another departure another arrival
And this is where I learned that Hong Kong, as exciting as it is, is actually the easy option.
Chek Lap Kok is big, but so efficient, so well laid-out. I found my way to the gate and my colleagues. We boarded the plane.
This did not start a love affair with China Southern Airlines.
The plane was a Boeing 737 from memory. I was well familiar with the 737-200s still in service with Air New Zealand. This was a slightly newer model, a 737-300, I believe, so newer, better, quieter engines. But the interior was dark, dingy, crowded. The inflight meal was a packet of biscuits thrown at me. I can't remember if the drink was actually thrown, too, but I was careful about opening the can.
I don't remember too much of Changsha airport, but I have a lingering impression of standing in a queue in a small room, men in green uniforms (this was 1999, when Chinese police uniforms were still green and vaguely military-looking) standing around the edges, some of them armed, and some at a desk. Then being on the other side of customs with luggage and my colleagues meeting the delegation from our school. Then we were outside loading ourselves and our luggage onto an Iveco minibus.
I sat in what we later called the "suicide seat" - the front passenger seat on the righthand side, the seat that gave you a perfect view of everything that nearly hit the bus, or that the bus narrowly missed. We raced down the highway and through the city streets. In my jetlagged state it felt like I was seeing other motor vehicles, bicycles, water buffalo, and pedestrians all coming from every possible direction all at once for the entire journey.
And then the restaurant for dinner. You may have heard that the food in Hunan Province tends to be a bit on the spicy side. There is a joke floating around China comparing the spiciness of three different regions - in Shaanxi, it's 辣，不怕 - spicy, I'm not afraid. In Sichuan, it's 不怕辣 - I'm not afraid of spice. In Hunan it's 怕不辣 - I'm afraid of food that is not spicy. And this meal was straight in the deep end. You know that Simpsons episode in which Lisa becomes vegetarian and then she ends up dining with Paul and Linda McCartney and Apu on the roof of the Kwik-E Mart, and Apu gives her something really spicy to eat, and Lisa is tripping balls and says something like "I can see through time"? I may have experienced something similar in that meal.
Then to the small apartment building on campus in which we were housed, and a crash.
The next morning I was awoken at around 7am by the sound of martial music playing over a loudspeaker in the distance. I looked out my window at a sea of densely-packed apartment buildings in a light smog and warm humidity. At some point somebody managed to get all of us together, take us to the staff cafeteria, get us fed, and then begin some form of an induction process.