Day 469 - 23 Oct ‘24 - Shanghai. Ooh, finally, a good sleep! It was wonderful to not get woken up by noisy traffic or the sun streaming through curtains. Although, it would have been nice if the kids didn’t come into our room at 7:30am looking for their kindles.
This morning we all lazed around, not doing anything in a hurry. I played sudoku, the kids read, and Dan spent over an hour on his phone trying to register our details into some visitor system.
“For crying out loud! How many times must we register our details!” I exclaimed.
“It’s ridiculous,” Dan replied.
“It really is. They know we’re in the country as our passports say we are. Do they need to know in every single city that we’re there?”
China is very much a ‘big brother is watching you’ country. While the ever-present security cameras on approximately every square foot of land is a fantastic idea (great for deterring crime, and invaluable in solving it), having to scan your ID card/passport all the time is a little unnerving. The government knows where you are…always. It’s a simple way of oppressing the population.
Shortly before midday, we caught the subway to head to The Bund, the area on the western side of the Huangpu River. From there we had a wonderful view across the water to the Pudong area of Shanghai, where we could see the Shanghai Tower (third tallest tower in the world, and cleverly twisted), the Jingmao Tower (that looked like an early concept of the Taipei 101), the Shanghai World Financial Centre (with the cutout bit at the top, but not seen from this angle), and the Oriental Pearl Television and Radio Tower (beautiful with mauve windows).
We went for a walk along the promenade after buying some lunch and tickets for an evening river cruise, where we came across an incredible cruise boat held afloat by dragons!
We next went to Shanghai Old Street, which looked like it should be knocked down. There were large archways over the entrances to the streets, but every single window and door was closed or boarded up.
In the middle of the street there was one lovely old building in a slightly better state than the others, built in a traditional style.
From there, we walked to the City God Temple of Shanghai, which was unfortunately getting renovated.
“We’ve certainly seen our fair share of landmarks getting worked on!” I said, as we ducked under walkways and around poles.
The shrines were all very bright and colourful, which was an excellent contrast to the dark wood of the building.
All the deities were gold and bright, and surrounding them were rotating pillars of idols, each with a name inscribed. There must have been tens of thousands, if not more!
Further along we came to a hallway with models of people/gods/demons/not-sures, one that had an interesting feature of hands coming out of his eye sockets, but with eyes on his palms! (Pretty sure he wasn’t a person…).
We kept walking through the complex, down narrow pathways, until we came to an area of traditional-style buildings all selling tourist tat.
Further on were a couple of bakeries making some kind of dumpling. I love watching people who know what they’re doing, do what they’re doing! They were a well-oiled machine, that’s for certain, with one person rolling the dough, one forming small pieces into circles, and one filling and then shaping the dumpling.
Around the corner from there was a large open plaza surrounded by more traditional buildings, and then a zigzag bridge over a pond with small gardens, which all looked very pretty.
We left the plaza area and sat down in a nearby park for a while, then caught a subway back to our apartment. We had four hours to use up before our night cruise, and didn’t feel like doing more sightseeing/walking, or sitting on a park bench for that long! Besides, it gave me a chance to do Abi’s washing and hang it up, before we left the apartment again shortly after 5pm to find some dinner.
It was a super rushed meal at KFC, then we ‘Disneyland walked’ to the subway, through the changeover station, and to the waterfront, making it just in time to start our 20 minute wait to board the boat for our night cruise.
Oh my goodness, what a difference a few hours make! The Bund and Pudong sides of the river were alive with colour and movement. Everywhere we looked were lights twinkling or turning into pictures. Even the boats were lit up!
One building had a butterfly continuously flapping its wings!
We went upriver for about 30 minutes, then turned around and came back. The Bund side of the river had all the old buildings, stylishly lit up in simple ‘white’.
Lots of buildings displayed “I heart Shanghai” messages in various iterations.
Of course, some of the prettiest lights were on the Oriental Pearl. It would change colour through the entire rainbow, as well as flickering on the pearls to make different patterns.
