So we’ve been in our location in China for a day but let me tell you about our journey.
Once again this journey took 38 hours (I’m wondering if all of our between-country journeys on the world race will take that long – I’m hoping they’ll be less but the likelihood is that there will be times when they’re more…).
- We got up to meet at 5am for a time of worship together (which of course means we got up before that) before a 5.30am breakfast followed by loading the coach with our bags and leaving at 6am.
- Our coach journey to the airport was about 2 hours, followed by a few hours in the airport before our 1.5 hour flight to Hong Kong (I watched 3 episodes of the Big Bang theory, which has become my in-flight entertainment if available on short-haul flights).
- In Hong Kong we eventually found our coach which took us for 2 hours to the border of China, for us to travel through (Matt’s guitar got broken by the x-ray machine :-(), before another 2 hours on to the train station.
- Unfortunately, having unloaded and headed in to the train station, we discovered that we had been dropped off at the wrong train station and the bus had left.
- Fortunately, there was an underground system connecting this wrong station to the correct one, for about 70p.
- Unfortunately, our train wasn’t that far in time from leaving.
- Fortunately, we made it there in time.
- Unfortunately, that involved running through a train station with about 25 kilos of weight on me.
- Fortunately our seats hadn’t been stolen (which we’re told does happen).
- Unfortunately, the train journey was 20 hours long and we had seats, not beds.
- So lots of waking and trying to sleep occurred for me. Raquel and I interchanged between being the role of a pillow and using a pillow. Dusty slept on the floor, his head below mine and Raquel’s seats and his feet below Jenn and Sara’s. I’m not great at sleeping in a seat (I might try sleeping pills next time) so only really got to doze a number of times.
- 20 hours later we got off the train and went out to find another coach. Another 2 and a half hours later…
Ta-da, here we are. We were met by a young, bright-eyed, smile-y Chinese girl who greeted us in Mandarin and who we assumed was just a local and walked past. Her mother then appeared and it turned out they are both American (Kristen is adopted).
It was long travel, but that’s all part of what the race is. We did get to pass beautiful mountains, open fields, cities and more, most of which you could only see about half a mile before the smog/fog hid everything else.
At one point in the early hours of the morning I found myself awake, feeling slightly ill (that happens when I’m deprived of sleep and my body starts to fail at regulating itself), thinking “if I can’t sleep, I can’t do this”. At that point I put on my iPod and stuck on Owl City’s cover of ‘In Christ Alone’ (if you haven’t heard it, go and YouTube it now) and I heard “He is my light, my strength, my song”. I was immediately encouraged and reminded that “I can’t do this” doesn’t matter, because it’s not me doing it, but rather God giving me strength.
