My journey home started at 5:30am in Changsha and ended at around 9am on my door step in Southport. What happened in between was quite entertaining, it's the things you think of as crazy that actually make an experience what it is. Who would want a direct flight with perfect transfers anyway? Not me and Beth...
Here's the story, I left Saeeds apartment at 5:30am and took a taxi with my luggage to ChangshaNan HoucheZhan (Changsha South Railway Station. My luggage was so heavy, I had a huge back pack on my back and then a slightly smaller one on my front (looking very Chinese). When Saeed and his friend gave them to me as they couldn't go any further I felt my shoulders almost give way... Already. It was really difficult to say goodbye, to Saeed and to Changsha. It's the first city that I have ever lived in and it's the place I've called home for the past 5 months. I'll save my heartfelt goodbyes for another post. My train was due to leave at 7am, it was a bullet train and only took 3 and a half hours to Shenzhen, the journey is 506 miles so that's pretttttty fast. The journey wasn't as quiet as I was hoping, as I hadn't slept at all because I was organising (trying to) my things. There was a young boy and his mum sat next to me and I knew straight away that they would start a conversation soon and of course they did, one of my last conversations with Chinese people. I think they liked me even more as a WAGOREN because I gave up my window seat for him, so kind aren't I. Then there were other people getting involved with the "let's pick the foreigners brain game". They were impressed with my Chinese actually, li hai (amazing) Kelsey!!
When the journey was over, I got my bags down with some assistance and eventually got them hauled onto my body. It took me a while to realise that I took up more space with the bags so I was bumping into people and things a lot... Oooops. Beth was already waiting for me outside of the station when I arrived and she had been for a couple of hours, she told me about her very eventful morning which included Chinese people with guns and being pushed under the stairs with her luggage without any prior warning. When I saw her, I tried to hug her but of course the extra weight on my front didn't exactly help... We had a great laugh trying though. Once we had stopped laughing, or tried, we headed to the subway station which we were going to get to the Ferry port. This journey saw some crazy sights... me changing on the subway platform to protect my shoulders and shuffling down the seats with two extra bodies attached to me. I couldn't believe how painful my shoulders were by the time we got to the Ferry port which was Shekou port. We got the Ferry from here to Hong Kong airport. When we were at the port, we were told we were too late to check in our luggage so we had to take it with us ... we heaved in onto our backs again and headed for the ferry, this included, noodles flying through security scanners. We finally sat down on the ferry and wow, we felt like we had never sat down for years. We did think the ferry was going to be a lot longer than it was though. I was chomping on my noodles when it pulled into the port, I was eating them so fast that I overheard a little Chinese girl commenting on how hungry I was... Hahaha she was surprised when she realised that I understood her.
We arrived at HongKong airport and were able to check in our luggage straight away which was a huuuuuge relief! Then we had many hours before our flight at 10pm. We wandered around the airport, looked in pointless shops and sat at many irrelevant gates to pass the time. Catching up on the past months since we last saw eachother in Hangzhou. I really do feel incredibly lucky to have made an amazing friend like Beth. We started the journey together and ended the journey together and saw each-other twice in between. We boarded our flight to Manila and took off an hour late but that helped us anyway as we had around 14 hours to wait in Manila. When we landed in Manila we thought we would be able to go out and have a look around as because we are British we can stay for 21 days without a visa but the airport staff had other ideas. We entered the airport and were directed to a room that was occupied with many blue chairs and tired travelers. We were told that we had to wait here until the morning, there was no food or water anywhere and I only had a quarter of a bottle for two of us so we had to ration ourselves.
When it got to around 4am we were allowed out of the pen although then we wished we had stayed in the pen... Manila airport isn't exactly entertaining. We thought we would be able to wander around... well no, there was nowhere to wonder. There was a bird that was flying around and some random shops selling cigars. We had to wait there until 1pm. The not so desired part of travelling I guess but still it adds to the experience. So yes, the wait was long and involved being escorted from my camping spot which I was oblivious to until Beth and a Filipino airport guard made me pretty aware of their presence and the plane full of people who were waiting to come and sit there next to their gate... Ooops. I hope Beth won't mind me mentioning her emotional spell, exhaustion does funny things to a person. This was among other things including Beth giving me a very painful massage when we were waiting for our gate to open, my shoulders have never been so sore. I wasn't looking forward to this 15 hour flight, it's the longest flight I've ever been on and the flights were pretty cheap so I wasn't expecting much but it was great actually, well I didn't get any sleep but it wasn't as uncomfortable as I'd imagined it would be. All I pretty much did was ate, watched movies and tried to doze, oh and got one of the cabin crews contacts who said they'll show me around the Philippines. Perfect! There was a very old man close to us on the plane and Beth ended up being his in-flight hero. He didn't know how to eat some of the food that was given to us or his arm rest so Beth helped him, he was so grateful!