Right beside it were all the other towers mentioned earlier, as well as the Citi Building, which cycled through various moving images, the prettiest being roses growing on a vine, with butterflies and other flowers blooming over it.
It was a beautiful and wonderful way to finish the day, and indeed, our visit to Shanghai and mainland China. We’d looked at doing a helicopter ride, but despite the fact it was cost-prohibitive, we got to spend ten times as long on the boat, and could take our time enjoying the view.
We got our subway rides back to the apartment, and had the kids in bed right on 9pm. Not too bad!
Day 470 - 24 Oct ‘24 - Shanghai to Hong Kong. I’m a firm believer of getting to places early. I don’t necessarily like being super early, but I find it quite stressful when we are running out of time.
This morning we had to be at the airport for 11:30am, which meant getting on the subway at 10am, which meant leaving our apartment at 9:45am, which meant getting up at 8:15am.
Of course, I set my alarm for 8am. Then hit the snooze button.
In the end, we were all ready by 9:30am, so we decided we may as well leave and get to the airport early.
There was a bit of concern when we arrived at the airport, as our flight was not listed on the departure board.
“Are we definitely at the correct airport?” I asked Dan.
“Yes.”
“And they haven’t sent you an email saying it’s cancelled?”
“No,” but he checked nonetheless. “See? I’ve just downloaded the airline app, and it’s still showing as scheduled.”
“I wonder what’s going on then? Why is our flight not on any of the boards?!”
We joined the check-in queue earlier than allowed, but by the time we made it to the front, we were within the three-hour window. We got checked in with no issues, and as we went to immigration, our flight was finally displayed on the board.
It was 12:30pm when we got to the departure area, so walked around trying to find some food for lunch. I say ‘trying’ because there were only four places to eat. Four! No convenience stores, no fast food, just four upmarket eateries.
Their prices were ridiculous. One place had truffle and Parmesan fries for $24NZD! We eventually settled for a Cantonese place where Abi had a small bowl of fries, I had a plate of steamed bok choy, Dan had some deep fried pieces of ‘meat’ (we think it was pork), and Alex had a large bowl of noodles and dumplings in soup. All up $30NZD.
“Are you full?” Dan asked me as we walked to our gate.
“Not really.”
“But enough to satisfy the grumbling gremlins?”
“Yes, for now!”
When we were on the plane, we sat waiting to take off for ages. Something had obviously caused a bit of a delay, as there were three planes queued up on the runway behind us!
Oh my goodness, I couldn’t have eaten my meal any quicker when it arrived! Mashed potatoes, chicken in gravy, broccoli, roll, fruit salad, and cookies-and-cream icecream! The potatoes were super tasty, and I even wiped up the gravy with the roll!
We were flying with Cathay Pacific, and they allowed us to have our headphones on during takeoff and landing, so I got to watch a complete movie as well as a TV show! Far more enjoyable than sitting in a noisy plane for half an hour.
Last week, Hong Kong moved away from any form of arrival or departure cards - no more paper forms to fill out, and no electronic authorisation applications to complete. While other countries are adopting the electronic travel visa systems, Hong Kong has bucked the trend, and we, for one (or would that be four?), were thrilled. It made going through immigration a breeze.
We caught an airport bus into town - the train and the bus were the same duration of an hour, but the train was $24NZD per ticket compared with $9NZD. A no-brainer! Plus, we got to see the city lit up at night, and a massive port with at least 20 container ships at berth.
Our apartment was right in the heart of downtown Hong Kong Island, and it was a strange experience being surrounded by so many foreigners, and hearing lots of English being spoken. We dropped off our bags then walked around the streets, once again trying to find somewhere to eat dinner.
“Only four more nights of this!” I said, with some relief.
China had lots of rice noodles and foods that Abi could eat, but their delicious sauces were not gluten free, so it had been quite a challenge finding places that had fried rice on the menu.
After looking at the prices on the menus of a number of restaurants, and feeling increasingly despondent, we finally found somewhere that had meals for less than $15NZD each. That may not sound like a lot, but Hong Kong was not a cheap place to visit/eat/stay. By way of example, a burger joint had a plain beef burger for $21NZD. Not a meal, just a burger.
