On the Road with Julie

Time to Read:

I kind of can’t believe it. I’m in China! The fact that there is Chinese (Mandarin) written and spoken everywhere I go makes it a little easier to believe. A lot of it “looks like” Chinatown. Of course, this is the OG, the source – it’s not Chinatown, it’s China country!

Mentally, for me, China is the most exotic place on my itinerary. I know plenty of people who have been here, but, for me, out of all of the countries in the world, it is the one that feels the most far away in every sense of the word. I’m really excited to get to call it home for 2 weeks of my life.

My first Chinese classes start in 20 minutes. (By the time this is getting published…it has already happened!) I don’t really speak Chinese at all. I am not starting from absolute zero though. I’ve probably taken a total of 30 30 minute online lessons in small intensive chunks, once 3 years ago and another batch while I was in Vienna. I knew enough to figure out (just barely) how much the laundry detergent, shampoo and conditioner and bottled water cost me at the convenience store around the corner when the little kid that was “manning” the counter told me how much I owed him.

I love my dorm room at the Chinese Language Institute where I’m studying. It’s just right and it’s right in the school, so all I have to do is walk down one flight of stairs and I’m at school. Also, there is a little outdoor terrace on the top floor with many free-to-use washers and dryers! I have everything I need to feel right at home.

Everything feels different and learning Chinese has always intimidated the heck out of me. After my first lesson, my Chinese teacher has assured me that my pronunciation is actually pretty good and that she could understand me. That is encouraging because I feel totally lost on using the correct tones. One step at a time.

A classmate that lives a few doors down is Cornelius, a German with a solid intermediate level of Chinese. My German is under serious threat of crumbling into the distant past. I tried speaking to Cornelius in German a bit this morning and… it was rough. Every time I wanted to say yes, “Ja”, what came out was, “Да” – that’s “da” or “yes” in Russian. My brain is in a big ole game of twister. I love twister.

It has been a journey to get here to China, and I’m not just talking about the 13 other countries I’ve been to in the last 4 months on my way here. My Chinese visa acquisition process was a whole thing since I was applying for it from a country that I didn’t live in. There weren’t any terrible problems, there were just a lot of steps and hurdles that resulted from me applying for a visa to travel to China as an American living in a country that is not where I live. AND, doing all of those steps while also traveling and studying was a whole thing. You have to be within 3 months of arriving to China to start your application so I had to apply to it while traveling. I went from working on my Chinese visa application while I was studying German in Vienna to working on my Chinese visa application while I was studying Italian in Rome to working on my Chinese visa application while studying Russian in Latvia. I was so excited when I finally got to hand my approved Chinese visa and passport over to the gentleman at passport control IN China! The sweet fruits of success!

I had a nice flight from Delhi to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. When I arrived in Kuala Lumpur, the free shuttle that I thought my hotel offered from the airport turned out to be one that had to be ordered, though nothing in their communications with me indicated this and every effort I made to be in contact with them fell flat. I was none too pleased and I was pretty wiped by landing time. Luckily, there was a great hotel adjoined to the KLIA airport. A little pricier than I had intended, but when you are tired, everything appears affordable using the, “I’ll figure that out later, swipe now” approach to budgeting. At that point in my travels I probably would have taken out a second mortgage if I had to in order to cover the cost of one comfortable night, especially since I knew I would be getting, at best, 4.5 hours of sleep before I needed to get up to catch my next flight. All the money I will be saving when I am actually IN China and then Japan has gone to my “too-tired-to-find-the-economical-option-let’s-get-the-closest-and-most-comfortable-hotel-to-stay-in-support-fund”. I haven’t needed to fra in that fund too often. Just in India and now en route to China. Not bad.

Not so many hours later, I was technically awake and on my way to catch my flight out of Kuala Lumpur to Guilin, China. Then, due to some serious rookie traveler mistakes (like not checking to make sure that the second leg of my flight ALSO included a checked bag and getting to the beginning of the security line, finding out my carryon bag weighed too much and by the time I got to the front of the check-in line to try to pay to check it, it was too late to get my bag on the plane, which meant it was too late to get me on the plane), I was waving goodbye as my flight lifted off for Guilin without me on it. Oopsie.

I was able to get another flight out of KLIA Saturday afternoon through Xiamen where I would have to stay overnight. It was a fun (albeit, exhausting) adventure. Luckily, when I was making my itinerary, I planned to arrive to China an extra day ahead of time for any such “just-in-case” scenarios, so I was still able to arrive Sunday morning with plenty of time to get settled into my new home for the next 2 weeks.

Last night was my first real night IN China. I enjoyed a delicious bowl of rice noodles with my new German friend at a local spot. It featured a Guilin specialty! It was delicious and cost a hefty 9 yuan…that is less than a dollar!

Okay, off to learn Mandarin Chinese! (Gulp. No problem.)

Oh my goodness, I’m in China!