Shanghai

Hullo from the other side of the world! I had the most comfortable 14 hour plane ride ever in an aisle seat on Japan airlines sitting next to an archie that goes to the Boston Architecture College or whatever it is. BAC, BCA, something along those lines. He started the program really late so even though we're both just out of third year, he's three years older than me. It was interesting hearing what their curriculum is like. Teachers always tell us how important it is to have studio culture and from what I hear, this person (Yao is his name) barely ever goes to studio. He has it once a week, and all of his classes are at night. I think the students there (and they have way more archies than we do, and a lot of interior designers) spend the daytime working in firms and their evenings in class. They don't have any university-wide electives because there aren't any university classes and they rarely go to school community events. Makes me really appreciate how I have at least thirty-six more-than-acquaintance friends. Still, while I think the culture is nice, I think they're going to be a lot more functional as architects when they get out because those students live and breathe architecture with no distractions whereas we have hours and hours of extra classes to worry about.
So I thought that getting through customs would be a pain. I figured they'd question me, detain me, possibly arrest me just for the reason that I look suspicious. Obviously I was just being paranoid and got through customs in under ten minutes. I didn't even have to wait for my checked baggage to show up because it rolled right by me the moment I approached the luggage carousel. Looking for my cousin was another story. I haven't seen him since fourth grade so it was kind of doubtful that I would recognize him. I put on my glasses just in case, which made it a little harder for him to recognize me, but fortunately, we recognized each other. Sort of. I saw him and thought, 'hmm, I think...that's...him...but I don't want to be embarrassed if it isn't, so I'll look around and pretend I'm not making a b-line for him to see if he recognizes me.' And then I realized it was him and upon saying hello immediately proceeded to think, 'He's shorter than I remember.' Most likely because the last time I saw him I was only a little over four feet tall. I think he and dad are around the same height.
So then it was an hour ride back to my aunt's apartment and then another couple hours of chatting with Kaigen (that's my cousin's official English name - celtic he says) about stuff - we reminisced about how he used to pick on me (stealing my baby doll, making me run errands, how he and his old high school buddies used to take my doll and toss it around high above me so I would cry) and talked about his new family. He has a wife named Yuko and a little boy named Arvin whose nickname is Mumu. I still haven't met them because they were already asleep when I got there and are still sleeping now.
Today my plans are to hopefully get a phone call from Ben (hint hint) and then go out and figure out how to get to the office. Fortunately, I don't seem to be suffering from jet lag because I went to sleep around 2am and woke up at 8 - that's about normal, right?