To make a long story short, I made it to Auckland.

To make a short story long, my journey began on Friday during lunch break, when my left foot began to hurt talking on the phone with Raven and degressed to the point where I couldn't put weight on it by the time I got to my room to finish packing. I hopped my way to Zije's house to tell her that we would need to stop off at the hospital on the way to the airport, which was fine by her, as long as I had Master Yen, the White Crane instructor, look at it first. Yen prodded my foot a little and then proceded to take each of my toes in turn and yank, shake and wiggle them in every possible direction. The funniest part is that outside of the excruciating immediate pain this caused me, it probably helped the healing process, because the next day, after applying a Chinese ointment prescribed from the hospital, my foot was 100% healed. So that was good, considering the consequences of a serious foot injury could have been a trip home. Once we got to the hotel, Zije translated for me that they didn't accept credit cards, and to my dismay I found only 160 yuan, a little less than the 200 the room cost, so Zije convinced the clerk to let me stay the night for 100 as long as I went to the Bank of China a few miles away the next morning to get the rest of the money, using my remaining 60 yuan for the taxi. Forunately this worked; there was doubt because the ATM near the hotel rejected my card, and I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't.

I made it to the Wuyishan airport (a ten minute walk from the hotel) at 2:00, and sat around in the domestic terminal until the international terminal opened at 5:30. I got into Hong Kong at about 8:30 and immediately located a bacon cheeseburger, after which I tried to find space in a nap room at the airport lounge, only to find that they were sold out, so I ended up benching it for six or seven hours. After spaghetti bolognese and chocolate milk for breakfast and a chicken burger and chocolate sundae for lunch, my reintegration into western society was complete and I spent the rest of my time reading and taking advantage of complimentary airport computers (my laptop cord decided to stop working on Friday).

Ten hours later, I landed in Auckland at around 7:30 in the morning and bussed into downtown to find my hostel, the Fat Camel. I rested and read in the common room for a while and wandered around, finding a Seattle coffee shop and a Thai restaurant to read in. Now I have four-ish days before I meet up with Tevon and will probably see a movie and bus around a little to see the surrounding area while I wait.