Will My Trip

Let's have a record, about the ever first long-distance-from-home trip. My destination was a little water town --- Tong Li, Shiangsu, in the northern part of China.

9th Aug:
As scheduled, all Solarcampusian in Hong Kong who were going to join skill share had to gather on the plateform at Shan Shui KCR Station at noon. That day I rather woke up bright and early to make sure everything was all right and well prepared before I stepped out of my house. I checked my baggage and other belongings over and over again. Still, I was somehow quite nervous and always assuming that I have something forgot to pick up but I didn’t notice. I virtually had lots of concerns and worries just because it would be a long trip and I took the trip serious. I understood one thing missing might probably cause great trouble to me, and my partners during the trip.
Our ladies were so punctual that Bobo and Cathy were already there before I arrived. Then there came Hing, Michael and Henry, while Gloria said that she had work to do beforehand and hence was delayed. She suggested we go to Sum Shun first and hoped she and us could join there later on. That was fine.
I started to feel nervous once we entered Mainland China, as I was kept on being told that Sum Shun is definitely a pour of crime, with thousands of thieves and robbers everywhere. I kept my eyes open and was taking care of all the belongings of mine and mates’. We rushed to the train station to purchase our tickets for the first ride to Guangzhou. There we still got a short period of spare time and then Gloria came to join us. She did not really come as late as we concerned. All of us could then be on the way to GZ.
The ride took more than 1 hour. In train was better than expected. It possessed nice desks and comfy soft chairs, on which we were sitting and playing UNO. UNO always provided us with great fun. I was happy in the train.
At last we came over to GZ. Gloria told us the GZ Solarcampusians were waiting for us in a Mcdonalds and suggested us to have our “lunch” there (actually it was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon). The decoration inside was very nice, and comparable with those in HK. We walked upstairs and found that the GZ youth were staying. Gloria acted as an introducer introducers ourselves to one another. There I met new friends from GZ and let me say something about their first impression to me:
繼風 --- One of the only two boys in GZ group. He was a late comer in Mc. He looked muscular and strong, and somewhat funny. I found he talked a bit too much.
Windy --- I knew this lady before. She came to HK and attended our meeting in Greenpeace office a few days before Skill sharing. She was nice and talkative.
瑋珊 --- She was good-looking, nice but quiet. We didn’t talk there.
周睿 --- She was a white, tall and quiet girl, who could speak clear Cantonese. She came from Beijing to stay Medicine in GZ.
書林 --- He was always talking about serious and academic things with others. He looked boring and different. He is 汕頭 people and therefore does not speak Clear Cantonese, while his Putonghua is very good.

Hing and Michael sited near the GZ group and started familiarizing with them (but Hing was actually cutting girls again, whenever and wherever he was). We were wasting about time in Mcdonald’s and awaiting the train up till 5:00 p.m. We then brought our baggage to the train station and got on board the train. The second ride lasted for some 22 hours and therefore our seats were in fact some beds. Individual place was allocated to one another via lucky draw. Actually one room composed 6 beds, with upper, middle and lower beds in a column on one side while the other 3 on the other side. We were holding two rooms, as a result.
People started getting close with each other, especially the new friends they just met. We HK SCampusians were playing UNO and were very happy. The beds were very comfortable and the atmosphere was wonderfully good. All the things were better than enough and really out of expectation. I was surprised that GZ guys had never played UNO before. Then we tried to give them a short lecture of “How does UNO work?” They was taught but still not familiarized with so many rules of UNO at the beginning and therefore were always making many funny mistakes which made us burst into laughter again and again.
That day when everybody was sleeping I kept chatting with Hing until 3 a.m. Both of us were very glad that we could have got close with our new core buddy, Cathy, who we believe is a super friendly girl to play with in the long near future. The framework of the HK skill share team could never be better. And we felt GZ guys were really good and not as boring as we pictured in advice. The is the reason of which we were so enthusiastic in the train.

10 Aug:
I was woken up at 8 a.m. on the train. Hing, Bobo and Cathy were already active and taking photos of those still in unconsciousness, I included. I would rather not brush my teeth than chewing gum. People woke up one by one and the rooms become crowded again. We played UNO again, up till the train stopped at Shanghai. We got down from the train and in turn travel by Metro to the place where our temporary hostel located. We walked for more than 15 min in the terribly hot sun from the Metro station to the hostel and we got all wet. The hostel is of the theme “Sailor” and “Captain” and something like that. The hostel was well decorated and so well air-coned that we felt like in the heaven once we stepped in from the hell outside. But we were soon deeply shocked by the new that our room was on the sixth floor but the life was broken down and didn’t function at all! Oh jezz~ that was the fucking worst news in the earth! We, without other choice, carried our god damn heavy baggage by hands form the ground up to the sixth flood. That action was nearly killing me! Every normal person got exhausted and even wanted to commit suicide. Worse still, the room was for temporary storage of baggage and therefore very small in scale, compared with the amount of people sitting, standing and hanging around. Some people, most of whom I never met before, were already there, including Yu Jie, a new Beijing campaigner, Noom and Pele from Thailand, three female Beijing SolarCampusians… I could not remember all of them.
We were set free to have lunch for several hours and we could hang around the most well-known place in Shanghai --- Waitan. We (HK + GZ) went around for while and randomly chose one restaurant to fill our empty stomach. The restaurant was no good at all and we all felt disappointed by everything inside. The food, the service, the price, blab blab blab…. That sucks! We were not aiming to waste our precise time in such a motherfucking restaurant and so we left as quickly as possible. We moved to Waitan and was walking between the historical building there without stopping taking photos. Shanghai is really one of the best cities in China, and is probably comparable to Hong Kong.
We were about to din then. We got back to the hostel and settled down again in the canteen. We met two campaigners. One is Stephanie (from Germany) and the other is Maureen (from U.S.). They look mature but pretty, and nice and friendly. Henry said before than both of them are successful campaigners of Solar Generation in their own companies. Here came Shu Yi, the Canadian representative of youth. She is Hong Kong people but studying in Canada. She can speak very fluent Cantonese, English and Putonghua. She is so friendly and talkative that I appreciated so much. I like chatting with such a kind of girls with an open mind and personality. All of us were having nice chat in subgroups till the meal was ready. The meal looked terribly bad and tasted disgusting. But I didn’t care.
After meal we had to pick up our baggage and move them onto the bus addressing to our final destination i.e. Tongli. Before getting on the bus, two late comer arrived.. They were the ones who we concerned about most. They are called Massaki (the new male Japanese campaigner) and Masako (a girl freshly joining Greenpeace). Both of them are obviously a traditional Japanese, with all Japanese characters in appearance. The bus trip took about 3 hours and I was almost exhausted that day and therefore I fell into sound sleep in bus. When I woke up I was already inside the water town. I felt like being inside a Chinese swordsmen film. Everything there looks ancient. That’s fantastic!
People in skill share were divided into two groups living in two different guesthouses, namely, 呂氏客棧 and 敬儀堂客棧. Most of the other friends were allocated to stay in the former, while Hing and I had to take care of most of the campaigners in the latter. In my guesthouse, there were: Red, Massaki, Noom and Pele. Hing and I arranged them to settle down in their own houses first. As told by Gloria, we knew that there were still two persons coming soon. They were Albert and Jasper from Philippines. They lived in the best room while Hing and I had to share one bed in the same room of Massaki and Red.