Our food was delicious, and were large enough portions for Abi and I to share, and Alex not to be able to finish his!
Our beds, on the other hand, were not large. Abi was on the pullout sofa, Alex was on a double, and so were Dan and I. The bonus was the beds barely fit into the rooms.
But the mattress - SOFT! It was wonderful! Dan could finally sleep on his tummy without waking in pain from a squashed stoma.
Day 471 - 25 Oct ‘24 - Hong Kong. It feels great having a good sleep. Yes, I may have spent the entire night with my face shoved against a wall, but I was comfy, and the perfect temperature, and profoundly deaf thanks to my earplugs, which meant I couldn’t hear the in-window air conditioning unit directly above my head.
We didn’t wake up until almost 9am, and didn’t leave the apartment until around 11am, with our destination being The Peak Tram.
Originally opened in 1888, the funicular railway climbs 396 metres over 1.3km, and at times has a steepness of 48%! It sure did look crazy out the window - the buildings looked like they were built sideways!
It was a gorgeous day, 29°C, and the view from the top over Kowloon Bay and the various skyscrapers on both sides of the river was incredible.
We didn’t spend too long at the top as there wasn’t really anything else to do up there (plus it was hot in the sun), so we got our return trip on the funicular then walked to the waterfront to eat some sushi triangles we bought on the way.
Afterwards, we headed back towards the funicular to go to Hong Kong Park. The park was built on the side of the hill and had many little areas, the first of which was a conservatory, filled with beautiful orchids and lush greenery.
Further up the path from the conservatory was an aviary, with birds we’d never seen before, such as the Java Sparrow, Crested Pigeon, and Bali Myna.
We carried on to a children’s playground but both Alex and Abi were disappointed. They both still really love playgrounds, but are now struggling to find any that are suitable for their ages, which makes them quite depressed. Most playgrounds are designed for little kids, not for 10- or 12-year-olds, which is totally understandable but sad nonetheless. What are children supposed to do when there’s nowhere left for them to play?
On the way out of the park area we came across some lovely water features; one was part of a set of stairs turned into a waterfall, one was a long river surrounded by flowers and attached to a round seated area, and another was a massive mushroom that poured gallons of water all around it.
We slowly made our way back to our apartment past some amazing architecture.
We have loved seeing all the different building designs across the globe, and are amazed what people can come up with! Although, we did feel sorry for the person who apparently tried to play real-life Tetris and got it wrong. (Those upside down Ls were always a pain!)
The remainder of our afternoon was spent relaxing on our beds (there was no couch since Abi was using it to sleep on), then we went back to last night’s restaurant for dinner.
Day 472 - 26 Oct ‘24 - Hong Kong. This morning we all enjoyed a sleep-in, then wandered down to the waterfront again. It was cloudy, and rain threatened, but it was still a warm 26°C. It’s been quite strange, going from high teens/low twenties back up to high twenties again - the trousers and jumpers were packed away and I was in shorts again!
We sat by the water’s edge on some very comfy public loungers, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere and the view to the mainland. There were more people here today as it was the weekend, and lots of people out for a run in the cooler temperature.
We boarded a ferry to the other side of the river, to Kowloon on mainland Hong Kong, and enjoyed what Lonely Planet have called the world’s cheapest river cruise! From the ferry, which cost a total of just $3.62NZD, we had a fantastic view of the skyline on Hong Kong Island.
“I’m glad we did the night river cruise in Shanghai, though,” I said to Dan when we disembarked. “The buildings here aren’t nearly as impressive as the ones that were there.”
It was much busier on the mainland compared to the island, and there were loads of things for us to see and do like temples and statues and gondolas, but again, none of us felt like expending much energy, so we walked to Kowloon Park.
The park first opened in 1970, and just like Hong Kong Park, it had lots of little areas to explore, including a Chinese Garden, a maze, a bird lake, aviary, and a sculpture garden, as well as a sports complex and swimming pool.