When England was in sight, it felt so strange, I can't explain how I actually felt, I knew I was excited but at the same time I didn't know what to expect when I got to England. I always feel differently, each time I come home. After we landed, I had to be pretty quick as I had a coach to catch from London Victoria, luckily, we met a lovely lady on the plane called Karen who came with me on the underground. I said bye to Beth at the baggage carousel which wasn't ideal, but of we went, I got to London Victoria and although I have walked from there to the coach station before, I was pretty tired and disorientated so I decided it would be better to ask and not get lost. After a 10 minute walk, I got there and tried to look for my gate but I couldn't find it so just asked again, when I found it, I just parked myself in front of the gate and waited for the departure time. When we got on the coach, there was a woman outside crying her eyes out and another guy screaming, I don't know what happened bu they weren't happy at all. It really makes you realise that you just don't know why or what people are doing in a certain place. That's one of the great things about traveling, learning about peoples story's and I am so grateful to know the people that I do now.
The coach journey was around 6 hours to Liverpool, it was pretty uneventful and I didn't manage to sleep at all. I arrived at the bus station (Liverpool One) and walked to the train station with an escort who was from Sri Lanka, it was very kind of him but the first train was not for an hour so I just had to wait until the station opened which was a pain. When I saw the train to Southport, my stomach felt so strange, I was like "I'm definitely going home then". At Southport train station when I was waiting for Abbey to pick me up, I was mistaken for a homeless person. I didn't look my best of course, traveling for so long and having a blanket wrapped around me but I didn't think I looked that bad. I was offered a hot drink by a lady, of course that's very kind but I wasn't a homeless person hhaha.
My mum didn't know that I was coming home on this day, so she was pretty surprised when I turned up on the door step, but she was happy when it sunk in... I hope hahah. I took many photos and short videos of my journey home and I have put them altogether as a short movie, I am planning to upload it but it's pretty long so I'm not sure, keep a look out.
We arrived at HongKong airport and were able to check in our luggage straight away which was a huuuuuge relief! Then we had many hours before our flight at 10pm. We wandered around the airport, looked in pointless shops and sat at many irrelevant gates to pass the time. Catching up on the past months since we last saw eachother in Hangzhou. I really do feel incredibly lucky to have made an amazing friend like Beth. We started the journey together and ended the journey together and saw each-other twice in between. We boarded our flight to Manila and took off an hour late but that helped us anyway as we had around 14 hours to wait in Manila. When we landed in Manila we thought we would be able to go out and have a look around as because we are British we can stay for 21 days without a visa but the airport staff had other ideas. We entered the airport and were directed to a room that was occupied with many blue chairs and tired travelers. We were told that we had to wait here until the morning, there was no food or water anywhere and I only had a quarter of a bottle for two of us so we had to ration ourselves. 
When it got to around 4am we were allowed out of the pen although then we wished we had stayed in the pen... Manila airport isn't exactly entertaining. We thought we would be able to wander around... well no, there was nowhere to wonder. There was a bird that was flying around and some random shops selling cigars. We had to wait there until 1pm. The not so desired part of travelling I guess but still it adds to the experience. So yes, the wait was long and involved being escorted from my camping spot which I was oblivious to until Beth and a Filipino airport guard made me pretty aware of their presence and the plane full of people who were waiting to come and sit there next to their gate... Ooops. I hope Beth won't mind me mentioning her emotional spell, exhaustion does funny things to a person. This was among other things including Beth giving me a very painful massage when we were waiting for our gate to open, my shoulders have never been so sore. I wasn't looking forward to this 15 hour flight, it's the longest flight I've ever been on and the flights were pretty cheap so I wasn't expecting much but it was great actually, well I didn't get any sleep but it wasn't as uncomfortable as I'd imagined it would be. All I pretty much did was ate, watched movies and tried to doze, oh and got one of the cabin crews contacts who said they'll show me around the Philippines. Perfect! There was a very old man close to us on the plane and Beth ended up being his in-flight hero. He didn't know how to eat some of the food that was given to us or his arm rest so Beth helped him, he was so grateful!
The coach journey was around 6 hours to Liverpool, it was pretty uneventful and I didn't manage to sleep at all. I arrived at the bus station (Liverpool One) and walked to the train station with an escort who was from Sri Lanka, it was very kind of him but the first train was not for an hour so I just had to wait until the station opened which was a pain. When I saw the train to Southport, my stomach felt so strange, I was like "I'm definitely going home then". At Southport train station when I was waiting for Abbey to pick me up, I was mistaken for a homeless person. I didn't look my best of course, traveling for so long and having a blanket wrapped around me but I didn't think I looked that bad. I was offered a hot drink by a lady, of course that's very kind but I wasn't a homeless person hhaha.