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So I just got back from China. But I only just survived.
Who would have thought that they have Waynes in China too. I called them Chayne – Chinese Wayne.
Chayne picked me up at the Airport in Shanghai, then proceeded to weave through 8 lanes of traffic all the way to my alleged hotel. It was impressive really, to constantly veer in front of cars and trucks at high speed whilst consistently spitting out the window and hitting the horn like a poker machine.
I say alleged hotel because we arrived at what seemed like a dodgy back alley. I had no Chinese. He had no English. Eventually I found the hotel number, called it and handed the phone over to him.
Thankfully, the hotel receptionist magically appeared and all was sorted.
Did I mention that it was eleventy billion degrees?
It was still eleventy billion degrees at 7am the next morning as I boarded the hotel shuttle to Shanghai Disneyland. You may remember that the original premise of the Festival of Tina was to go to all the Disneylands. So this was #4 of 6. I was pretty excited despite the heat.
There was relentless sweating and copious queuing but Disneyland is still and will always be, the happiest place on earth.
Chinese Disneyland has its own style. My favourite ride at every Disneyland is Space Mountain. In Shanghai, this is called Tron, and I actually got to ride a motorbike. It was very cool. And I will never say the word cool again in this story.
I have literally never been so hot. And not in a good way. I was so hot that I watched every Disney Musical Show I could find, despite them all being in Chinese, because I could sit down in an air conditioned theatre. Chinese Frozen. Unforgettable and ironic.
And what was the highlight of Shanghai Disneyland?
The Cheesecake Factory. I have never, ever enjoyed a Cosmopolitan so much in all my life. Maybe three.
FYI, two days at Shanghai Disneyland was probably too much but I will deny this if ever asked.
On Tuesday morning I boarded the Hotel Shuttle to Shanghai Pudong Airport. I realised about 10 minutes into the drive that my flight left from the other Shanghai Airport, the one that was very far away from where I was.
A lovely Chinese 10-year old and her Mum did their best to help me explain all this to the driver, but in the end I just had to get out at the airport and take the only very slow train in China, to the correct location.
I arrived at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport just as my plane was taking off. I thought about that time 10 years ago when Rowan and I accidently bought flights from Avalon Airport in Melbourne. Which is in fact, nowhere near Melbourne. So this time, I did exactly the same thing, shrugged my shoulders and said “oh well”.
At that moment I was also very glad I had splashed out on Business Class. The lovely people from Juneyao Airlines were excellent. They booked me on the next flight and sent me off to the Lounge to wait in comfort. With wine.
I arrived in Chengdu at 4.40pm, trying not to stress as the first match for the Australian Crocs in the World Games was at 5.30pm.
My bag came off first and I rushed to the taxi line. I arrived at the ground just in time to hear the first point scored and was in my seat not long after.
Spoiler alert, the Crocs lost their three pool matches, which was disappointing for them. But they came good in the finals and ended up winning their final two games. They finished 5th.
The highlight of the week was the Aussie supporters. We were small but mighty. And it seems that the Chinese love Australians. We had plenty of help from our Chinese hosts in the Aussie Aussie Aussie chant.
The funniest stuff happened away from the field.
So, I’d left Shanghai at 6am on Tuesday, went to the wrong airport, missed my flight, finally got to Chengdu, abandoned my bag at the front gate of the World Games so I wouldn’t miss the first match, then watched the game. They lost. By this time it was 9pm. I was starving. We all went to KFC and got a burger. It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted.
Finally it was time to find a Didi (uber) and make the 1.5 hour trip into the city to my hotel. I booked the trip. The app makes you pay in advance. I did that. I was standing on a street corner in the dark. My driver turned up, got out of his car and started yelling at me in Chinese. I had no clue what he was saying. I got out the translation app and tried to work it out. Some of the other supporters heard the commotion and came over. Anna used a translation app with voice recording. We both looked at the translation of what old mate just said.
And I wasn’t even wearing my TWAT hat! We burst out laughing. Anna and her Mum, Kate said: “You come with us Tina”. I did.
The rest of the week was spent sweating and screaming.
But. There was one really big elephant in the room. Click here if you want to know what it was.
Anyway, I flew back to Australia via Shanghai again, went to the correct airport and even tried out this very cool train called the MagLev.
Which brings me back to the lounge in Thirroul. I have been WOWiFFLing.
What is WOWiFFLing? It is Working Out What I Fucking Feel Like. Because I realised that a lot of the time, I just don’t know. Maybe a cosmo will help.