The aviary was much smaller than the one we’d been to yesterday, and it was enclosed (we could only look through the fences), but still had a decent range of birds, including the Victoria Crowned Pigeon, which looked like Grandma had an affair with a peacock! Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any photos of it through the fence, so here’s one from the internet:
We walked through the Chinese garden, which was very peaceful and had a pond filled with turtles, then went to the maze, which had multiple entry/exit points and a hedge you could see over, so not really much of a maze.
Next we walked through the sculpture garden, which had lots of different sculptures, both in terms of material and design.
We left the park and made our way back to the waterfront, this time to walk along the Promenade. It would have been a lovely place to take a stroll, had it not been for the hundreds of other people doing the same thing!
When it came time to board the ferry back to the Island, it started off as chaos, moved through insanity, then settled at lunacy! People were running to get to the front of the queue to board the boat, then rushing to get a seat for what was only a 3-5 minute boat trip. And believe it or not, they were even pushing people to get off the boat!
“Why would they be pushing to get off!” I said bewilderdly, “when there’s nothing to be rushing off for?! It’s just the harbour pier!”
That is something we have definitely struggled with in China - the constant pushing in queues. Rather than wait patiently in a line, if you step even half an inch to one side, the Chinese have seen that space as an achievable goal, and have pushed forward. This may sound like a gross generalisation, but we have experienced it across the nation, from young and old, male and female. I can deal with people squashed into your personal space while in a queue, but there really is no need to be pushing forward all the time! Just wait your turn!!
We spent the last bit of our afternoon back in our apartment, and when we went out for dinner, the rain that had been threatening all day had finally arrived. Luckily it didn’t last long, as none of us had brought our umbrellas.
Abi and Dan went for a walk to find a 7-11 for sushi triangles, while Alex and I ordered some Thai food. Dinner wasn’t a major success for any of us. Dan and Abi had gone to five 7-11s to find sushi triangles, and the stir-fried vegetables I’d ordered came covered in chopped peanuts, as did the pad Thai Alex had chosen.
So, I had the sushi triangles, and Dan had the vegetables, but he didn’t chew them properly. This meant he spent the rest of the night in varying levels of pain, which was less than ideal when we had a flight the next day.
Day 473 - 27 Oct ‘24 - Hong Kong to Seoul. Dan managed to get a few hours sleep, and had had some output in his bag during the night (including a solid lump of undercooked broccoli), but was still in lots of pain. Waking around with a rucksack, and sitting in an airport and then a plane, was not he should have been doing, but there was no other option.
“We start to go home today!” Abi said excitedly when we got up.
“Uuggh,” I replied.
Yesterday I’d felt the beginnings of a cold (stupid pushing queue people who cough and sneeze), and this morning my nose was running and my throat tickly. Yay.
“Imagine if you got turned away at the gate in Korea or China!” Dan said with a laugh. “You were definitely fighting something last night, as you threw off the covers despite the air conditioner making the room freezing.”
“I’ll just take lots of paracetamol, that should take care of any temperature I don’t know about. And I’ll buy some strepsils for the plane. I’ll be fine!”
This afternoon was leg one of our convoluted journey back to New Zealand. Despite being in China (Hong Kong is technically not a separate country but is a Special Administrative Region of China), it was cheaper to fly back to Seoul to keep our original ticket, then go via Shanghai back to Auckland. It meant our travelling would take almost three days, but it was thousands of dollars in savings.
We left our apartment at 11am and made it to an early bus to the airport. Dan had paid for priority booking so we could get rid of our bags earlier, but even once we’d checked in, we still had more than four hours to wait before our plane departed.
And so, while waiting at the gate, I convinced Dan to lie down while we had the chance.
He was still in pain, but had managed to battle the nausea enough to eat a banana. The only thing left for him to do was wait for the inflammation to subside.
The hours slowly ticked by, the chairs filled up, and the peace and quiet we’d enjoyed was slowly eroded. The priority pass meant we got to queue up first, which the kids were overjoyed at! Who needs First Class when you can be first on the plane!
