La vie décousue

I didn’t have internet access over the last few days of my trip, so I’ll give a quick run down here:

Day 5: Didn’t do much. Met up with some friends of my parents for lunch and dinner, and picked up some clothes I had tailored.

Day 6: Began my journey home. I flew from Kunming to Guanzhou and got food poisoning from the airline food. This led to a most unpleasant flight from Guanzhou to Singapore.

Day 7: Had a 7 hour transit in Singapore, which gave me time to get a hotel room where I could throw up, shower, and rest in peace, to recover from the food poisoning, followed by my flight home to Sydney. Normally I have a really difficult time with customs when arriving in Sydney, but this time it was fine. They targeted a girl standing behind me, who fit the same demographics as myself. So for the first time in many years, I was not led to the “special” table, but had to line up with everyone else

Yesterday I flew to Kunming, the final destination of this trip. The roads here are big and smooth - I am really impressed! My parents took me to eat at a bone restaurant. It’s basically a steam boat, but with lots of big pig bones to munch on.

Today, we went to visit the famous Stone Forest. It was wonderful, though full of slippery steps without hand rails. Definitely not a place for disabled people to visit, unfortunately. I suppose there are parts that a person could see without climbing up the narrow passages, but you would miss out on a lot of the sights.

After the Stone Forest, we went to eat “Crossing the Bridge noodles”, a specialty of Kunming. They were great. (I don’t mean to come across as a glutton, but I can’t help but blog about all the yummy food that I get to eat :)) I have been taking heaps of photos with my new camera, but won’t know how they have turned out until I get home.

I arrived in Guanzhou today. The last time I was here was nearly 20 years ago, and boy has it changed! Everything is new and modern. The shopping area is spacious and colourful, and McDonald’s has a new spicy chicken burger which tastes fabulous… Is it terrible of me to travel around the world and eat at McDonald’s? They do have different menus in different places

Anyway, the trip was pretty uneventful. As my family and friends all know, for some reason I am always targeted by customs officials when I arrive in a country (any country), and China was no exception Thankfully my bags weren’t completely taken apart, and it all went relatively smoothly. No complaints from me!

I met up with my parents today, and tomorrow we’re flying off again. I guess I’m leaving a pretty big carbon footprint on this trip.

I have decided to try and blog about my travels. Unfortunately, the decision has come pretty late in the game I used to travel a fair amount, but this trip may be my last for a while. Oh well. In a way, that alone makes it worthwhile to blog about for posterity’s sake!

I flew to Singapore today and will be in transit here overnight, before flying to Guanzhou tomorrow morning. I don’t know whether or not I’ll have internet access there, so I may not be able to post anything. One (of the many) great things about Singapore airport are the numerous free internet terminals scattered around the place.

The flight was here was great. So great, in fact, that we somehow arrived 1.5 hours earlier than scheduled. That’s got to be some kind of record.

I had planned on buying a new camera for this trip. Before leaving Sydney, I searched and searched for the camera I wanted at the price I wanted. Unfortunately, everywhere that had it at the price I wanted had sold out, and the places that hadn’t sold out, were too expensive. I figured I’d just buy the camera in Singapore instead. Turns out they only have the really expensive new models in stock at the airport, which isn’t what I wanted. So I thought I’d look at my second choice options, but that brand doesn’t have international warranty. Sooo….. I ended up listening to a salesman and buying something completely different. It’s a Samsung. I’ve never had a Samsung camera; never wanted Samsung camera; never even looked at a Samsung camera. I feel like I’ve betrayed my common sense, not only buying a different brand than I am accustomed to, but buying a camera by just trusting a salesman, and not doing my own research. Hopefully, it will turn out to be a great buy… Fingers crossed!