Arkansas, Little Rock: A Cheery Reunion

After travelling around Southeast Asia, China, Taiwan and Mongolia for 5-1/2 months, the fact that we were leaving Asia harboured mixed emotions because, on one hand, we were happy to move on to a new part of the world but, on the other hand, we had a fantastic time exploring an area that neither of us had spent much time in before. The United States was to serve as our next home away from home for nearly three months and the first portion of this time was to be spent in the southern state known as "Arkansas", or hillbilly country.

To get to Arkansas, we had to fly from Beijing, China, to Arkansas' capital city, Little Rock. It took us just over 29 hours to complete the long journey; we had to transfer through Shanghai and Chicago as there were no direct flights from China to Arkansas. We left Peking Youth Hostel in Beijing at 7:45am in order to catch our first flight. There were no OneWorld partner airlines at the Beijing airport, so we had to fly with China Eastern Airlines to get from the country's capital to Shanghai. Once in Shanghai, we were able to catch an American Airlines flight to Chicago, where we connected to an American Eagle flight to our last destination. We left China on a Friday morning at 7:45am, which was actually 6:45pm on the previous day in Arkansas, due to the time difference, and we arrived in Little Rock just after 11:00pm on Friday, completely exhausted.

We stopped off at the Clinton Presidential Library to look at one of the old railroad bridges spanning across the water

We thought that the Beijing flight would not happen when we arrived at the airport. The tickets we possessed had been issued last autumn and were for a China Eastern flight that left at 12:10pm; that flight had been recently changed to 11:15am. Throughout our travels in China, we noticed much room for improvement with Chinese travel agencies and we both agreed the same for the ticketing counter staff at the China Eastern section of Beijing's airport, because it took more than half an hour for the ticketing agent to finally acknowledge that we were supposed to fly out of Beijing that day. Happy that it was all sorted before our flight left, we quickly headed back to the departures desk to check in for our flight.

The flight to Shanghai was due to leave in a couple of hours, but the girl at the desk could not check us in because the flight wasn't in their system yet. We ended up waiting for 20 minutes before we were able to be checked in. After we had our boarding cards, we went to a Bank of China branch in the airport to change our remaining Chinese RMB into US Dollars. There, the queues were massive and moved very slowly; it wasn't until 45 minutes later that we had the cash we needed, and we were on our way to the Departures Lounge.

Before leaving China, we had to have one last bubble tea. We stopped off at a cafe in the Departures Lounge; Kyle ordered a vanilla bubble tea and Dan chose a coconut one. We shared a plate of chips, too, that tasted a bit strange due to the oil that they were cooked in; the teas were delicious, though. After the snack, it was time to board our flight and we headed to the gate, ready to get the first of three flights over with as soon as possible.

At the Shanghai airport, we had to collect our bags and make our way to the International Departures Hall in the airport, which was luckily not far from Domestic Arrivals, where we landed. We found the American Airlines desk without any issues and checked in for our flight. The 14 hour flight to Chicago was actually really easy. Time went by quickly and, before we knew it, we were on the ground in the Windy City's large airport.

There was a long layover in store for us in Chicago. After a grilling at Customs for Dan, he finally convinced the officer that he was only travelling for a few months in the US before moving on somewhere else. In the United States, people don't normally take a year off to go travelling, so the Customs officer thought Dan's story was fishy. We collected our luggage, dropped it off at the transit check-in desk and then headed to the American Airlines lounge so that we could relax for a few hours.

On the way to the lounge, we felt a cosmic force pulling us towards one of the Chili's restaurants in the airport and enjoyed a nice meal there. We ordered tortilla chips, queso and salsa to start with, and then we ate some proper chicken by ordering chicken crispers. We came to the conclusion that restaurants in Asia obtain and use all of the dark and less appetising meat from chickens, whilst Europe and the US use nice, meaty white breast meat. The quality of chicken in Asia was not that good (except in some places in Southeast Asia that we visited), and it was very nice to have some proper hormone and steroid-injected chicken.

