Part 2, July 27
- Kate Ross
- Aug 2, 2019
- 3 min read
So the morning of July 27 I visited Shenkeng Old Street as a part of my summer activities with ICLP, but afterwards I journeyed to the Taipei Taoyuan Airport to catch a flight that would get me to Guangzhou, China for the weekend!
When my tofu making event was done, I managed to find two other guys who were also going to the airport so we were able to split a cab to Taipei Main Station and then caught the train together to the airport. It was kind of interesting because one of the guys is a student at ASU (but not a native Arizonan), and it was nice to be able to talk to some students a part of ICLP that I had yet to meet.
The entire airport travel wasn't monumentally exciting, but every now and then you have a few memorable airport travel moments.
I've traveled enough to know what is or isn't allowed through security. Typical TSA/Security rules are: you always need to dump your water before you go through security, liquids (if you have) must be under a certain volume, don't bring knives or blades, but scissors less than 5 inches are fine, etc. Honestly, when you know the things to avoid packing in your carry on it's easy to go through without any trouble. Packing my bag I was certain that I wouldn't get stopped. I DID. In Israel, I learned you can't bring sewing scissors in your carry-on leaving Israel. However, that makes sense because of the increased security leaving the country. Leaving Taiwan, I was not expecting that I would get stopped at security for having cuticle clippers in my toiletries bag.
Once I made it to my gate, I had the opportunity to explore an entire Saxophone exhibit. Apparently, Mr. Chang, was the creator of the first Made-in-Taiwan saxophone from scratch. The exhibit is there to commemorate all that he has done and the influence that his saxophone company has had on Taiwanese culture.
Finally before leaving Taiwan, as I was boarding my flight I happened to run into another ICLP student. This kid was also at the tofu making workshop at Shenkeng Old Street. I had no idea that he was going to be on the same exact flight as I was going on to get to Hong Kong. When we landed we had a few minutes to talk, mostly about how weird it was that we were on the same exact flight to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was fairly uneventful. I had gotten some "Make sure you don't get into any trouble in Hong Kong while you're there because of all of the protests." I wasn't incredibly worried though because I was just there for a layover. I didn't have any plans of leaving the airport and joining any protests for Hong Kong's freedom and independence on this trip. Looking out the window, and being able to see Hong Kong as the flight was coming in, it looks like a really neat city that I'd love to visit some time in the future. But right now is not the best time to be visiting Hong Kong as a tourist.
Something that I learned really quickly during my short visit at the Hong Kong Airport was that it is a HUGE International Airport. I'm talking like it took me probably close to 20-30 minutes to walk to my next gate once I got through customs. Granted, I did get lost and didn't follow the signs adequately, but this airport is a giant international hub. I always love traveling through airports and looking at the different planes and seeing where they are coming from.
While walking through airports I prefer walking on the moving walkways when getting to my next gate. I quickly noticed something was wrong when the moving sidewalk was on the left side and not the right. That's when I remembered that Hong Kong was colonized by the British, which means everything is on the wrong side in Hong Kong.
Finally after about six hours I made it to China! I had accomplished something that I had been dreaming about since beginning studying Chinese back in seventh grade. As my flight from Guangzhou landed close to 9pm I didn't do any sightseeing that evening. I do have to say that China has some crazy security when you arrive. Whether it was thermal scanning of body temperatures or finger prints for non-Chinese citizens, it was definitely the most security that I had ever experienced when entering a country.
But once I got through the Chinese security and customs/immigration I made it out and I saw Sol! My tour guide for the weekend! On that note, I'm going to make you read the next few blogs for some amazing stories and pictures of my journeys throughout China's Guangdong province.
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