Day 29: 2/7 Sad to Say Goodbye

                We got everything all packed up and ready to go for the car that was going to pick us up at 9:15.  Allie and I needed some more cash and needed something to eat, so we sped-walked to the ATM and stopped by this bakery which had all sorts of goodies.  I got a few pastries and a thing of cookies (yeah Mom and Dad I eat cookies for breakfast and there isn’t anything you can do to stop me… well I’m sure there is but oh well) and paid with one of the bills I got from the ATM.  I ended up getting 78 Yuan back in change, but I stuffed it into my pocket because we were starting to push it on time.  We got outside and started to jog a bit because we were getting close to the scheduled pick-up time.  When we got to the hostel the car hadn’t arrived yet, so we basically ran for nothing.  The car finally showed up and we packed ourselves in.  About two minutes into the ride I reached into my pocket and only grabbed air.  I checked my other pocket partly because I wasn’t sure if I just blanked on which pocket I put my money but partly because I was freaking out and didn’t know what else to do.  Somehow on our way back to the hostel my 78 Yuan had fallen out of my pocket, so some lucky person found about $12 on the street.  The car picked up two other people on the way who were from the Beijing area.  The man asked Allie where she was from and she said the United States, and then he said something to me in Chinese and I said “huh?” and he repeated it, and then I said I don’t speak Chinese.  He was taken aback and then said, “Oh sorry, I thought you were Chinese.”  I didn’t try to explain.  The rest of the ride was pretty silent; most people were asleep, and the rest of us were too tired to talk.  I’m not sure how, but the two plus hour ride that we took out to Yangshuo from the airport only took 30-45 minutes when we used another route. 

                We got to the airport and checked in.  Bryson, who had missed two of his flights out to Guilin (one he was late for and then the other one he missed because he underestimated how long it would take to get to another gate), found out that he was scheduled for a flight earlier in the day.  He went with a worker to try to figure out if he could get on our flight.  Meanwhile, the rest of us went to the gate to wait to board the plane.  We finally got on and this time I had a window seat!  Bryson ended up getting on our flight for those of you who were curious.  I couldn’t tell you if anything exciting happened during that flight because I was out cold, so the window seat was kind of wasted on me.  We got to Guangzhou and had a three hour layover.  Allie, Braden, and I went to a restaurant to get some lunch and then we made our way to the gate.  What I don’t think any of us anticipated was that we had to go to the part of the airport where international flights were.  We had to go through immigration and customs to get to our gate which took a decent amount of time, so we lucked out by going to the gate early.  When we got on the plane I realized I had a window seat again!  I felt like I was lucking out but then realized the plane was so empty that eventually the other people in my row went to their own set of seats; nonetheless having a whole row all to myself was nice.  We got to Hong Kong and had to take a train to Kowloon which was the island our ship was docked on.  We rode the train and when we got off we found fellow SASers getting off the train as well.  We all tried to figure out how to get to the ship when we decided to just start walking.  We were walking through various construction sites and taking detours to get to what looked like the main part of town.  We continued to walk until we came across the area that the ship was supposed to be docked.  The terminal of the port was basically a shopping mall with very high end type of shops; the part of the mall we walked by to get to the ship consisted of clothing for children, but I’m guessing it was crazy expensive.  We finally got to where the terminal was (which was at the very back of the terminal mall thing) and, as I was going through ship security, Sawyer and Kyle passed by and asked if I wanted to go grab something to eat.  I quickly rushed to my room to change and then went back out to meet up with them.  We walked around the terminal a while trying to find something appealing and affordable.  Some other SASers suggested some restaurant that they went to, and at this point the three of us were trying to hush the growls coming from our stomachs and just went there.  We got some pizza (which I have found to be quite the comforting food and have found myself craving pizza more and more) and some nasty carbonated water.  After dinner we were all pretty worn out and we all had field labs the next morning, so we decided to just go to bed.