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Hi everyone,
This post will just be about traveling to China, it was a crazy experience for me.
I woke up around 5 AM to get ready and make sure everything I needed was packed. I left for the airport around 6 AM with Kevin. The drive didn't take as long as we expected since we beat most of the morning traffic. We got to the airport around 6:50 am. Kevin and I said goodbye and then I was alone in the airport. I'd never been in an airport alone before, it was a little scary. I met up with some of my classmates around 7:15 or 7:25 am. We waited for others for a little while and then decided to get food.
Our flight was set to leave at 9:50 am to go to JFK in New York. We had a 4 hour layover before our flight left for Shanghai. The New York airport was a bit confusing compared to the Atlanta airport. It's ironic that it was my first time in New York and I was only able to be at the airport for 4 hours and not see anything else there. I was nervous for the long flight. The flight from New York to Shanghai was estimated to take 14 hours and 50 minutes. I slept maybe 6 hours on and off. Sleeping on an airplane is a bit difficult to get used to. We landed in Shanghai and had to proceed through customs, which was a new experience for me.
We were supposed to have a 2 hour layover in Shanghai and leave for Xi'an around 9:15-9:30 pm. The two hour layover turned into a five hour layover... which was not fun at all. Many of the other outgoing flights from Shanghai were cancelled, so we were afraid that it would happen to our flight as well. While at the airport we met a Xi'an local named Yidi who has been studying in New York. He was very nice to talk to and answered many of our questions about the culture and the language here. I hope to remain in contact with him even after we leave Xi'an.
Back to the flight delay! We were told it was because of air traffic control. Someone told us later that it was due to the weather conditions. But we finally were able to board the plane after around five hours, we were all very tired at that point. The flight to Xi'an took about 3 hours. The plane was much smaller than the one from New York to Shanghai, but it was still comfortable. I managed to get an hour or so of sleep on the flight, a few minutes of sleep here and there. Once we landed in Xi'an we got off the plane and had to ride a tram to the luggage claim. I was surprised to see that many of the signs had both Chinese and English.
The baggage claim area was empty, as not many flights arrived around 5 am. Most of us had no issues getting our baggage. It was routed from Atlanta to New York, New York to Shanghai, and Shanghai to Xi'an on the same flights as us. However, our Professor and one of the students did not get their luggage. It was lost somewhere along the way. It was a little stressful and very unfortunate because their clothes were in their luggage, they did not have any additional clothing in their carry ons. I'm just glad that most everyone's luggage arrived safely.
After we got our luggage we met with our guide for Xi'an. Her English is very good and she is very sweet. We had to walk some distance to get to our bus, but it was not bad at all. I was surprised that the air quality was not too bad. I guess I expected it to be a bit worse than it was. I think it will be more smoggy in bigger cities like Beijing or Shanghai when we go there later this month. The bus ride from the airport to the hotel in Xi'an was around 1 hour. The sun was rising and it was very beautiful. I took a lot of pictures of things we passed on the way to the hotel. I was surprised that there were so many trees along the highway that we traveled. Many of the trees were very striking, as we don't have anything like them in America.
We finally arrived at the hotel and took our things inside to get checked in. By the time we got checked in and up to our rooms it was around 7 am. We had to be ready to go for the day at 11:30 am, so I decided that I wouldn't go to sleep. My roommate showered and then I showered. Then I went downstairs for breakfast. The breakfast was very tasty. They had a buffet style breakfast like most hotels in America. The food was different and all of the drinks were hot. They had hot juice which was a new experience for me, but it was very tasty.
Some of the food was spicy, which was unexpected since it didn't look spicy. I started feeling sick about 40 minutes after I ate, which I believe was due to the spiciness of the food. I do not eat spicy food often. I decided to take a short nap and woke up feeling a bit better. I will talk about the rest of the day in the next blog.
This one was a lot longer than I expected, but I hope that you enjoyed at least part of it. 😊
I will do my best to post again later today or tomorrow. Talk to you all soon!
- Kayla
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Delane OShields
non-member comment
Thankful!
So thankful you and your group made it safe and sound. Thanks for taking us along for the trip, it has been interesting so far, and I can't wait for more updates. Have a great time and take lots of pictures.