The airline lounge in Chicago O'Hare Airport was quite nice and we were glad to have a rest there. When it was time to board our plane, we walked to the American Eagle terminal and, in less than two hours, we found ourselves waiting for Kyle's mum, Judy, at Little Rock International Airport. She wasn't there to greet us at the exit to the Arrivals area, so we had a little cry before heading to Baggage Claim. She wasn't waiting there, either, so we had another little cry; having travelled 29 hours meant that we were quite fragile by that point, and we just wanted to get to a hotel and crash for the night.

A few minutes after arriving at Baggage Claim, we spotted Judy through the window and were excited to see her, and also to know that we would be in her car soon, heading to a hotel for some sleep. By the way, we didn't really cry, we just wanted to see if anyone was actually reading this entry. Sleep didn't come immediately for us because Kyle was very excited to see his mum and we both enjoyed telling her about the long journey from China as well as finding out about what has been happening with her lately. We finally got to sleep at 2:00am and were looking forward to our first full day in the US the next day.

We slept in until 10:00am and then made arrangements to meet up with some of Kyle's friends (Karen, Stan and Sunshine) for lunch. Only Stan was able to meet us for lunch; Sunshine was unavailable that day and Karen had to meet us a little bit later in the afternoon. Kyle had a great time catching up with his friend over a delicious meal at an Asian restaurant called "Pei Wei", and Dan and Judy enjoyed meeting Stan.

We had no idea that we would be eating Asian food so soon after leaving the continent, but the dishes were "Americanised" and we enjoyed the food very much. Communal egg rolls were ordered to start with and, for the main course, Kyle's mum ordered chicken pad thai, Dan ordered green chicken curry and Kyle ordered honey seared chicken. Stan ate sweet and sour chicken and enjoyed his food as much as we enjoyed ours.

The restaurant was really cold from the air conditioning so we left immediately after eating to go to the University of Arkansas Little Rock (UALR) campus to meet Karen and her daughters Blair and Brooke (and Brooke's cute baby boy, Logan). Karen and her daughters were in Little Rock to hold a surprise 80th birthday party for her dad; Karen was also due to check up on the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) summer cheerleading camp being held at the university the weekend we were in town.

It was great catching up with everyone and Dan and Judy both enjoyed witnessing a summer cheerleading camp opening rally with lots of flips, stunts, dances and cheers. What wasn't liked as much was all of the loud noise coming from each of the cheerleading squad's loud voices as they entered the university gym, excited to spend a few days together learning tips and tricks of the trade. Wow, they can scream!

After parting ways with Stan, Karen, Brooke, Blair and little Logan, Judy took us to the capitol building near downtown Little Rock. She showed us where she and her twin sister, Jeanne, used to play as kids when her father (Kyle's grandfather) worked there as a County Senator. We couldn't go inside the capitol because it had already closed for the day, but we walked all around the beautiful grounds, looking at the various trees, monuments, gardens and squirrels outside.

The next place we visited in Little Rock was the downtown area along the Arkansas River. First, we stopped off at the Clinton Presidential Library to look at one of the old railroad bridges spanning across the water. We didn't go inside the library, which is also a large museum, because we were saving that for another day later in the summer; we are really looking forward to seeing a room there that is set up exactly like the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C.

There was a souvenir shop downtown that Judy took us to; it was filled with many different Arkansas souvenirs, as well as Clinton items such as books, postcards and unique gifts related to or promoted by the Clintons. After looking around for a while, Dan ended up buying a postcard of Bill Clinton sitting in a chair outside a small farmhouse, wearing a large cowboy hat. Kyle and his mum looked around the shop at all of the items and didn't buy anything, but they both enjoyed the place.

When we left the souvenir shop, we ventured inside River Market, which was a large building with a few shops and cafes inside. Dan and Judy had iced mochas and Kyle tried an iced cappucino. Once we all had tried each other's drinks, Kyle ended up having mocha syrup added to his, because the coffees Dan and Judy were drinking were much tastier. Be sure to look at the photos for this journal entry because we spotted what must have been the world's largest ceiling fan outside River Market; it was enormous!

