I have managed to tear myself away from Perth and Nick but it’s been a month I don’t want to remember. My Mother unexpectedly passing away ripped a hole in my heart and for a while it felt like my world had switch off the colour. Initially we had to drag ourselves through the practical side of things but after the funeral I just fell into a heap, sleeping and watching catch up TV and season’s one and two of Mad Men. But life does go on and my Mother would have been the first to remind me of this so it’s time to resume mine. Luckily for me I have such supportive sisters and brother to help me through and the ever patient Nick never wavered while I was soaked in misery and now I get to travel with a ball of energy (Nina) for 2 weeks while I settle back into my Chinese life.
I left at midnight for the first leg of my journey and arrived in Singapore at 5.30am. I stumbled into the Transit Hotel and found I could hire a room for $35 Australian, the bathroom is down the corridor but everything is modern and nice so I went for it. A room with an ensuite was almost double the price so I figured I was happy with somewhere private to rest and base myself for the next 5 hours. Plenty to eat and loads of shopping is available but I was happy with a breakfast bagel, a hot shower and a lie down, lucky I watched all that TV at home because there’s never anything on in Asia. Wandered off to catch my plane to Hong Kong, played with my new camera and boarded. The hosties offered me three seats down the back so I grabbed them and settled down for another snooze.
Got off the plane in Hong Kong and started to worry about finding Nina in that massive airport but there she was waiting in exactly the right place. She had been sightseeing for the day and I suspect she had even less sleep them me. We crèched our luggage trolleys and swapped airport stories over a bowl of noodles. Both of us keen to catch the ferry across to China but we learnt that we should have organised this before we went through immigration and apparently there was no turning back. So for 250 HK dollars ($32 ?) we purchased the limousine service to Shenzhen airport, the bonus of this is we get to sit in the car all the way to the airport ie it’s a drive through passport control. The funniest part of the journey was the sedate way we were driven to the border and then as soon as we were through to China the driver turned into a manic! speeding, swerving, crossing white lines, if he had suddenly thrown off his sunglasses and ripped off his shirt to reveal his true identity it really wouldn’t have been shock.
