In Transit

Wednesday 9 July, 2008 finally came around, a day that I had been anticipating for many months now. The evening before was supposed to be a relaxed one; I had travelled down to Sydney to see my boyfriend before I left and was spending my last night eating pizza (who knows when I would see that delicious food group again) and watching The Last Emperor to get me in the mood for China. We went to bed early with the intention of having a full night’s sleep before we got up at 4:45am to embark on the long journey. But our relaxing night’s sleep was interrupted by a possum on the roof wanting some warmth from the winter cold. Ah well, I guess I was restless anyway.

After a mediocre night’s sleep we got up before the crack of dawn and made our way via train to the airport. We ended up getting there early (along with most other people), which turned out to be very unnecessary. After waiting to check in, and holding up the line because we were too early to check in, we finally got through and made our way to get some food into our starving bellies. Breakfast, although it was pretty ordinary, went down a treat.

Not long after, as I was getting ready to say goodbye to my boyfriend, we were informed that the flight had been delayed from 10:10 to 12:10. We said our goodbyes then anyway, and I went through Customs with the idea that I would just shop for a while. As 12:10 approached though, we were then informed that the flight time was now to be 1:10 and the gate had changed from 53 to 31, which involved a bus trip to get back. Excellent. To save the sorry details of our shopping, lunch, shopping, sit and talk time, I will just tell you that we did a lot more of that as not long after we were told the flight was now due to leave at 2:20!

Four hours of delays just put us in a bad mood, and by the time I got on the plane I wanted to be there already. This mood wasn’t helped by the fact that my Video On Demand didn’t work the entire flight! Argh! Luckily Lauren was lovely enough to share with me, otherwise I think I might have gone crazy.

After 11 long hours of flying we finally arrived at Beijing Airport, where of course, my bag was the LAST to come off the turnstile. As you can imagine after the last episode with bags, I was getting a little fretful by that stage! On the way from the airport to the uni we passed the Bird’s Nest, and although everyone was well and truly buggered by that stage, we all had a sigh of awe left in us.

But now I’m here, in room 1208 at Beijing Foreign Studies University, a lovely little room with wooden floors and furniture and a very hard bed. Here are some pictures.



It is around 3am Aussie time, and I am definitely feeling it. This morning, I looked out the window, but smog was all I was greeted by. I miss my family and friends already and I’m beginning to think seven weeks here is going to be a challenge, but a fun one. It looks like Beijing is going to be like nothing else… I hope I’m up to it. Here's a look out my window on a crappy day.