realitybreakdown

Well, yes. As I predicted I cannot be very active on here due to the fact that I rarely have access to the Internet at all. Apart from the fact that almost every single thing here is different from Sweden, living without the access of the Internet has also been a completely new experience for me. Not only an annoying experience but also a rather insightful and necessary experience I would say. I cannot use my phone either, which has proven to be extremely relieving.  I’ve never experienced a more sense of calm and non-stress related state of mind than without my phone constantly by my side 24/7.  One should learn not to depend so heavily on all of these technological aspects. Yes, of course they help a great deal in everyday life and are very necessary at most times, BUT, I also know that most people tend to abuse the use (no pun intended) of it. People become addicted and let it run their lives completely, I know, since I’ve been there myself. When I was isolated out in my “hut” during most of the second half of last year, there wasn’t much other to do than to let the Internet be my pal. Why isolated you may ask? Well, I guess the total transformation my life underwent under a rather short span of time left its marks. From having friends, opportunities and adventures to embark on in abundance to being broke, unemployed and stranded on the countryside in Sweden in the blink of an eye. Of course I had (and have) my lovely family by my side at all times, but there’s only so much they can do. They cannot after all fill the space after best friends and people my own age. And they certainly can’t fill the empty space Seoul left behind.
Either way, I’m spanning away from the subject. China is what I’ll be addressing from now on.

 

Let’s start with the journey itself. Having never ever flown by myself before, I was naturally a bit nervous. But I was also confident that my logical way of thinking, awesome organizing + analyzing skills and undeniable charm would get me there in one piece. (Yes, there’s a hint of sarcasm here.)
From now on you may all call me Miss Paranoia. Since I’m a perfectionist and control freak of astronomical measures the paranoia is never far behind. It all starts with the packing and planning of my luggage. What to bring? Will this look dangerous on the x-ray pictures? Will it be too heavy? Have I forgotten anything essential? Will my bag brake during the rough handling of it? Will it even arrive at my destination? Yes, you name it; I’ve had it in my mind. After much consideration as to the content in it and after weighing it for at least 20 times I deemed my bag good enough to bring to China.
The morning of Friday the 17:th of January had arrived, the date I had been looking forward to with so much anticipation for some time. And much to my surprise I was calm. Calm as a cucumber. It seemed as though all my nervousness and anticipation had just transformed into sheer focus on the task ahead. I do realize that some of you more experienced travelers and such may shake your heads and laugh at this, thinking it’s no big deal and whatnot. But I don’t care, because for me, it is a VERY big deal. You might say that I almost viewed this whole thing a series of quests. Quests that one by one had to cleared in order to move on the next one. After already ticked off arriving at Nykvarn and finally Arlanda, the next quest was checking in my luggage.

 

*Checking in my luggage
After a rather slow drive through a minor traffic jam in Stockholm we arrived at Arlanda airport. I said my goodbye’s to my sister and mother in the icy winds outside of the departure-terminal and scurried inside with a trolley loaded with my bags. Fully focused on my quest I quickly found out that I was supposed to use a machine for “self check-in” before checking in the luggage per say. My eyes went across the big hall in search for the right machine. After walking past some that didn’t have my airline on them I soon spotted some that had the recognizable Air China logo on them, the huge lines of Asian people around them “might” have also been a clue. I took out all necessary travel documents and headed for a machine a bit further away with no people around it and started the procedure of pressing the right buttons and typing in my booking number. After quadruple checking the number I press ok and get ready to receive my boarding pass. But no, something is wrong. “Try again or contact the personnel if the problem persists”; the machine says. Fan-fucking-tastic. After trying a few more times on different machines to exclude the possibility of human and/or technological errors I ask a gentleman patrolling around the machines for some assistance. Turns out that I had been pushing one button wrong the entire time, apparently it was a little special in my case since I was transferring to Hong Kong or something. To be honest I still don’t know for sure since the instructions on those machines were very few and misleading. Either way I thanked the gentleman and could finally stand in line to get my luggage checked in. When getting closer and closer to the check-in counter I could not help but to overhear and notice that one of the ladies is not very cooperative when it comes to the weight of the bags. I hear her giving some people a lecture about an overweight of a mere two kilos of their hand luggage. I start to freak out internally and pray to some higher power that I’ll get a different lady, since I know that my hand luggage is at least three kilos overweight. Well, luck is finally on my side and I get a nice looking blonde lady next to Miss Sourpuss. She checks my bags, puts on the luggage tags and doesn’t say a word. She hands me my boarding passes and explains that my luggage has been checked through to my final destination, so no need to worry about it while in Beijing, smiles wishes me a pleasant journey. Success! Onwards to the next quest.

