Advertisement
Published: June 17th 2014
Edit Blog Post
This is my second attempt, as the internet pooped out and I had to write this over.
My fight from Vancouver, B.C to Shanghai on China Eastern was a treat. On top of watching The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and playing Tetris with a pop out controller, I was able to sleep LYING DOWN! I had the whole row to myself. When it was time for dinner I had the choice of "pork/noodle" or "fish/rice." I chose wisely and enjoyed the pork and noodle dish. For the duration of the flight the window shade had to be closed, but luckily towards the end of the 12 hour flight we were allowed to open them. We were flying on top of the most diverse group of clouds!- the sun was shining and parts of China were peeking through. To finish off the flight we were invited to participate in airplane Tai Chi. I followed along as an instructor, flight attendant and pilot demonstrated the motions. The video changed from an instructional video in an airplane seat to group Tai Chi in a Zen garden. Well played.
The vacation soon ended. I had insisted on traveling without my cell phone,
thinking I could communicate and keep busying with my laptop. Nope. In China, in order to get the free Wifi you have to put in a password, that they text you. COOL. And my adapter wasn’t China outlet friendly. So I was alone and bored through my next day and a half of commuting.
I had a book, but it mostly just put me to sleep (sorry Tys!) and falling asleep was an ordeal. I was sure nothing would happen to my stuff while I snoozed, but just in case, I set up some booby traps. Rube Goldberg style. I would cuddle my day pack and then lean a book from the bench to my luggage (and if my luggage moved then the book would fall, waking me up) and set a plastic bag on top (cause I would hear that move?? Haha) and then put my hand inside the luggage pocket. You laugh, but these are the kicks you get at 2am in a Kunming airport..
I also had a lot of time to people watch and Chinese women gave me plenty of entertainment. Whether it’s rain or shine, airport or club, these ladies are dressed to
impress and work their thang on the airport runway. ( I did not do that on purpose) Let’s discuss this in more detail.
*Airport Fashion: Across China Edition*
Top Trends: cream lace dress, high tops converse, matching baseball cap, New York graphic T, short shorts, and duh, wedges. Well, heels, platform, wedges, you name it. The high heeled shoe business owes their success to Asian women. I even saw lace up Chelsea boots with the toe part cut out. I saw a lot of toes. A lot. With the many outfits I saw, I will share my favorite. This young lady was wearing a highlighter blouse with the shoulders cut out, nylon tricot leggings with cartoon bow tie pastas, BOW TIE PASTA, and finished with See through mesh Nike platforms. So random. So good.
I hadn’t had a conversation with someone in almost 3 days and I starting to feel very lonely. I know with all my staring into space and sleeping you’d think I’d be having a blast, but no. I had seen a kid on my last flight and then saw him again waiting to board my flight to Nepal. I approached him about being in the SIT program. He wasn’t, but I wasn’t about to let my one chance to converse with someone-so I asked him to a game of cards (thanks Julia!). I found out his name was Alex and he was from Alberta, Canada and he had never played crazy eights. Pfft Canadians. He got a job to work on a sustainable farm in Nepal for 2 weeks, unpaid, but they pay you to go out there and stay. That commute is so long. It seems like a waste to only be here for two weeks after all that trouble…
That experience lifted my spirits and made the last trek to Nepal go that much better. That flight had a lot of cloud cover-so I didn’t see the Himalayas, but I did see the most well defined river and oxbow lakes (some lakes, some just remnants of lakes). It was very exciting! The rolling hills were green, but had a repeating pattern of becoming much more soil dominated with rills, leading up to a river canyon. The soil is a vibrant red/brown which makes following tributary rivers easy and fun. The red rivers flowed into the main river and as it was more and more mixed the red tail got smaller until it reached the main river’s color of light brown.
A great start and a good finish to a long commute. I made it safely to Nepal and am currently staying at a tea House- I will post about my first few days soon!
Thank you for reading!
-C
Advertisement
Tot: 0.068s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0352s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
julie
non-member comment
Hi Chelsey!!
Thanks for writing sounds AWESOME!!! Take Care and keep us posted when you can....Love Ya, Aunt Julie