A few hours later and we were back in Seoul, then on the airport train again, and then walking the streets to get to our apartment. Whatever had caused Dan’s blockage had thankfully passed while on the plane, so his pain had dramatically reduced. However, it meant his intestines were now in freeflow, and his bag kept rapidly filling up; waiting for Abi to choose a drink at a 7-11 was flirting with an explosive disaster!
After the terrible place we’d stayed at last time we were at the airport (the one that was right beside the airport but didn’t drop below 30°C all night), Dan had booked us a bigger, newer apartment to stay in.
Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, working air conditioning…fantastic! Shortly before 11pm, we were all in bed and looking forward to a good sleep.
Day 474 - 28 Oct ‘24 - Seoul to Shanghai. SUPER F*CKING BRIGHT STREETLIGHTS RIGHT OUTSIDE THE WINDOW AND STUPID F*CKING WHITE CURTAINS! WHY? WHY?? WHY??? Our room was SO bright we could still see colours! COLOURS!! Any time we opened our eyes it felt like it was time to get up because it was so bright, which made the whole night really confusing and long (and not in a good way).
Dan and I constantly woke each other up during the night - him, from going to the toilet numerous times to empty his rapidly refilling bag, and me, from blowing my nose and coughing.
When the alarm went off, I had amassed quite a pile of used tissues, and my head felt like it was in a vice.
“It’s not often you get out of bed feeling more tired than when you got into it,” I grumbled.
“Nope,” Dan agreed. “That was shit.”
“Close the door mummy,” Abi said when I told her to wake up. “It’s too bright.”
“You want to see bright? Go look at our room.”
“Oh wow! That’s really bright,” she sympathised when she went to see.
Bleary-eyed and with a blocked nose, I turned the shower on and waited for the hot water to come through. I waited, then waited a bit more. No hotter than lukewarm. I looked around for a hot water switch but couldn’t see one. Oh well, who doesn’t like a lukewarm shower?
“Can you please see if there’s a hot water switch?” I yelled to Dan after 15 seconds of a lukewarm shower had me convinced that lukewarm showers were shit. “There’s none here.”
“Okay, turn the shower off.”
He came back a minute later.
“Yep! Found it!”
“Thank goodness. I’m freezing now! Where was it?”
“Behind the TV.”
“What on earth? Who puts a hot water switch behind a TV? Who would ever look there?”
The rest of the morning was uneventful, and we arrived at the airport about 10:20am, whereby Alex and I joined the queue to check-in while Dan and Abi sat on the seats to wait. Dan was feeling better than yesterday pain-wise, but was now tired and drained and losing fluids rapidly.
It was a long queue, seven aisles of zigzagging people, but after almost an hour we made it to the front and got the good news that our bags would be checked through to Auckland. Our flight today was to Shanghai, but because we had a 10 hour layover, we’d been concerned we’d need to collect our bags then go through immigration again.
The check-in lady gave us all a sticker to wear to show we were transit passengers, and she assured us we’d have no problem leaving the airport to go to the accommodation we’d booked (just so we could lie on beds for a few hours instead of sitting in the transit lounge).
While walking through the airport, we suddenly heard music and saw a parade of men in traditional dress playing on instruments!
Further on, we came across another parade of men and women, this time emulating a royal march - such a wonderful idea to make an airport stay more enjoyable.
We spent another hour getting through immigration then went on a train ride to the other terminal, and had barely sat down at the gate before it was time to stand up again to join the queue to board.
The flight was only a couple of hours and we had a nice meal. Abi’s gluten free meal, which I’d stood on hold on the phone for when we were last at this airport, she barely touched. Chicken with potatoes and green beans, a prawn salad, rice cracker, and fruit salad, and all she ate was the potatoes and fruit. Super annoying!
There had been a few messages that came over the speakers telling passengers to identify themselves to staff if they’d had a cough, sneeze, temperature, diarrhoea, and a bunch of other things. I’d need to make sure not to cough or blow my nose too much at immigration!
