On Monday May 13th, i woke up in Alice Springs and made my way to the airport to fly to Sydney to get to see Ally! It was about 6:30 pm-ish when i landed. Ally came and picked me up at the metro station outside her house. I met the family who shes staying with who are super nice (and American) and their 2 and a half year old Rudy who is the most adorable!
Ally and i walked over the Harbor Bridge, not the really top section that the tourists do because it was closed at night and too expensive! We went to a district called 'The Rocks' which is the harbor district and had dinner at Lord Nelson Brewery which brews their own beer and is the oldest pub in Sydney. The food was good and cheap and the pints were only AUS$9- which is cheap for Sydney! We just talked for hours and got caught up, it was as if no time had passed since the last time we saw each other. We walked along the harbor, and bought some chocolate, to the Opera House which was as stunning in real life as it is in the postcards. Eventually we walked our way back to her house where i crashed.
The next morning i awoke to the sounds of Rudy playing with his cars. Ally made me breakfast and the two of the walked me to the train station where i got BIG hugs from both of them before heading back to the airport.
Overall Australia treated me really well and i cant wait to go back and experience more of the amazing people and places!!
My flight from Sydney to Seoul was supposed to take 24 hours and have 2 layovers in Singapore and Shanghai. The first flight was operated my Quantas and went smoothly and the Singapore airport was amazing! Free wi-fi, free tv and movies, and some of the world's best shopping (Gucci, Prada, Tiffany's, Burberry, Hermes, etc.). The next 2 legs of the journey were operated by China Eastern Airlines. We boarded just fine in Singapore, but when we got into China, the fog (smog) in shanghai was supposedly too thick and dangerous for the captain to safely land in Shanghai. So we landed in Hangzhou, which is about 180km away from Shanghai, but weren't allowed to disembark the plane. So we waited for 5 hours in the plane with the flight attendants ignoring us, no food until the very end before we took off, and little water. It was not fun.
Once we finally took off the flight time to Shanghai was only 40 minutes! We literally could have disembarked, and took a train to Shanghai in the amount of time we were on the tarmac. Anyways, when we finally landed in Shanghai, i missed my connecting flight and was re-booked on a later flight. That flight was delayed for 7 hours with very little communication from the staff and the official status of the flight nit changing until 4 hours after we were supposed to take off! The official excuse was that the fog (smog) was too thick for the planes to land in Shanghai, but other airlines were flying and landing, so i think its just a company policy of theirs. The entire 7 hours all we got was one crappy free meal. Hannah was supposed to come pick me up at the airport, but i dint have her number, and China doesn't allow Facebook, so to let her know what was going on, i literally had to call my mom and have her Facebook Hannah for me!
We finally got another plane and flew to Seoul. Our landing time was at 11:30pm local time- literally 12 hours after i was supposed to land. All-in-all it was a really crappy experience with China Eastern Airline and the most unfortunate part is that they are the airline I'm flying with to Kathmandu in 8 days. We'll see what happens.