 

*Going through security and arriving in Beijing.
Now I had to face one of the big pains in this whole process. I had always hated the painstaking process of going through security and scanning the hand luggage. Having this in mind I had made sure not to pack any liquids at all this time. But I still had my laptop that needed to be taken out of the luggage, and then out from the laptop bag to be put separately in a box. And then of course, removing my jacket and my shirt which in this case was covered with metal. All this while keeping a close eye on my travel documents. I like to see myself as very organized and prepared every time I face these situations. But still I get so extremely stressed out about the process; all the people waiting, the strict eyes of the employees and all the stuff to organize. But as usual when it comes to this I was stressing out about nothing. When my turn came I was swift and organized and got through security in a blink of an eye. I strolled down to find a seat to organize my things back into my bag. I also brought a backpack to have as my “on-flight” bag, you know, a bag where you keep headphones, mp3, books, water, travel documents, pillow, wallet, pens and such; in other words things you might want to use during the flight and not have tucked away above your head. I quickly organized and double checked it in order to not have to bother later and moved towards my gate. While waiting for my flight to take off nothing of importance took notice. I recharged my phone and caught a glimpse of some crazy orange haired lady on TV, apparently in the newly restarted Swedish TV-show Farmen. I boarded my flight and had the delightful pleasure of getting a very nice Chinese guy by my side. Since I rarely have to use the toilet I prefer to sit at the window, but I still prayed for a nice “neighbor” during the almost 8 and a half hour flight. Like said, my prayers were heard I find a friend right away. He turned out to be my age, had been studying in Sweden for 4 years and was now heading back to write his thesis from home. Of course he was curious about the purpose about my trip and I told my “back-story” as well. After that we chatted about all and nothing, but never in a forced manner. We still watched movies when we wanted to, slept when we wanted to, listened to music when we wanted to, played some games together and overall had a nice time. He was kind enough to help me with some translation of a video on the whole transfer process in Beijing and even double checked with one of the stewardesses on the matter. All of a sudden 8 hours had flown by like no time at all. I had almost forgotten that this was my first ever solo trip across the globe. I had had such a great time during the flight that I had simply forgotten about it. Touching ground in Beijing also leads to the next quest in line.

 

*Transferring flights and killing 6 hours at Beijing airport.
Me and the Chinese guy whose name I unfortunately and shamefully forgot took the shuttle bus together and walked as far as we could together, wished each other good luck with everything and a happy life and said goodbye, never to see each other again. Now I was alone again, but I knew where I was going, or at least I thought I did. After a few minutes standing in what I thought was the right line I spot two people my age, looking as confused as I felt inside. I heard they were Swedish and asked them where they were heading. The girl, Anna, was going to Sidney and the guy, Pontus, was heading for Singapore, both for an exchange term at a University as I understood it. We clicked right away since we all seemed to have the same type of humor and after all, we were all in the same boat. Three confused Swedes at a very big foreign airport. I guess that also helped me to unify with them, since they already knew each other since before. Turns out that we were in the wrong line after all, we are pointed in some other direction and can spot a different desk further away. We were chatting along while approaching the next desk and I felt genuinely happy that I’d seemed to have found new friends. Maybe my 6 hours at the airport wouldn’t be such a drag after all. Sadly it turned out that Anna was supposed to go to a different place, so she left me and Pontus in a somewhat chaotic manner. Since we were all sure we were at the right place, none of us had expected this to be a time of goodbye. But me and Pontus kept together, and what a hilarious dude. It felt like I had known him since forever. We basically laughed through the entire 6 hours and suddenly it was time to part ways. We exchanged contact info and said we’d keep in touch. I still owe him a lunch too, since there was a minor misunderstanding while paying for our food at the airport. Don’t worry Pontus! I intend to keep my promise.

 

*Fly to Hong Kong, find Jänn and enter mainland China.
The flight to Hong Kong was the stage of the journey where I really understood that I was travelling alone after all. But it didn’t matter much, because at that point I had been awake for more than 30 hours straight. I took my seat in this much smaller and comfortable airplane and was fortunately seated right above the point where they loaded all the luggage. Miss Paranoia could sit there and calmly watch the men as they loaded her bag on to the plane. As soon as I spotted my own bag being loaded on to the plane I felt a warm feeling of ease spread through my body. I now didn’t have to worry about my bag not showing up in the baggage claim area in Hong Kong. At this point I couldn’t even keep my eyes open long enough for the plane to start moving. I woke up by the loud noise and thrust experienced during takeoff. The rest of the flight was just a constant drifting between being awake and half asleep.  
After merely 3,5 hours we landed at Hong Kong International Airport. I went through one of the most simple and easy immigration procedures ever and found my bag right away. Now I just needed to find Jänn which I hadn’t heard a word from since at Arlanda Airport. But no need to worry, I walked out and the first thing I could spot was him. I hurried my steps and ran the last couple of meters, dropped my bags to the floor and finally, I got to hold him once again. I held him long and close and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. Finally! We gathered ourselves and began our journey into mainland China by first taking a bus and a train. After that the painstaking process of entering China began. We had to stand in line for a very long time. It was hot, my bags were heavy and we were hungry and tired but still so very happy to finally be together once again. But all went well eventually, after a minor bump in the road being that I had misplaced my arrival card I received almost 24 hours earlier. No need for more sweat though, I just got a new one, filled it in and could finally pass the border into China.

 

My questline was hereby completed.
We met two of Jänn’s friends and ate some delicious food together. But eventually the fact that I hadn’t slept for a very long time was beginning to make itself reminded. We got a lift back to Jänn's place and the bed was like a sanctuary for me. I did wake up a few times during the night, being very confused as to where I was, but quickly felt Jänn beside me and knew I was home after all.

So that was the journey to this exciting place. More stories about what we've been up to so far and what's happening in our day to day life will come as soon as possible. Have patience my friends!
Hugs from Shenzhen.