Monday 3rd August 2007 Tianjin

---

Monday 3rd August 2007 Tianjin
Finally it was D Day, 4 months in coming but here it was, the fun was over and it was time to travel back to western comforts but by traveling east and rejoin the day to day living we had managed to avoid around Asia with such great enjoyment, well as much as living in Sydney for a year is like the real world at home in Dublin, which isn’t really a lot so its not too bad. Our taxi driver raced us out to the airport in no time and refused to keep the 1 Yuan change from the fair. The airport was one of those you wish they all were like, small enough that you could easily find your area and not have to join with 100,00 thousand others looking to get on a flight and big enough to have a couple of cafes and shops to act as a distraction for an hour or so. The flight was 5 hours and passed relatively easy enough, he took the route through all the speed bumps though so a bit jittery. We arrived back in the airport where we had landed back on April 6th and fought hard to resist the urge to just go out and do it all again, sure they had stamped our passport for 30 days in Malaysia when we landed. A week or so on the Perhentian Island would have been bliss. Instead we went and sat in a café for a couple of hours to pass the 10 hours we had until our flight to Perth took off at midnight. We occupied the remainder of the evening watching Angels & Demons on the laptop, which really is a pile of crap and actually made the time pass even slower if that was possible.

Finally the 10 hours elapsed and we boarded our next Air Asia flight. Now this plane was the one we had heard about. The one where they had managed to squeeze an extra seat into each row thus leaving you a hip hugging, non reclining, slippery hard leather seat. Even with it being well after midnight sleep wasn’t going to come too easy on this flight. We landed in Perth at 7am and after half hour looking around for where to go for our flight to Sydney realized we had to change terminal. And we were hit full on by the price of western comforts. For us to transfer between the international and domestic terminals we had to pay $8 each, that would get you a round trip to the airport in Beijing, and they charge you $4 for a luggage trolley, I don’t think Ireland would even try to rip you off that much. The days of living for about 20 Euro a day are well left on the beaches of Thailand.

We got to the glorified bus station of an airport on our coach in about 7 minutes and waited 2 more hours for our final flight. Its weird, you can escort people right up to the plane gangway here making it even more like a bus station, I suppose flying is so necessary here, more than in any country. This flight thankfully was with Virgin Blue and was very comfortable, they even had the back of the seat TVs which I had never experienced before so it was a big thrill until they turned them off after we took off and asked you to pay for them. It’s only a 3.5 hour flight I think but a 2 hour time difference so we landed in Sydney after a mammoth one and half day trek at about 5pm and took a minibus to our hostel. We checked into 790 on George which seemed ok as hostels go, they like everything else in Sydney are expensive but sure that’s the way, its like being home again, especially when you go outside and its cold and you don’t even own a jacket. We headed across the road and ordered some food and a beer in a pub. It really did feel like a novelty finally being completely understood in everything you were saying again. We enjoyed our feed and were entertained by the bunch of weirdoes inhabiting the pub; I think Sydney has its fair share of skanks and odd balls alright, but it home for the next few months anyhow.

---