After the Flight

---

Once I landed and walked off the plane, I made my way through to the customs. Once again I was slightly taken back how normal and easy the whole process was. All that was needed was a quick flash of my passport and another immigration card that the flight attendances passed out and I was on my way to pick up my luggage. After that, the search for my name to appear on a white piece of paper began. There were probably a couple of dozen signs in every direction I turned, and I was frantically trying to keep moving and not look too lost. When I finally found my name I met the man would be taking me to Nanjing. He handed me a piece of paper saying “Hello, I am going to take you to Nanjing. We will arrive in four hours. Sorry, I do not speak any English”. My first thought was this was going to be a very quiet drive. My second thought was another four hour sitting is going to kill me. Turns out after almost 15 hours of flying I was pretty tired so I just kept nodding off during the drive from Shanghai to Nanjing. Every now and then I would wake up to the beeping of horns going off around me to think something must have happened. Apparently in China people don’t shoulder check, they just merge. And blowing your horn indicates ‘I’m either coming over’, ‘you’re in way’, ‘get moving’, or anything else you feel you should communicate to your fellow drivers. It’s like a symphony of horns, with the occasional screeching of tires.

Another observation is that everyone seems to be equal on the road. It doesn’t matter whether you’re walking, biking or driving if you want to cross or move over you simply go for it. What we call jay walking seems to be the norm here.

I’m currently staying at a hostel right downtown Nanjing. Last night (China time) I met up with two guys from Australia who are also teaching. They had been here for already a couple of nights and were happy to have a newbie to show around. Today I believe we are going to keep checking out the city. I only have today in Nanjing till I move on to another ‘small town’.

I feel my stomach growling at me, so I’m going to go grab some spicy noodles or something for breakfast.

---

Comments

[Jennifer Nicholson]

YOU'RE AWESOME!
Hey Toby! I'm glad to hear everything is going well so far! Keep blogging, I love hearing about it. I love you!