is fuzzy, but I don’t feel tired yet. So I take a shower.\nI have to stop here, and say that – as you can tell, I’ve not felt very positive about my experiences so far – this shower in my hotel room is really, really nice. It has a double shower head switchable to a hand-held shower head. It just feels nice. The water pressure is really strong, too.\nI go down to eat the hotel breakfast:\n 2 steamed buns with different fillings 2 pieces of “baked bacon” 1 Fairly McDonald’s style potato cake (they call it potato pie) 1 piece of very British tasting sausage 1 Hard Boiled brown egg 1 French style croissant There’s another American here that I’m supposed to be able to meet up with, and at 10 in the morning I call him up. Of course, he’s younger than me so he’s sleeping, and says he’ll call me back later.\nThis is the point where the jet lag really starts bugging me. I’m all restless, but tired too. I start to watch some DVDs that I took with me (there’s a DVD player in my room). About 1pm, I’m totally annoyed that I didn’t get a call back, and decide to go see what I can find.\nI’ll start by simply saying that I walked in the wrong direction. I didn’t know it then. I did find a 7-11, a McDonalds, someplace called Big Pizza, and a Dairy Queen - all along a road that was so wide it had pedestrian bridges across it at regular intervals. I totally didn’t bring the camera (should have).\nOn the way back to the Hotel, I stopped by the 7-11 and bought a can of Pringles, some Laundry Soap and a liter of “Coke Light”. When I got back here, I puttered around a little, drank some Coke Light, ate half the Pringles, cleaned my dirty clothes (not much, but wanted to figure out how the machine worked) - it’s a “Washer / Dryer”, and all of the instructions are in Chinese, so I sort of guessed, and ended up with clean dry clothes two hours later.\nI ate some Ramen noodle type thing for Dinner (the hotel had a few items that they started me off with - including tea bags and bottled water). About 9PM, the other American called me back, and told me that he had fallen back to sleep, and didn’t wake up until 2, and that he had tried calling then. We made arrangements to meet up in the morning.\nTired and fuzzy, and having taken no useful pictures… I went to bed. Tomorrow is the first day at work.\n","wordCount":"596","inLanguage":"en","datePublished":"2007-10-15T12:00:00+08:00","dateModified":"2007-10-15T12:00:00+08:00","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Gary Allen Vollink"},"mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://blog.vollink.com/in-china/2007/10/getting-there-is-not-half-the-fun/"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"On My Mind...","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://blog.vollink.com/favicon.ico"}}}</script></head><body id=top><script>localStorage.getItem("pref-theme")==="dark"?document.body.classList.add("dark"):localStorage.getItem("pref-theme")==="light"?document.body.classList.remove("dark"):window.matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme: dark)").matches&&document.body.classList.add("dark")</script><header class=header><nav class=nav><div class=logo><a href=https://blog.vollink.com/ accesskey=h title="Home (Alt + H)"><img src=https://blog.vollink.com/AllenWrench.gif alt=logo aria-label=logo height=35>Home</a>
<span class=logo-switches><button id=theme-toggle accesskey=t title="(Alt + T)"><svg id="moon" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentcolor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round"><path d="M21 12.79A9 9 0 1111.21 3 7 7 0 0021 12.79z"/></svg><svg id="sun" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentcolor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round"><circle cx="12" cy="12" r="5"/><line x1="12" y1="1" x2="12" y2="3"/><line x1="12" y1="21" x2="12" y2="23"/><line x1="4.22" y1="4.22" x2="5.64" y2="5.64"/><line x1="18.36" y1="18.36" x2="19.78" y2="19.78"/><line x1="1" y1="12" x2="3" y2="12"/><line x1="21" y1="12" x2="23" y2="12"/><line x1="4.22" y1="19.78" x2="5.64" y2="18.36"/><line x1="18.36" y1="5.64" x2="19.78" y2="4.22"/></svg></button></span></div><ul id=menu><li><a href=https://blog.vollink.com/post/ title=Posts><span>Posts</span></a></li><li><a href=https://blog.vollink.com/tags/ title=Tags><span>Tags</span></a></li><li><a href=https://home.vollink.com/ title=home.vollink.com><span>home.vollink.com</span></a></li></ul></nav></header><main class=main><article class=post-single><header class=post-header><div class=breadcrumbs><a href=https://blog.vollink.com/>Home</a> » <a href=https://blog.vollink.com/in-china/>In China</a></div><h1 class=post-title>Getting there is NOT half the fun</h1><div class=post-meta><span title="2007-10-15 12:00:00 +0800 +0800">15 Oct 2007</span> · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink</div></header><div class=post-content><p>October 14</p><p>Zhong Guan Cun District, Beijing</p><p>3:50. Really? No, can’t be. It feels like I slept all day. Yep, 4:10 AM. Still pitch dark outside. This must be that jet lag people kept warning me about.</p><p>I’m already unpacked, no chance of going back to sleep. I spend the next 45 minutes watching the end of Karate Kid 2, dubbed in Mandarin, with Chinese sub-titles. I was totally lost until the big dramatic fight scene at the end.</p><p>I found an English speaking news channel on television. I love watching news from places where I’m not from. It seems like a long format news station (much like a news magazine). The perspective is not nearly as anti-American as American news is anti-Everyone_Else. It really struck me as to the difference in news styles. It was more like the BBC. It was more like, well, news.</p><p>My head is fuzzy, but I don’t feel tired yet. So I take a shower.</p><p>I have to stop here, and say that – as you can tell, I’ve not felt very
positive about my experiences so far – this shower in my hotel room is
really, really nice. It has a double shower head switchable to a
hand-held shower head. It just feels nice. The water pressure is really
strong, too.</p><p>I go down to eat the hotel breakfast:</p><ul><li>2 steamed buns with different fillings</li><li>2 pieces of “baked bacon”</li><li>1 Fairly McDonald’s style potato cake (they call it potato pie)</li><li>1 piece of very British tasting sausage</li><li>1 Hard Boiled brown egg</li><li>1 French style croissant</li></ul><p>There’s another American here that I’m supposed to be able to meet up with,
and at 10 in the morning I call him up. Of course, he’s younger than me
so he’s sleeping, and says he’ll call me back later.</p><p>This is the point where the jet lag really starts bugging me. I’m all
restless, but tired too. I start to watch some DVDs that I took with me
(there’s a DVD player in my room). About 1pm, I’m totally annoyed that
I didn’t get a call back, and decide to go see what I can find.</p><p>I’ll start by simply saying that I walked in the wrong direction.
I didn’t know it then. I did find a 7-11, a McDonalds, someplace called
Big Pizza, and a Dairy Queen - all along a road that was so wide it had
pedestrian bridges across it at regular intervals. I totally didn’t
bring the camera (should have).</p><p>On the way back to the Hotel, I stopped by the 7-11 and bought a can of
Pringles, some Laundry Soap and a liter of “Coke Light”. When I got back
here, I puttered around a little, drank some Coke Light, ate half the
Pringles, cleaned my dirty clothes (not much, but wanted to figure out
how the machine worked) - it’s a “Washer / Dryer”, and all of the
instructions are in Chinese, so I sort of guessed, and ended up with
clean dry clothes two hours later.</p><p>I ate some Ramen noodle type thing for Dinner (the hotel had a few items
that they started me off with - including tea bags and bottled water).
About 9PM, the other American called me back, and told me that he had
fallen back to sleep, and didn’t wake up until 2, and that he had tried
calling then. We made arrangements to meet up in the morning.</p><p>Tired and fuzzy, and having taken no useful pictures… I went to bed.
Tomorrow is the first day at work.