Music: Baggage tunes (The 4 tracks I listen to getting off every flight and waiting for my luggage)
Today was another fairly long day of travelling. I was picked up at 8:30am in order to be taken to Shanghai Pudong airport for my flight to Chengdu. I landed not long after 2pm and wondered through the airport (ahead of the slow crowd) to find my bag just arriving on the belt.
I'll stop here to make some comments about the Chinese at this point. I've a feeling nobody could find them unfair. From what I've found they are fairly used to having to push to get what they want. This goes from their driving to their sight seeing. Barging people out of the way seems just to be par for the course in everyday life.
When getting off the plane today, for example, everyone had stood up and made a bee line for the door before the plane had even fully stopped. Getting off my second flight I really annoyed the guy behind me as I blocked the middle passageway for a good 5 seconds while grabbing my bag from the overhead locker. He seemed determined to push past me to the point he very nearly got the full weight of my camera bag on his head as it actualy came out of the locker. Needless to say, I'd caught up with the person in front by the time I reached the front of the plane (and was only a few rows back) and proceeded to walk past everyone else once we were off the plane.
As for the sight seeing comment, I noticed this first in the Forbidden City, where there were large numbers of domestic tour groups going through the site. When it came to taking photos of specific things or loking through the tinted windows into some of the buildings, the crowds turned rather savage with pushing and shoving galore. It's only because I'm less easy to push out of the way then most of the people around me, and that I can be quite bony when I want to be, that I managed to see any of those things at all. Once I'd gotten my photo it was then a struggle to get out. Like being 10 deep at a free bar trying to get served back in the UK. We just don't do that when at static tourist attractions.
Anyway... After collecting my bad I went back up to domestic departures and checked in for my flight to Xichang. The plane left just past 5pm for the 50 minute flight. On arrival I was met by my guide for the next couple of days (Sammy). He drove me up to my hotel and then took my out for a bite to eat. I'm trying to learn the correct names for the things I'm ordering but it's taking a bit of time. Many of the sounds in Chinese just simply don't exist in the English language and as such I'm having to try to get my tounge around making these noises so I can say the words!
I'll leave it here for now. Apparently my hotel does have internet, I just don't have an RJ45 cable with me to plug myself in. It's quite unusual not to provide one in the hotel room but there's noting much I can do. I'll see what I get tomorrow :)
Night all.
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