Just generally annoying stuffs.

With all of yesterday's fun of getting some adverts slipped in the taxi window as I was heading home from the airport I forgot to mention some of the less interesting parts of my trip...

This was just a quick trip out of Xiamen for one night, really just to give Tina some time to relax without me - or to make her miss me - something like that. But, because it was a short trip it meant an early morning flight and I had to be at the airport at 06:00. So at 05:30, still half asleep, I wander downstairs to catch a taxi. Getting a taxi is never a problem because there is a 24 hour massage place located in our complex and apparently it does a good business in the late hours.

A twenty minute taxi ride later and I'm at the airport - there were a few times the driver tried to talk to me and in addition to not understanding I was tired and just went with the simple "听不懂" (I liken this to - I don't understand you at all, please stop talking). When we got there the diver couldn't produce a receipt for me, trying to explain in some way how his new car and meter didn't work - I was too tired to argue and more shocked and slightly worried about the hundreds of people at the airport.

Big crowds at airports are never fun, especially at 06:00, but it turned out that they were all big travel groups that felt the need to stand outside and just block all the entrances until each of their 50-60 members were there - once you fought your way through them inside the airport was still empty. There were also several groups inside blocking the security area, but at least the ticket counters were all empty.

The flights up and back were fairly uneventful, for some reason we took a flight with a layover which makes a 2 hour flight take 3-1/2, and then rains at our middle stop delayed us for an hour on the way out and 30 minutes on the way back.

Getting back into Xiamen and apparently we arrived at the same time as several other flights, again masses of people acting like they've never been in an airport and pushing to get somewhere quickly only to realize that they need to go back to wherever they just came from. It get's slightly less annoying every time you go through it. The line for the taxis was as bad as I have ever seen it, taking me almost 30 minutes just to get through that line.

It's the end of the taxi ride that I get most bothered, as the taxi gives me my 50 back explaining that it's a fake. Damn. Now I have to break on of my 100's and find someone else that will accept my fake 50.

Now, I didn't know that the 50 was fake when I tried giving it to the cabbie, and I'm not sure whom I should now try to pawn it off on. I received it from the taxi driver that took me to the airport - he was probably figuring that I was just some foreigner that would never be back again, but the lack of a receipt makes it so that I don't have his taxi number and can't call to lodge a complaint. I should give him credit for that, and as an upside I'll be more observant in the future, even if it is six in the morning and I'm still asleep. It's not even a good fake - it may be hard to spend.

But it is Friday, and 老Joe is in town which means that we will be out at bars, so right now I'm presuming that the 50 will find its way out of my wallet and become someone else's problem before the weekend is through....