Travel

Winter of 2016.

As an escape to the grueling task of grad school application, I searched online for destinations (and air tickets) that could be my winter getaway. It’s a luxurious 5-week holiday that could possibly be my last.
And I bumped into Xiamen Airline’s offer of round trip to Kuala Lumpur from Hangzhou at a little bit more than CNY1300, with a stop at Fuzhou(福州). The only restriction was that I needed make the return trip on the morning of Chinese New Year’s Day, which wasn’t that much problem for me since I’m reluctant to identify myself as Chinese.

Then, since my last and only exam of the semester was on Jan 12th, and 2 weeks of Malaysia seemed too much for me, I decided to arrange the visit of another country in Southeast Asia during that time. The decision was easy, as Kuala Lumpur is the headquarter of Asia’s budget airlines, and Cambodia, the bureaucracy and corruption in which resulted in unusually high air fares and fees compared with its neighboring countries, is just a short strait away from Malaysia. So my plan of the day was to take Xiamen Airlines flight MF877 to Kuala Lumpur on January 14th, spend the night in Kuala Lumpur Airport trying to get some sleep, and take Air Asia Flight AK536 on the next morning to Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.

The second day in the beautiful Cappadocia region.
The plan of the day was to take the signature hot air balloon ride for an aerial view of the spectacular landscapes of Cappadocia, and then take part in the Cappadocia Green tour.

So at 5am we were picked up by the balloon company, that ferried us from our cave hotel to their headquarter just outside the town center of Göreme, where we were given a buffet breakfast, typed our names (for insurances purposes, and for it to appear in the certificate after landing)

This morning, much to our displeasure, we found Metro company dropped us off at the Nevşehir Bus Station (which was on the outskirts of the city of Nevşehir), rather than in the center of Göreme Town. And to our greater displeasure, we were reminded to get off the bus not by the bus conductor, but by some travel agent guy at the bus station. (One possible explanation other than the bus company’s blatant unprofessionalism was that the bus conductor didn’t speak English very well, which we took it.)

Then we were informed (by this travel agent guy) that Metro company would provide us free shuttle to Göreme Bus Station, but we were supposed to wait at Nevşehir for the Istanbul bus to come, and/or that the shuttle vans of Metro company wasn’t currently available. Well, since he’s basically the only one at the station that spoke English, we sort of had to trust him.

That was quarter past 6 in the morning, and the whole bus station was literally a ghost town. The Istanbul bus and our shuttle van came at quarter past 7, and during that hour some magic happened (yes, I was summarizing it this way) and the travel agent guy somehow managed to persuade us to book tours with him, since he was offering better quotes than our hotel (80TL or 90TL for red tour, I forgot the details) and we hadn’t finalized all the tours with our hotel yet.

Conclusion, tours around Cappadocia should be better booked in person than through emails, and to do that it’s better to arrive in the afternoon (or evening) than in the morning.

Last day in Antalya.
The plan of the day was to visit Side, an ancient Greek city on the Mediterranean coast East of Antalya. On the way back there were two other major attractions, the amphitheater of Aspendos and the ancient city of Perge. But these two sites were all off the major D400 Route, that plus some difficulties in finding the right bus in Manavgat meant we only managed to visit one of them.

I only stayed in Wuhan(武汉) for one night before rushing back to Beijing.

My trip back begins at Wuhan(武汉) Railway Station, where I took the subway to Hankou(汉口) Railway Station, then Hankou-Xiaogan(孝感) Intercity Railway to Wuhan Tianhe Airport.

I was suddenly informed by my parents that I needed to go to the city of Wuhan(武汉) to sort out some family matters, and that was one day before my trip. Immediately I went online searching for tickets, and found tickets for overnight sleeper trains were sold out (apart from the ones that arrive at 4 in the morning), yet airlines were still quoting around 300+CNY for morning flights to Wuhan. So with little hesitation I booked China Southern’s morning flight to Wuhan.

This post follows on the previous ones about flight DL129 from Los Angeles to Seattle.

Since the previous flight from Los Angeles departed pretty much on time, we arrived at Seattle half an hour early, which meant plenty of time to go just from one terminal to another by tram.

Time to head back (so that I don’t miss too many lectures).
Comparing the different options, I thought a Lyft ride was the best way to get to the airport from downtown (Yes, I’ve got the free ride credits for new users). And thank God, the traffic was smooth all the way to the airport.

This post follows on the previous one of flight DL128 from Beijing to Seattle.

Learning the experience last time of flight AA186 to Chicago, this time I wasted no time after getting off the plane, race-walked my way to the customs.