Further life and times of *liltayinchina*

Just thought I'd share the proof that I'm COMING HOME! This ticket was hard enough to procure and so, it deserves some attention.

I took a bus from Wuchang to Hankou just to get in the right quadrant of the city. Then I took a taxi to get to the building where the ticketing agency resides. I took an elevator to the 33rd floor, ears popping and plenty of time to analyze my pores in the mirrored walls. On the 33rd floor, I walked past empty or under-construction suites and walked into the Across China - International Ticketing office where Rita, who had been avoiding my emails the previous week, grudgingly met me and processed the ticket. I gave her a wad of bills - seventy 100 yuan bills to be exact. She issued the ticket and I left. I got in another taxi and got dropped off near the bus stop. I walked among a throng of Saturday strollers to the stop and squeezed my sweaty self onto a bus bound for Wuchang. By the time the bus was stop-and-going across the main bridge over the Yangtze River, my phone started vibrating crazily.

It was Rita. She was calling to ask me to return to the 33rd floor because she'd entered the ticket incorrectly in her system and she was going to get into trouble if she didn't destroy the ticket and re-issue it. I said no way. I suggested that she send a courier like she was originally going to before she dropped off the face of the internet...hesitantly, she agreed.

I received two emails and three text messages between that Saturday afternoon and Monday morning along the lines of, "Maybe you will come to the office and bring the ticket" or "Maybe you will meet my courier in Hankou" and my favorite, "Maybe you do not understand that this is very troubling for me. It was complicated the day you came in and I was not prepared to present the ticket to you" - even though I called her Saturday morning, asking if I could come that afternoon and she replied that I could.

Long story short (and as you can see from the photo) - I got my ticket. Monday morning, the courier was late and had to wait for me for ten minutes while I was teaching. When I came to the office, a man eyed me suspiciously through a cloud of cigarette smoke. When I pulled out the original ticket that Rita had printed for me, he snatched it and stared at it, an inch from his face, to confirm that the tickets were identical, save the mysterious labeling that would make one kosher in Rita's system and the other not. After a few minutes of staring at one spot on the original ticket, Mr. Smokey thrust the new ticket into my hands and shuffled off.

I'm coming home!!!