Picture This:
Your plane is delayed at Heathrow...you have 6 minutes to catch your connection to Nanjing and you have a bag which "no word of a lie" weighs a ton. You are red faced, sweating and have two friends bellowing at you to RUN FASTER!!! This is how I started my journey to China....
Right now i'm sitting in a beautiful Youth Hostel named "Jasmine International" and its every bit as gorgeous as the name. Its quaint and picturesque and the Air Con is so cold, Jess thought she had caught the flu this morning. Bloody lovely in comparison to the heat outside!
Yesterday was so so stressful. So yes, there we were: Me, Jess and Jazza delayed in Heathrow hoping to God we would catch our connection in Frankfurt in time. We arrived with 14 minutes to spare before our flight left. Have you seen the scene in "Home Alone" where the family are running for their flight knocking small children out of the way and so on??...that was us! We shouted at a random woman at the lufthanza desk: "Has the nanjing flight left yet!!??" she replied in a rather angry German accent..."IT leaves in 6 minutes but you will have to hurry."
NO SHIT SHERLOCK.
The happy ending to this tale is that we made it on the flight "HURRAH" the bad news....I arrived in Nanjing 11 hours later without one of my bags. Apparently its MIA somewhere in Frankfurt terminal 1. PANIC PANIC PANIC.
On the brightside, my big pink case arrived with all the "essentials" but my rucksack had every pair of pants I own in it. So I am in Nanjing with one set of underwear...the inside-out trick wont last long. I left my details with a small chinese lady at the Nanjing airport after filling in a form asking: What was in the rucksack? Answer: Kickers socks and Bra's. How poetic.
After picking up our bags, Jazza flagged us a taxi while me and Jess stood behind gazing in wonder as he spouted some fantastic chinese. I got as far as "ni hao" and thats about it. I felt really upset about my lack of bag but soon forgot my troubles as we drove to the centre of Nanjing. Apart from the UNBELIEVABLE humidity and heat...the place is fantastic. Nanjing has the usual skyscrapers of any big Chinese city, but a great amount of small shops and people riding around everywhere on bikes and scooters (the ladies with high-heel shoes on!)
We arrived outside Jazza's flat in the blistering afternoon heat. Eric,(Jazza's flatmate) is a fantastically helpful chinese guy who directed me and Jess to our Hostel. Everything about the place really is fantastic...apart from the distance University...short in English terms but in this heat its like climbing a bloody mountain. I really do look like a sweaty red faced man in Nanjing. So unattractive...dripping of sweat. HEN HAO. Our room at the hostel is so clean, and the bathroom is massive...I jumped straight into the shower and cabbaged on the massive double bed.
If I am honest...I still cant believe I'm really truly here. Its now 9am here and after 12 hours sleep to attempt to get over the jet lag I'm just so excited to explore the city! Especially, to try more of the fantastic food. Last night I ate my first authentic Chinese meal and it was so tasty.It was a big bowl of noodles in a hot pork soup type of thing, with really tender chunks of meat and a fried egg on top. I really cant use chopsticks... I am going to have to practise!
I will keep you posted on my other goings on. I really hope I get my rucksack back...it had all my hats in too! I have my placement tests for Uni this week so its going to have to do some serious studying, I've forgotten everything!
Much love to you all! Lots of pictures coming soon, love Bex xxx
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Hi becca,
ReplyDeleteplease to hear how your getting on and that you are enjoying nanjing. Everything seems ok apart from your bag, have you had any news on it yet.
Things are going as normal here and we have had the dog this week and he has been lovely. Everyone is ok and well.
love gram and granda