A long day of travelling from Zhangjiajie to Xiamen back by the sea, a town I have been to before but I didn't know that it's old name was Amoy! The home of Amoy sauce I imagine!
Got on my bus ok and had a 5 hour trip to Changsha, when I got off the bus I asked the bus driver how to get to the airport and he was helpful, it seems being foreign with a little chinese really makes a huge difference, he gave me some directions around the block and along and I found the direct shuttle bus, I saw a little snack booth selling some local speciality flat bread which was pretty tasty and I got the bus to the airport.
40 minutes later I was in the airport and checked in. When I checked in they took everyones passport and had them wait a few minutes before handing it back, when it came to be my turn the handed it back but told me there was a problem with my bag and I should go with security to sort it! I was surprised as apart from a ton of electronics I wasn't really carrying anything of interest! I was ushered to then end of the row of desks into a smallish room filled with x-ray equipment and between their very limited english and a bit of chinese (I didn't know the word for battery) we worked out they had X-rayed my bag and found a battery! They wanted to know where it was and to check it for...something?
The only problem being, I didn't have any batteries! After discounting an inhaler and various other bits and bobs even the security guys were stuck, they invited me behind the counter and together we compared their X-ray to the bag and found nothing, weird! in the end they gave up and just let me get on with it, however i really noticed that all the way through they were friendly and nice, lovely people!
After that fun onto the plane and another few hundred air miles under my belt, all with different carriers of course! haha. I'm pretty used to flying chinese style now and so settled in and got some chinese done at 30,000 feet, much to the hilarity of the chinese woman reading over my shoulder in the uncaring and unsubtle way chinese people have down to an art, she even starting reading some of it back out loud, haha! When we landed as soon as the wheels touched every chinese person turns on the mobile phone and then jumps to their feet and starts grabbing their bags whilst desperately calling everyone they now, even before we have even fully decelerated people are queuing up to the doors waiting to get out and the air is filled with every type of ringtone you can imagine, a bit different from landing in the UK! I waited and took my time, the bags are always last anyway!
Xiamen is a nice town but the transport sucks, they opted to give the metro a miss and use a Bus Rapid Transport system, a series of high level segregated roads and mixed ground level roads that is completely unintelligible, three lines with little directional marking and only Chinese characters everywhere. Last time I spent an hour going the wrong way away from town but this time I was prepared, except for the face that apparently the airport isn't on any route! doh! I found a shuttle bus to the train station and from there the BRT to a metro stop to meet Chris! He had made his own way to Xiamen and we met at the metro stop before he led me down a few tiny rabbit warren streets to our hostel for the night.
The hostel was comfortable enough, some chinese people turned up their noses at foreigners so we were bumped from dorms into a private and a dorm, but one toilet/shower combo room between 11 people, including many chinese girls, was never going to end well, getting a shower was a nightmare! Also for some reason all the rooms had windows into the hallway with no glass and only a net covering, letting the sound from all the rooms mingle into one, not a wise idea!
Tomorrow a new adventure! Out of Xiamen and into the wilds of FuJian province!
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