Flying to China

I’m currently in China and it is absolutely AMAZING.  Am having such a good time.

Jessie and I arrived at Newcastle airport in the afternoon, whereupon I had a quick smoke, fearing it would be my last cigarette for quite a while.  I also wanted to take a picture to document our adventure.  I couldn't find my camera.  Panic ensued as I desperately searched through my bag trying to locate it, with Jessie trying to comfort me by saying she had packed two cameras so I could use one of hers.  For those of you that know me at all (and since you’re reading this, I assume you do know me!), I am never far from my camera.  Luckily, I found it in the end.

We checked in, passed through security without a problem.  But as we sat by our terminal, panic set in again – this time it was Jessie fearing she had lost her passport and ticket.  We had been in a few shops, and Jessie was terrified that somehow she had manage to drop it or forget it somewhere.  So out came everything in Jessie’s bag – and I mean everything!  Seriously, Mary Poppins’ bag had nothing on Jessie’s bag.  Again, luckily she found it.

Jessie struggles to find her passport...

The short one-hour flight to Amsterdam was uneventful.  Apart from this really obese (and I mean, really, really obese) man staring at me.  For the whole flight, he was staring at me.  I looked up from my book – he was staring.  I looked up from eating my lunch – he was staring.  It was a tad bit uncomfortable, to say the least.  Then as I was getting out of my seat, he was grinning at me.  Standing in the aisle, waiting to get off the plane, I was pushed back in to him by the man in front of me.  I was afraid to turn around to­­ see his reaction.  Luckily, the doors opened and I could make a quick exit.  But as I turned around to wait for Jessie (we were sitting in different parts of the plane), he winked at me.  It was terrifying.

In Amsterdam we only had an hour to wait for our next flight, so we quickly made our way to the terminal (after I had had another cigarette of course – and this really was the last cigarette of the journey).  There was a brief moment of worry when the air hostess claimed that Jessie’s ticket had already been used, but luckily that was soon rectified.

The flight itself was uneventful, though long – about 10 hours.  I only managed to sleep for about 30 minutes, so instead I kept myself occupied by starting and finishing The Hunger Games (which I enjoyed) and watching some movies.  One of the movies made me cry, which made my neighbour give me a slightly confused and worried look (again, Jessie and I were in different seats).

Then, finally – we arrived in Beijing.  The first thing on my to-do list?  Go outside for a cigarette.  By this point I hadn’t had a cigarette for about 11 hours.  It was torture.  Jessie laughed and shook her head at my desperate dash outside to find somewhere where I could smoke.  I could almost hear her smug (but lovely!) thoughts as she sat down in a relaxed manner waiting for our friend to arrive to pick us up.  Where Jessie was relaxed, I was a nervous wreck – jumping from foot to foot, fidgeting and trying my best not to be snappy with anyone (which wasn’t easy when a very nice but all-knowing English couple chided me for smoking).

We met up with my friend, Kimberly and her driver.  I hadn’t seen her in almost 10 years and she looked exactly the same – cool, calm, collected and somewhat crazy.  I have definitely missed her!  As it was only 1pm Beijing-time, we decided to accompany her on some chores.  We went to this awesome market place.  Jessie and I had fun exploring, exclaiming at various different exotic articles for sale – paintings, portraits, furniture, vases, a turtle…

Map of the market

Turtle for sale - in a far too small cage :-(

We stopped at a few more places, but by this point I was exhausted and was struggling to keep my eyes open.  I was in dire need of a bed.  Or a seat.  Or, to be honest, the pavement was looking like a pretty good place to lie down in my sleep-deprived mind.  After a tour of the house (which is amazing by the way), I collapsed on the bed and slept for a few hours.  Bliss.  I only woke up briefly to feed myself and then returned to the land of nod.