I successfully passed through the temperature scanner without being pulled aside (so that’s good, can’t be seriously unwell), and we were allowed back into China. The hotel Dan had booked was between the two terminals, and it wasn’t long before the kids were in their room, and Dan and I were in ours. Other than a short excursion to McDonald’s for dinner (our last EVER, yay!), we stayed in our rooms, drifting in and out of sleep.
Seven hours of relaxation later, and we were back at the airport and going through immigration again. It was a rather freeing experience navigating an airport without any luggage, that’s for sure!
Day 475 - 29 Oct ‘24 - Shanghai to Auckland. Our flight left at 12:10am and was 11-and-a-half hours long.
When a woman and her baby sat in the seat in front of ours, there was a collective sigh amongst the four of us. We’ve all been there; crying babies are an embarrassment to the parent and an annoyance to the passengers.
“Just look at it this way,” I said to Alex when he was about to complain vocally. “The baby is crying because it’s not in its bed, the plane is noisy, it’s way past bedtime and it’s overtired. The mum has got nobody with her to help her, and she will spend her entire flight trying to get her baby to stop crying as quickly as possible, and most likely not get any sleep and will be stuck in a cramped position holding her baby. Every parent on the plane has experienced it, and it is horrible. You did it to us, except you screamed so loud that a wee Asian boy in the seat in front gave you his toy, and then you puked all over daddy while we were trying to get through Sydney airport.”
“Really?!”
“Yep. It was gross. And you didn’t stop screaming until you’d puked. Lots of fun.”
We were given dinner at 2am, and the lights were finally turned off at 3am. Miraculously, we all managed to get some sleep, and I even got a decent five hours! Dan only managed two or three as his tummy was periodically sore, but when the lights came back on at 8:30am for breakfast, we were all feeling not too bad.
Flying on a Chinese airline means you get Chinese food. Breakfast was either fried rice with pork sausage or macaroni with prawns and mushrooms, followed by green bean jelly, and a tub of sweet fermented milk. Half of our trays remained uneaten.
The new airline rules of removing your headphones for the descent was super annoying today - 41 minutes of staring at your TV screen and not being able to hear it or read the Chinese subtitles.
The landing was also one of the worst we’d experienced, with only one wheel touching for a while, then a bit of a swerve, before the rest of the wheels made it.
Passport control was quick, but then we stood at the luggage carousel for over 30 minutes waiting for the bags to come round. There was an announcement saying there was a 20-30 minute delay for additional security, so we assumed they may have sprayed some kind of fumigation on the luggage.
It took an entire hour from landing to collecting our bags, which was painful. Then it was time to queue up for customs.
“Go to the ‘all passports’ line,” I told Alex, who was pushing the trolley.
“Why?”
“Because there’s no queue! Everybody has gone to the ‘NZ/Australia passports’ line, but the ‘all passports’ doesn’t say ‘no New Zealand passports’, so go there!”
Sure enough, we went right to the front of the queue and were glared at by all the other New Zealander’s we passed! We had to go to a second examination spot to get Alex’s scorpion approved, then get our bags xrayed, and then we were out!
Dan’s mum and dad had both come to collect us, which Abigail was absolutely thrilled about - arriving at all the airports we’d been to, there had only been a handful where someone was holding a sign waiting to pick us up.
And with that, our world trip had come to an end. We had been to 44 countries including Vatican City, and one Special Administrative Region. We hadn’t seen everything we wanted to see, or gone everywhere we wanted to go, but that just means we’ll have to go again one day!
For now, it’s back to reality: work, school, house and garden maintenance. We’re all looking forward to seeing our friends and families again, as well as reuniting with Willow, but we’re also conscious of getting itchy feet and potentially feeling bored after just a couple of weeks.
From constantly moving and experiencing new places and things, to staying in one place and seeing the same things day after day, will take some getting used to. But oh man, are we looking forward to our own beds again!
There have been tears and laughter. There have been sore tummies and feeling like utter crap. There have been missing items and almost missed trains and planes. There have been stressful days and relaxing ones.
There have been four packs and us.
And it’s been the best thing we’ve ever done.
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