Christmas and the Journey home (23 December - 28 December)

The last two days at the academy weren't very eventful, there were 2 new students from Malaysia which are intending to stay for 3 years. I spent most of my time packing up my room and deciding who to give my clothing and things to. On Friday afternoon I had to make a short speech in front of all the kids and I also got my certificate, the certificate is really just a piece of laminated paper which seems quite paltry because it doesn't quite seem to acknowledge all the hardships I went through in the past year, but I'm still glad to have it and besides its all about the experience and not the certificate.

Before coming here I had set so many goals, I have achieved all of them and more however I don't think I have used the originally intended pathway for any. This too has been a lesson, focus less on the method and more on the goal and you will always get there eventually.

 

Me together with the shifus

 

 Together with Li the translator

 

My Shifu and I

 

Last time in front of the gate

Saturday morning I left the academy and headed in to Siping, I got a hotel so that I could store all my luggage which was pretty heavy and definitely going to need some special re-packing to make the airlines happy. After getting an 8 kuai ($1USD) haircut at a very dodgy hairdresser I headed off to the Jin Li Hao for a bath, sauna and scrub. I felt really good after this and headed straight to the buffet to meet all other students including my shifu for a x-mas dinner. The buffet was really full despite the fact that the Chinese don't really celebrate christmas but I guess like everybody else, any reason to party is a good one.

my 8 kuai haircut 

Group Photo at the Buffet

My Shifu and I at the Buffet (left), First portion of food (right)

Umit and the Baijiu (left), Getting ready to drink the white poison (right)

 

Shifu showing us his knife and fork skills

The aftermath, the table behind us

Serving Turkey

 

Baijiu Group Photo

 

Shifu and I at the trainstation

After 30 minutes of waiting we finally got our table, most other tables looked like a bomb had been dropped on it, with food remains, napkins, and plates scattered all over the place. But we too went crazy, each grabbing about 3 plates of food before settling down. I had brought a small bottle of Russian vodka that I had purchased in Heihe. I hadn't had alcohol in a year and had decided that this would be a good occasion to have a drink again. The vodka was finished pretty quickly and soon came the Baijiu shots (huge shot glasses), it was my first time drinking it and I felt very tipsy after just a few sips. After almost 2 cup/chinese sized shots I had enough and after about 3 hours we all went home. I still went to the trainstation to buy a train ticket to get to Changchun the following day.

Sunday I got up late and headed to the translation, I arrived in Changchun in the afternoon and it was extremely windy and cold, it was extremely difficult hauling all the luggage around. What made it worse was that I hadn't planned where I was going to stay and because I was annoyed by the cold I just took a cab to the airport hotel. I was glad to have a place to stay and also didn't need to worry about getting to the airport. The following day I got to the airport at about 14:30. My suitcase was 7kg overweight and I had to pay 168RMB which I think was very reasonable. My China Southern Airlines flight left shortly later. The flight on the Airbus A319 was smooth and I was impressed with the service. The flight also brought back the memory from my first flight to Changchun, I told myself that when I leave I at least want to be able to order my drinks and food in Chinese, I'm glad to say that I was able to do this.

 The flight arrived at around 19:00 in Shanghai and I still had to collect a charger that a friend had purchased for me and purchase a few things for my brother from a Taobao shop (Taobao is Chinese bay). I was doubtful if that was going to be possible but luckily I had a Chinese friend to assist me. I ended up on the Maglev at about 20:00 and its a great feeling passing cars on the highway doing 300km/h (speed restricted after 19:30/usually 430km/h). The journey took about 7 minutes and because the taxi cue was very long I ended up looking for a taxi not in the designated area. I could tell by the meter that I was going to be paying for than I should but I was tired, had to get a lot of things done and didn't want to make a scene. After checking in I went straight out and got on the Metro to fetch the charger. It was already 21:00 and I had spoken to the guy from the taobao shop, he had tried to give me directions but it was too difficult to follow because of his dialect.  Luckily I had a friend to help and after a 30 minute journey by taxi and metro we got to a 21 story apartment building. We ended up in  a small apartment on the fifth floor which had 3 guys in it together with tons of Apple merchandise, all grey market products, basically real apple stuff but at a fraction of the price because it is not sold through the Apple retail stream. After buying the things I wanted I headed back to the hotel. It was already 12am so I went straight to bed.

 

The Taobao guys

Some of their products and things waiting to be packaged and sent out

This morning I got up at 6am, had a shower and got a taxi to the Maglev station.

 

Time was wrong (actually 5:49am) but check the nuclear button

Qi Gong and Mediation outside the Mc Donalds (right), Maglev Longyang station (right)

Sunrise at 300km/h (left), Arrival at Pudong Airport (right)

By 7:30am I had checked in with no problems and by 10:20am we were in the air. I always find flying back into time rather strange, after spending 12 hours flying you arrive on the same day only a few hours after you have left. My flight from Shanghai to Zurich arrived at 15:30pm and now I am waiting for my flight from Zurich to Johannesburg which is at 22:30pm tonight, I happy to be going home but I don't really know what to expect. I can say sitting here in Zurich is a bit of a reverse culture shock, im sure it will be worse when I get to South Africa and people I know will be expecting the same me from a year ago but I'm sure I have changed at least a little.

Leave at 10:00am fly 12 hours and arrive 15:30pm the same day

Landing in Zurich (left), Christmas decorations outside Zurich airport (right)

But I'm sure the reintroduction will be a bit strange and difficult accepting the absence of certain things at first. But as a wise person once said such is the impermanent nature of life.

I thought the video below is quite suitable.





This may be the last post however I am enjoying the idea of a blog and perhaps I will start a new one focusing on travel and photography (yes im going to start using a DSLR to make sure I capture better photos than my current somewhat limited point and shoot). Thanks for following this blog and if you plan on going to China or the same academy you can always contact me or leave a comment or ask me questions.