The Philippines was a lot harder to leave than I thought it was going to be. I definitely have to admit to tears coming. It was tough to leave the relationships that I had formed there, but there is hope because I can always go back. I know that God will watch out for my new friends as I pray for them and they walk into further relationship with Christ.
Now onto China; which is a whole new animal. We flew from the Philippines to Hong Kong and then took a bus ride into mainland, the city of Guangzhou. We then got on a train and took a 24houe plus train ride to the city of Lanzhou.
The train ride was one of the weirdest experiences I have ever had. After the mad rush to the train where everyone is pushing and shoving trying to get on the train first we get to our sleeper cab. This is just a room with no door with 3 beds on each wall. There is a hall bordering the cab, which is how you get from train car to train car. So after we load all of our bags onto the storage compartment we get set into our cab. Then who walks in, but two cops with a handcuffed man! Talk about unbelievable. There are a total of about 14 of us, only two guys. David and I decide to take shifts since we have no idea what is going on and we don’t want the girls to freak out. We later find out the guy had killed someone!
Later on during the train ride the train stewardess came and started hand gesturing and talking in Chinese at the bags. This happened multiple times during the ride because our bags were so big and all over the place. It is quite a challenge trying to decipher what people want when you don’t speak the same language. Eventually of course they got their point across and she actually ended up helping us a lot.
Finally after the longest travel day we have had so far, trains, buses, and planes we reached Lanzhou, which wasn’t even our final destination. Talk about an intense first experience with China.
