how i almost got shipped out of china

ok, first, before i rant about this ridic taxi ride, i would just like to share that during my class today one kid kept yelling "da feiji" (to hit a plane) at me. he even wrote it down and handed it in with his name card. i asked some other kids in the program what it meant (thank god i didn't ask my contact teacher) and found out it means to jerk off. i think maybe i will make him lose some face next wednesday?

anyways, so we went to the beach this afternoon. it was really nice. i didn't get in the water, but apparently it's really nice and warm. we had our guard write down the address to our apartment, but jess had to leave early so she took it and i was like "no worries, i totally know where i live and can say it." in shanghai, this would have been enough. here in yantian, the cabdrivers don't actually know every fucking small road in the city, so it didn't suffice. jess and linda told me how to say the area we live in, and i asked a cabbie if he knew it and told him i would direct him once we got there and he said he knew (in my defense, once we got to our area, i did just that and it worked perfectly). anyways, along the way he gets off on this weird exit and pretty much immediately realizes he's done something wrong and tried to make a u-turn (his would be second of the trip) and he would have, except there were headlights coming towards us. anyways, there is nowhere to turn around for quite some time and we end up having to go through a tunnel. after the tunnel he pulls this weird u-turn before the toll both and kate and i laugh about it. then we notice we are surrounded by 18 wheelers. kate makes some comment about hoping we aren't on some direct route to the shipyard and we laugh. there are few other cars, so we think "no problem." well, about 4 minutes later, we are in heavy traffic completely surround by trucks and the driver gets out and asks some random people sitting on the street (there is NOTHING around us, so why these people were even there is beyond me) something. he gets back in the cab and we sit in this crazy traffic with our driver weaving through 18-wheelers FOREVER. at some point we were literally at a truck entrance to the shipyard. when we finally get back to where he took the wrong exit, we are all of maybe 5 minutes from our place. we've been in traffic for 40. a cab ride that took us 15 or 20 minutes tops on the way there took about an hour. it cost 30 kuai on the way there and the meter was at 80 when we got out. we handed the guy 40 kuai and he tried to ask for more money and i explained it should have been 30. he then tried to use the traffic excuse and was just like "well, i gave you 10 more kuai. peace out" and he seemed fine with it. on the upside, while stuck in traffic on the way to a cargo ship, i heard the chinese dj saying "tingting" (which could mean a number of things in chinese i assume) and i think "wouldn't it be cool if the ting tings came on this random chinese radio staion?" and then they did. it was the only english song i heard during the entire 500 year cab ride.

i think maybe next time i go to beach, i take bus?