</p></div><footer class=post-footer><ul class=post-tags><li><a href=https://blog.vollink.com/tags/blog/>blog</a></li><li><a href=https://blog.vollink.com/tags/in-china/>in-china</a></li><li><a href=https://blog.vollink.com/tags/history/>history</a></li><li><a href=https://blog.vollink.com/tags/work/>work</a></li></ul><div class=share-buttons><a target=_blank rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="share Getting there is NOT half the fun on twitter" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet/?text=Getting%20there%20is%20NOT%20half%20the%20fun&url=https%3a%2f%2fblog.vollink.com%2fin-china%2f2007%2f10%2fgetting-there-is-not-half-the-fun%2f&hashtags=blog%2cin-china%2chistory%2cwork"><svg viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M449.446.0C483.971.0 512 28.03 512 62.554v386.892C512 483.97 483.97 512 449.446 512H62.554c-34.524.0-62.554-28.03-62.554-62.554V62.554c0-34.524 28.029-62.554 62.554-62.554h386.892zM195.519 424.544c135.939.0 210.268-112.643 210.268-210.268.0-3.218.0-6.437-.153-9.502 14.406-10.421 26.973-23.448 36.935-38.314-13.18 5.824-27.433 9.809-42.452 11.648 15.326-9.196 26.973-23.602 32.49-40.92-14.252 8.429-30.038 14.56-46.896 17.931-13.487-14.406-32.644-23.295-53.946-23.295-40.767.0-73.87 33.104-73.87 73.87.0 5.824.613 11.494 1.992 16.858-61.456-3.065-115.862-32.49-152.337-77.241-6.284 10.881-9.962 23.601-9.962 37.088.0 25.594 13.027 48.276 32.95 61.456-12.107-.307-23.448-3.678-33.41-9.196v.92c0 35.862 25.441 65.594 59.311 72.49-6.13 1.686-12.72 2.606-19.464 2.606-4.751.0-9.348-.46-13.946-1.38 9.349 29.426 36.628 50.728 68.965 51.341-25.287 19.771-57.164 31.571-91.8 31.571-5.977.0-11.801-.306-17.625-1.073 32.337 21.15 71.264 33.41 112.95 33.41z"/></svg></a><a target=_blank rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="share Getting there is NOT half the fun on linkedin" href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3a%2f%2fblog.vollink.com%2fin-china%2f2007%2f10%2fgetting-there-is-not-half-the-fun%2f&title=Getting%20there%20is%20NOT%20half%20the%20fun&summary=Getting%20there%20is%20NOT%20half%20the%20fun&source=https%3a%2f%2fblog.vollink.com%2fin-china%2f2007%2f10%2fgetting-there-is-not-half-the-fun%2f"><svg viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M449.446.0C483.971.0 512 28.03 512 62.554v386.892C512 483.97 483.97 512 449.446 512H62.554c-34.524.0-62.554-28.03-62.554-62.554V62.554c0-34.524 28.029-62.554 62.554-62.554h386.892zM160.461 423.278V197.561h-75.04v225.717h75.04zm270.539.0V293.839c0-69.333-37.018-101.586-86.381-101.586-39.804.0-57.634 21.891-67.617 37.266v-31.958h-75.021c.995 21.181.0 225.717.0 225.717h75.02V297.222c0-6.748.486-13.492 2.474-18.315 5.414-13.475 17.767-27.434 38.494-27.434 27.135.0 38.007 20.707 38.007 51.037v120.768H431zM123.448 88.722C97.774 88.722 81 105.601 81 127.724c0 21.658 16.264 39.002 41.455 39.002h.484c26.165.0 42.452-17.344 42.452-39.002-.485-22.092-16.241-38.954-41.943-39.002z"/></svg></a><a target=_blank rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="share Getting there is NOT half the fun on reddit" href="https://reddit.com/submit?url=https%3a%2f%2fblog.vollink.com%2fin-china%2f2007%2f10%2fgetting-there-is-not-half-the-fun%2f&title=Getting%20there%20is%20NOT%20half%20the%20fun"><svg viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M449.446.0C483.971.0 512 28.03 512 62.554v386.892C512 483.97 483.97 512 449.446 512H62.554c-34.524.0-62.554-28.03-62.554-62.554V62.554c0-34.524 28.029-62.554 62.554-62.554h386.892zM446 265.638c0-22.964-18.616-41.58-41.58-41.58-11.211.0-21.361 4.457-28.841 11.666-28.424-20.508-67.586-33.757-111.204-35.278l18.941-89.121 61.884 13.157c.756 15.734 13.642 28.29 29.56 28.29 16.407.0 29.706-13.299 29.706-29.701.0-16.403-13.299-29.702-29.706-29.702-11.666.0-21.657 6.792-26.515 16.578l-69.105-14.69c-1.922-.418-3.939-.042-5.585 1.036-1.658 1.073-2.811 2.761-3.224 4.686l-21.152 99.438c-44.258 1.228-84.046 14.494-112.837 35.232-7.468-7.164-17.589-11.591-28.757-11.591-22.965.0-41.585 18.616-41.585 41.58.0 16.896 10.095 31.41 24.568 37.918-.639 4.135-.99 8.328-.99 12.576.0 63.977 74.469 115.836 166.33 115.836s166.334-51.859 166.334-115.836c0-4.218-.347-8.387-.977-12.493 14.564-6.47 24.735-21.034 24.735-38.001zM326.526 373.831c-20.27 20.241-59.115 21.816-70.534 21.816-11.428.0-50.277-1.575-70.522-21.82-3.007-3.008-3.007-7.882.0-10.889 3.003-2.999 7.882-3.003 10.885.0 12.777 12.781 40.11 17.317 59.637 17.317 19.522.0 46.86-4.536 59.657-17.321 3.016-2.999 7.886-2.995 10.885.008 3.008 3.011 3.003 7.882-.008 10.889zm-5.23-48.781c-16.373.0-29.701-13.324-29.701-29.698.0-16.381 13.328-29.714 29.701-29.714 16.378.0 29.706 13.333 29.706 29.714.0 16.374-13.328 29.698-29.706 29.698zM160.91 295.348c0-16.381 13.328-29.71 29.714-29.71 16.369.0 29.689 13.329 29.689 29.71.0 16.373-13.32 29.693-29.689 29.693-16.386.0-29.714-13.32-29.714-29.693z"/></svg></a></div></footer></article></main><footer class=footer><span>© 2025 <a href=https://blog.vollink.com/>On My Mind...</a></span>
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