Oh China

Another night train journey. I didn't find this one terrible pleasant, unfortunately. I have found that I definitely am no good whatsoever at sleeping sitting in an uncomfortable chair. It wasn't just a fluke those other times. I seem to have a problem with some sort of sciatic nerve in my hip which makes it difficult to sit in one spot for long, and with the knowledge that I had two more days of no more sleep and being restrained in a chair ahead, it made me feel a bit frantic for sleep. The feeling got me to the point of being able to tell off two men on the train who got on at about 2am and started yacking away in the seat ahead of us. It was so irritating and woke up most of my girls and Josh, and brought me out of the little doze I must have been having.
Then at 4am a bunch of rowdy kids starting opening crisp packets and climbing over seats and annoying each other. That was when I realized I should just give up and take a deep breath and begin the day calmly. Well, it was a good intention anyway!

Leaving Brisbane Airport for Guangzhou

At 5am we caught another train to take us to Brisbane airport. It was a fairly leisurely check-in and the plane ride on Southern China airlines was rather nice. They gave us cosy blankets and pillows which was handy and there were lots of movies to choose from. Josh and I managed a few naps on the 7-hour flight to Guangzhou, but the girls wanted to get in their next 6 months of movie allowance in one day it seemed. No sleeping for them thank you they insisted!
When we were still back home in New Zealand we found out that we'd need a visa for the short stopover we'd have in China, so Josh filled out the required paperwork.
When we got on the plane to Guangzhou we were told we'd need different papers so ok- we can fill those out too. We only had 2 hours to get through customs to then get on our next flight to Beijing. There was a bit of a bustle arriving at the airport - people going in all directions it seemed - but everyone in the same race to get to the same place.
We were given green dot stickers on our arm for who knows what. We were rushed to a room with machines that slowly took our fingerprints and scanned the passports, then we raced our way to the end of the cue at customs. Once we finally got to the women at the desk we were shooed away. 'Go dear- go dear' she said, pointing in the vague direction of another desk. Once we were there another woman took a photo of our passports and the documents painstakingly filled out. We tried to explain that we were in a hurry to make it to our next flight. She nodded but didn't really seem to understand. She called someone else and they talked about our papers for what seemed like ages. No communication was had with us. Finally, someone ran up to us and told us that we needed a visa and that we didn't have the right paperwork. She shoved some little blue slips at us and told us "Fill out! Hurry hurry!! You miss plane soon!" As if we didn't already know! The paper had a handwritten address of a hotel in the 'residency' section. Eh? Does that mean we might be staying for a bit? The poor tired girls were feeling our stress and tried to help by filling out their own paper. But that didn't help either- "What's my passport number, what is our flight number? Should I write my middle name? How do you spell...? (X4)"
The four Chinese officers (dressed in a severe dark uniform along with the famous communist hat) were practically hopping from foot to foot. "Follow me!" one of them said once we'd finished scribbling on our paper. We ran fast behind her thinking that we were heading for the plane but she just ran to a set of seats and told us to sit. We were there for about 10 minutes with other stranded passengers. There was a guard standing close by shouting into a door which must have been housing a criminal or some unfortunate in solitary confinement. The guard was yelling " No photos! No more talking to you! I'm going now!"
We finally got our passports back and were told that we have missed our plane but that we will be given some new tickets. That took another half hour of standing around and about 6 people trying to figure out how it would work with our luggage etc. They were pretty unfriendly and hardly a single smile was shown. But they did manage to get us onto the next flight to Beijing - two in first class and four in business class! That was a pleasant surprise. Noa and I were the lucky ones who got to sit in first and Josh, Phoebe, Fern, and Esmae sat in business.

Noa and I in first class!

After the three hour flight, we arrived at Beijing airport and the reception was much more cordial. There was a man waiting for us at the entrance holding a sign with our names on it. He took us straight to the front of the line we needed to be at in customs. Then another man ran us all through to another one and then gave us to another one who ran us to the next line. Then there was a little cart we could ride on to the next one and then some more running to another line. We were pushed through to the beginning of every line despite the dirty looks of disapproval we were given by those who had been waiting for an age. And so it was that we managed to reach our next flight to Amsterdam in only an hour on time!
That flight was another night time flight of 9 hours. It was fully packed and we didn't have seats together for some reason but the stewards managed to put a few of us in pairs at least.

In Amsterdam!

And then we arrived in Amsterdam! Very tired but so happy to have that last flight over! Sadly, at the luggage belt, we discovered that our bags had not made it. We were annoyed and concerned about this, but in hindsight, it turned out to be so great as we didn't have to worry about carting 10 big pieces of luggage around with us! (We had brought some extra bags for Josh's mum with us.)

Josh's mum Debbie met us at the airport with her lovely friend Irena and her husband Rembrandt who had brought two cars along to carry us and our luggage. It was so kind of them - especially because it was 5am and the airport wasn't too close to their home.
Irena gave us a wonderful breakfast and let us have showers and gave us some extra clothes and shoes seeing as all our warm stuff was in our bags.

Because it was Konings Dag ('King's day - a big celebration for the king's birthday) there was a lot of traffic and diversions of the road so catching the bus we'd planned for the afternoon to get us to Breda didn't quite work according to plan and so we missed the bus we'd already bought tickets for and found to be expensive. So we took the train instead which was even more expensive than the bus but was rather nice. We got to see lots of farm land and beautiful dutch farmhouses. And the tulips! What a great time to arrive in Holland!

And we know for sure that we are in Holland
when we see these at breakfast time!

Having breakfast in Breda. We are staying now with a lovely friend
of Josh's mum - Josh's second Mother - Klaske.