Wallace's Wonderful Adventure: Phone Issues and Ronnebeck's Arrive

Monday morning I discovered my phone wasn't working. At 9:00 I had Mr. Xue drop us off at Tesco so I could figure out what the problem was. When someone finally waited on me dumb and dumber (the two employees) first told me my phone number was wrong. I told them no it wasn't. Tried again. Told me "number wrong". Now mind you they are looking on my iPhone where it tells the number of the phone. I wasn't telling it to them. How can that be wrong?

Finally figured out I owed 83 rmb. Ok, so I give them 150 rmb to get me through the last month. They were having all kinds of computer issues but finally showed me a text that said I paid 150 rmb. The girl then rudely waved her hand in my face and said goodbye. I made sure my phone worked then left.

Well, Tuesday late morning my phone quit working again. I was ticked. I called Todd on Cameron's phone to have him tell Mr. Xue to pick us up at 1 instead of 1:30 so we could look into the phone issue before going to Beijing to get my brother and family.

We walked in the store and went to the China Unicom booth. Mr. Xue interrupted two guys talking and told the worker the situation. He showed him the text that said I paid 150 rmb yesterday. The guy searched my account several times and no where was my 150 rmb. I was getting more ticked because I knew where this was going.

Lots of back and forth with Mr. Xue and the worker. The whole time I was searching around for the people that worked yesterday. Couldn't find them. The conversation got heated. A girl from another booth came over and stared at me. I don't know all that was said but the jist was I owed money and I didn't pay yesterday. Mr. Xue kept pointing to the text. Voices were getting louder and arms were flying around. I was getting hotter and more mad and I didn't even know what was being said.

Mr. Xue must have finally told him to find out who worked yesterday or something because I heard him say in Chinese the words yesterday and 9:00...that's when he dropped me off there. The guy got on the phone to someone. After a 3 minute conversation the guy looked at me and calmly said "sorry". Next thing I knew he put 150 rmb in the box on my account, gave me a receipt, and said sorry again. I then received a text saying I paid 150 rmb again.

I don't know what all Mr. Xue said but he was not going to take no for an answer. So glad I took him in with me. He definitely had my back. I couldn't stop thanking him and he had a huge smile on his face. A 25 minute fight to get a phone to work was ridiculous but it worked.

Off to Beijing. Cameron and I hit Jenny Lou's and Euro Plaza. We got Cameron McDonald's and then headed to the airport to get the Ronnebeck's.

We got there at 4:40 but they were scheduled to land at 5:20. We sat down and entertained ourselves. When we saw on the board they had landed we got excited. But then we had to wait for them to get to the exit. Our excitement subsided while waiting.

Waiting for the family to arrive.

Cameron made a telescope.

The telescope became a sign again.

Mr. Xue in his hot outfit with his murse..

Then people from their flight started exiting. I saw Kelly walk by. Excitement came back. Finally we saw Griffin and Scott with their bright green shirts on.

There's Griffin.

Scott and Griffin in green.

Out they came. Cameron was holding up a sign so they could find us. We thought it might be difficult...like giant Americans don't stick out. Hugs all around. Made it to the van and started the journey to TEDA. Everybody was fine for awhile but then we started loosing the Ronnebeck's one by one. First was Scott, then Grace, then Griffin, and finally Kelly. First Griffin was leaning on Grace. Then he switched to Cameron. The look on Cameron's face was hilarious. Then as we were pulling into Warner Griffin was almost in Cameron's lap. I tried for a second picture because the first one didn't turn out but my flash blinded Griffin. He was awake then.