Ni hao!

After a nice long nap, I woke up to the air hostess' announcement that we would be landing in Kunming shortly!

Seats straight up and my mind contorted in musings, I waited for the plane to touch the runway and my dreams to take flight!

Kunming!!!

I was elated to see that all the signs were in English, the airport was very well organized and the best part was there were so many Indians traveling along and to get to the next step all I did was follow the crowd!

After a much delayed and detailed immigration procedure, I rushed towards my baggage claim as it was a self-transfer. I had a flight to catch within the next hour and a half and thanks to the speedy baggage pick-up I was sweetly informed at the counter that check-in was closed!

Completely unaware of the language, no one to speak to, for a second my heart sank and my mind was swirling with a myriad of thoughts; Will I have to pay for the next flight? Wait! I have travel insurance, that will cover it, right? What do I do now? Where do I go? I am hungry and I am tired!

But then I realized, you want something? Just ask for it. And that is exactly what I did. Running from counter to counter, comprehending gestures and a varied English accent I finally made sure I got onto the next flight by conveying the reason for missing my flight effectively!

After the security check and all the other procedures, I went to my gate and in that crowded place, I could free my mind to wander about for I made it in time and I still had 30 min to spare.

With a sense of satisfaction topped with pride and inevitable fear, I boarded the flight to Shanghai and I was all set!

Shanghai baby!!

My flight landed in Shanghai and the first thing you do after you have safely landed in the right place is assure your friends and family that you are intact, in one piece! After bouts of Yes, I am safe. I have reached safely. Don't worry, I will be fine. I finally took the airport shuttle to the Shanghai Hongqiao train station! 

The journey was smooth and the people spoke fluent English and helped me get down at the right stop and pay the right amount of bus fare! The jolt of having landed in a foreign country so different from my own was yet to strike me!

My first thought when I saw the train station- How organized and efficient!  There was the usual litter and smoking but when it came to following a certain order within the premises, it was top-notch!

The organizers of the ASES-Summit, Hangzhou had booked my high-speed train ticket from Shanghai to Hangzhou and all I had to do was collect my tickets from what they called The artificial window. 

Simple, right? That is what I thought.

Turns out, when you know no Chinese and have no one alongside, all you will do for the first 10 min after getting down at the station is gawk in every angle with confusion because you don't know what to do and where to go! Everything is in Chinese.

Thanks to Matrix sim card and WeChat I could contact my family and communicate with the conference organizers and my friends in China and I successfully got the train tickets!

Pangs of hunger and bouts of fatigue had ensconced my energy, not ready to let it out! 

The Shanghai Hongqiao station was massive and my train was to be stationed at gate 21 and I started walking from gate 5.

It was a long walk but the sight of a McDonald's, spurred my enthusiasm and I raced like the Flash!

Being a vegetarian-no meat, no fish! , it is pretty impossible to survive, unless you have consumed nectar.

Famished and tired, I ask for a veggie cup and a cappuccino, and Voila! my lunch- a cup filled with variants of cabbage,radish and carrots is served; the secret ingredient to become Kung-fu-panda was discovered!

The most amazing thing was when I got on to the high speed train. A majestic, efficient and silent train, cruising at speeds of 280 or even 300kmph was amazing and I had the best ride of my life. An hour from Shanghai to Hangzhou and I could catch twenty winks!