{"id":1017,"date":"2011-03-02T00:09:53","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T16:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2011-03-02T23:13:59","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T15:13:59","slug":"leaving-china-to-go-to-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/?p=1017","title":{"rendered":"Leaving China to go to…England?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 16 – “Goodbye, dear friends.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

After a very restful night’s sleep, I showered, packed my stuff up and decided that it was a good day to relax in the hostel before the flight.\u00a0 I met Aga and Radek for breakfast in the lobby.\u00a0 Tom decided to sleep in because he didn’t feel well.\u00a0 While we were waiting for our breakfast to come I worked on my awesome Chinese wooden puzzle.\u00a0 This was also when I solved it the first time! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Must not have been too difficult. Right.\u00a0 Actually, I solved it twice (two different ways) while waiting for breakfast.\u00a0 Wanna know the secret? Don’t pay attention to what you are doing! Seriously. Both times I solved it I was visiting with Aga and not really concentrating on what I was doing.\u00a0 It was awesome!\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, the night before I had gotten a text message from Norman. (remember him?) He said that he was heading to his hometown for the rest of the holiday and would be stopping in Guilin to catch the train.\u00a0 He wanted to know how long he would be there so that he could see us one last time.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 So adorable.\u00a0 He timed his arrival perfectly and we were able to hang out for a while before all of us had to go our separate ways.\u00a0 This is the thing I\u00a0simultaneously love and hate\u00a0about traveling.\u00a0 I love meeting new people.\u00a0 Traveling alone forces you to do that.\u00a0 I also hate it because it’s for such a short time and then you have to say goodbye.\u00a0 The four of us (Aga, Radek, Tom and me) have decided to travel together again in June.\u00a0 I hope it actually happens. \u00a0Norman also wants to join us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We spent the next 2-3 hours just hanging out in the hostel and playing pool and just enjoying each other’s company.\u00a0 We took some pictures of the group and then said our goodbyes, for real this time.\u00a0 It was very sad to see Aga and Radek go.\u00a0 I hope I will get to see them again.\u00a0 Next it was going to be Tom and me, heading to the airport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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I love this group of crazies. From L-R: Maya (also worked at the hostel in Xingping with Norman), Tom the German, me, random guy in the back (can't remember his name--all I remember is that he's half German, half French), Norman (the destroyer), Radek, Aga, another man who I don't know (Japanese)<\/p><\/div>\n

Tom and I found a rickshaw driver to take us to the airport express station and then hopped on the airport express bus.\u00a0 The ride to the airport was quicker than we thought it would be.\u00a0 The flight to Hong Kong was quicker than we thought it would be.\u00a0 I arrived in Hong Kong, made it through customs (who says Hong Kong isn’t a different country?), and was on a bus within 1.5 hours of landing.\u00a0 My destination was strangely close to where Tom was going (he studies at a university in Kowloon Tong and that was only 2 subway stops away from where I would be staying) so we rode the same bus through town.\u00a0 It was sad to say goodbye to Tom also.\u00a0 He and I made plans to have dinner together one night while I was there so I would get to see him again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was officially by myself. It was an odd feeling.\u00a0I wasn’t worried about finding the retreat center, it just felt weird to not have my new friends with me.\u00a0 I hadn’t been alone since I got off the train when I first arrived in Guangxi Province.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

I had excellent (and very accurate) directions to my home for the next four nights.\u00a0 I got there and was greeted by a familiar Beijing FOCer’s face!\u00a0 I was very excited to see my ‘family’.\u00a0 That night was filled with hugs, picture sharing, sausage and cheese eating (Shannon surprised us from America and also brought bounty with him!!), and just general enjoying each other’s company.\u00a0\u00a0 I slept very well that night.\u00a0 Hong Kong would be my home for 4.5 days!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 16 – “Goodbye, dear friends.” After a very restful night’s sleep, I showered, packed my stuff up and decided that it was a good day to relax in the hostel before the flight.\u00a0 I met Aga and Radek for breakfast in the lobby.\u00a0 Tom decided to sleep in because he didn’t feel well.\u00a0 While […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1021,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}