Travelling, our first mission.

*This blog doesn't have any pictures in it, because for some reason it won't let me upload. ¬___¬ However - all the pictures from this period are now in my flickr account  Flickr! so check 'em out :) More to upload very soon, but I'll have to make a new flickr account for those so stay tuned*

So! My journey began at about 12.30 on the 12th of July when my father dropped me off at Swansea Station. Around 1 Kim, one of the other girls on the trip, arrived at the station too, and we waited for the damn bus driver to get back from his little lunch outing. ¬____¬ He was half an hour late (jerk ball). It was so much better having someone else on the bus journey, because it wasn’t just me staring out of the window the whole time XD Also, Kim had banana chips which were surprisingly yummy and the conversation was good.

On the way to Heathrow terminal 4 we went to Bridgend, Cardiff, Newport, Bristol and Reading. We also went to several other terminals in the airport. At reading our bus driver (jerk) switched places with another guy (Can’t remember his name, but he was extremely funky. He had a white beard and moustache and a tangerine turban). Oh lawd, this guy was hilarious. He kept apologizing for the delay and then told us a little story about how he was waiting for the bus to come and fell asleep in the car XD Gotta love those inappropriate bus drivers. He also told us that he would let us know when it was ‘wakey wakey time’, which was adorable.

Eventually we got to the terminal! Wooooot! We met up with the other girls, who were conveniently all together by the baggage weighing bit. We sorted customs and all that jazz out, bought some snacks and headed for the gate. At this point I was kind of in a daze. I hadn’t actually realistically thought I’d ever be getting on a plane, so I was sort of ‘Huhhh?!’ We sat on a couple of benches outside the gate, and we could see our plane. Inevitably, we eventually got the call to say that it was time to board out plane to Shanghai. Eeeeep. Ksenia was awesome, and swapped seats with me so I could have the window seat.

I almost had a heart attack when the time for take-off came around. I didn’t anticipate how fast planes actually accelerate to before they start flying. Of course this makes sense now, but at the time I was like 0_0 I thought I was proper going to pass out.
Things I don’t like about flying -

• Take-off. That bit where you tilt upwards? Yeah, not for me, dudes.
• Sideways leaning. Oh my word. Makes me want to die.
• Smallness of space. I want a couch to myself or something.

It is incredibly beautiful, though. The lights of London on that first flight were really breathtaking, and after my initial panicking, they really calmed me down. Also amazing? Stockholm from the sky, at night. Oh my god, it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. So incredibly beautiful. We had our first meal around this time. It was ok! I had sweet and sour chicken with rice (not good), a little bowl of pasta with olives and tomato (so-so), strawberry mouse (reaaaal good), fresh bread and butter. Yum. On this flight we also ate - a cheese and pickle sandwich. This was icky due to the fact that is was incredibly cold. I didn’t eat it. Our second meal was salmon and noodles (so god damn good, I can’t even describe. Lol), a kitkat, bread and butter and fruit salad. It was tasty :P I still can’t get over that salmon. Haha.

After twelve long hours, we finally touched down in Pudong International Airport, Shanghai. It's really quite gorgeous. It was strange, though, because we had no idea how to talk to anyone. Nobody spoke a word of English. I especially am not used to this, because I’ve never been out of the UK, but I think it surprised all of us.  For the most part, we explored the shops a little, bought some snacks and then parked outselves on a couple of rows of seats, chatted for a bit and waited for our plane to Harbin.

Now, this plane was MUCH smaller than the first, and was also packed with people. The next two and a half hours were some of the worst of my life. I’m not joking - literally the whole journey was turbulence. The air stewards with their drinks tray could not get half way up the aisle without having to go back and try again five minutes later. It sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked. The only relief came when we finally touched down in Harbin. We then got a text from Alex, our group leader, saying that there was a storm on, and that the airport had told him we might be landing randomly, and he’d probably have to come find us elsewhere. 0_0 Thank the lord that we didn’t know this on the plane. I could tell by peoples faces that the plane journey was much more than usually turbulent. It would have given me a heart attack XD
After our plane got in we waited for our bags and then we FINALLY, after 28 hours, got to stop travelling (almost). We had to get a lift back to the uni, but this was a piece of cake really, given that we knew we were almost there. The journey there was strange - it was our first time outdoors in China too! It was night at the time, almost midnight, and everything was incredibly quiet and peaceful. There was a faint sort of farmyard/cabbagey smell in the air that was reasonably pleasant.

Eventually, much to our amazement, we got to the uni! Yaaaaayyy. We got given our keys. Me and Ksenia decided to room together, had a shower and crashed out.

Thus ends ‘travelling’ so far!