Traveling the World

As the months creeped by, I became ever more happier and excited for the trip. It wasn’t just the idea of seeing a new country, it was also that I hadn’t been outside of China since I got back from Thailand in September 2008. It was my chance to reconnect with the closest semblance of my own culture. I had so much time to think about the trip it made me crazy. I had to plan other trips before this one to help get my mind off how far away it was from the time we purchased the tickets.

When I got my new job in Hankou (on the other side of the river), I decided to take my salary from work and put it straight in the bank so I could afford to go on the trip. I earned 5000rmb (~$900) a month, but I knew I only needed about $1500 for my trip, so I knew I’d have enough money to buy a nice Canon SLR. In all of our previous trips together, I always relied on them to take good pictures because my Fujifilm was a terrible camera. I wanted to take responsibility and take pictures for myself instead of relying on others, and so right before I came to Australia I bought a camera for 4600rmb (almost a month’s salary!).

During autumn I had a fight with Matt, and he threatened to abandon me at the airport. I wasn’t worried about it because there was still so much time before we went and I knew he’d forget about it. Matt is very quick to pick on me and joke, but I’ve realized that’s what Aussies do when they are being friendly. Odd, I know.

At one point when I was still with Lily (if you didn’t know, we broke up again, and this time for good), she was invited to come along as long as she took care of her money and visa issues. She failed to do so, and so she didn’t end up coming.

As it came time to leave for Australia, I was so pumped that I stopped caring about my job. I know it’s bad, but I couldn’t get Australia out of my mind. This was my chance to escape the cold, bleak winter in Wuhan and go back to the beautiful summer that reminds me like home.

The day arrived, and I woke up early and it was freezing cold and raining. I took a taxi to the station where the bus would take me to the airport. After getting to the airport I met up with Nick and Fey and we moved to the terminal, where Matt was waiting for us. After an hour and a half, we arrived in Guangzhou, our first connection. Guangzhou was raining and cold like Wuhan, but not as bad. After an 8 hour layover spent inside the city, we happily scampered back to the airport for our next flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Unfortunately with budget airlines, things don’t always go as planned. Thankfully the only problem was that our flight was delayed from 8:45pm to 9:30pm. Four hours later and we were in Malaysia. We checked into the beautiful hotel built by the same man who built the airport and owns AirAsia (he’s brilliant). In the morning we took a bus into town and got some Chinese Malay food. After checking out the clothing market and buying a red shirt (If only I’d known how hot it was in Australia, I would have gotten a white shirt instead), we hopped over to the monorail and checked out the mall. We knew we’d have 2 days in Kuala Lumpur on the way back, so we just walked around enjoying ourselves and eating. Before heading back to the airport, we stopped for Indian food. We had Chicken tandoori, garlic naan bread, and curry.

Time having flown by so quickly, we rushed back to the airport for our final flight: Gold Coast, Australia. I was extremely lucky to have no one sitting in the 2 seats to my right, so as soon as the seat belt sign was turned off, I laid down and went to sleep after having a nice codeine to put me down for the night. At one point in the middle of the night we had some turbulence and so I woke up and sat up, only to fall asleep again within a few minutes. When I woke, there was a Chinese woman sleeping sitting up in the row of seats I had previously conquered, so I was quite upset because I wanted to lay back down. I wanted to shake her and tell her to get up, but I refrained.

When we arrived in Australia, the sky was amazing and it air was clean. To continue reading about my arrival in Australia, go over to my Australia page.