Behind River Market, there was a path that ran along the river bank. We walked along the path for a short period of time and then we ran into a problem. A large section of the path was being reconstructed in order to provide a playground area for children and their families, so we had to turn back. It was really hot that day, so we decided to walk back along the main street in the downtown area to head back to Judy's car. We had agreed to watch a film that evening with Stan and a friend of Kyle's mum named Janice (they were friends in high school and from the same home town, a small town in Arkansas called "Rector") and were supposed to meet Janice at our hotel before we left for the cinema.

"Mr. Brooks" was the film we watched that evening, at The Rave, a really modern and nice cinema on Colonel Glenn Road. Stan suggested that we see it and the film was an excellent choice. Kevin Costner and Demi Moore were great in the film and it revamped the serial killer genre for us, as it had been awhile since either of us had seen a really solid serial killer film. There was a lot of dark humour throughout it, too, which really worked with the characters portrayed in the story.

Our first Mexican dinner during the United States portion of our trip was eaten that evening after we left the cinema, at a place called "El Porton" that was located near the cinema. Janice didn't actually make it to the cinema but she met us at the restaurant; when Kyle was outside the restaurant taking a photo of the sign above the entrance, a woman asked him if he was Craig. He thought that maybe the woman was on a blind date or meeting up with someone she met on the internet, but she actually turned out to be Janice and had gotten Kyle's name mixed up with his brother's! Since he was busy taking a photo, he didn't realise that it was Janice when she started talking to him, and everyone had a good laugh when Kyle and Janice walked into the restaurant to the table where Judy, Dan and Stan were sitting and they told them the story.

During dinner, we all pigged out on chips and salsa and then struggled to finish the rest of our main courses. Since we found it so difficult to eat the large portions there, we talked about sharing dishes, from that point onwards, like everyone does in Southeast Asia and China. It would hopefully save money for our food budget, and also prevent some unwanted growth around the waistlines that we will so carefully need to watch until we leave the United States in the second week of September.

When we finished eating, Janice and Judy decided to go out to a bar to go dancing and we went home because we were feeling tired from jet lag and the previous day's travels. The enormous Mexican dinner didn't help reduce our tiredness, either. The typical thing that happened, though, was that we both got second winds (NOT flatulence, as that would come the next day from the Mexican feast) and found it difficult to get to sleep. So, what did we do, you ask? We worked on this journal and typed up notes from the day.

Judy and Janice - by the way, Judy's middle name is Janice, which is somewhat ironic - returned to the hotel and fell asleep before we did, but once we finally fell asleep, we both slept very well. We even were granted a lie in from the two women, who kindly went for breakfast when they woke up. They even more kindly brought us breakfast so we could eat as soon as we rose from our slumber.

Once we all had eaten and showered, it was time to leave Little Rock to visit our second Arkansas destination and Kyle's mum and step dad, Marc's, home - Hot Springs. We picked Marc up from the airport; he was returning from a weekend in Georgia. Once he collected his bags, we started making our way to Hot Springs, which was located one hour from Little Rock. On the way, we stopped off at The Dixie Cafe for a nice lunch, where we put our "meal sharing" technique to good use. Do you know that we still got really full even when we shared a main course? Dan realised, and Kyle remembered (being an American who has jumped the pond to live in England), that there were crazy portions sizes in this country, and it was only Day 2!

A memorable moment during our short weekend in Little Rock was a discussion with Kyle's mum about her new medical condition called CRS, or "Can't Remember S***". Apparently, it develops when you start getting older. We really hope that this disease will not hinder her ability to remember the difference between the UK and US definitions of a "fanny", which the Americans reading this will know means "bottom" in America. Of course, the English people reading this know that the word means something completely opposite in England; it is good that we are writing this journal entry in the United States so we won't get in trouble for using the word.

The last memorable moment we must mention was the use of Dan's favourite word spoken in Arkansas - vehicle. The way that Arkansans said the word there was "ve-hickle".