On September 1st, I hurried myself into the airport.
I was to be flying alone for the second time in my life. It was nerve-racking to say the least. What made me more anxious, was the multiple sources and warnings telling me of a T10 typhoon moving over Hong Kong. I was expected in Guangzhou -half an hour with car from Hong Kong-, so I was scared.
The first flight was about 7 hours with Finnair. I unfortunately got seated at the back of the plane, in the middle of everything, so I didn’t get much sleep. The service was excellent though and made up for my lack of movements.
The first flight landed in Doha, Qatar. I had a 3-hour layover after which I continued to Guangzhou.
The second flight was also around 7 hours and yet again I sat in the middle seat in the middle row. This time there were two nice ladies around me who I got along with well, so I slept peacefully through most of the flight. The food on the second flight with Qatar Airlines was really good -Asian chicken with rice and mango pudding, served with complimentaries such as juices, bread and salad.
I landed in Guangzhou, China about 40 minutes late from schedule, around 4pm (UTC+5). The process of getting into the country took a while because of the amount of foreigners arriving and because of all the official documents and forms. I was two and a half hours late when I left the airport.
A driver was waiting for me with a name sign and we headed off into the aftermath of the typhoon Saola. It had passed through yesterday but the rain was still the most intense one I have ever seen. At times it looked like the cars were swimming.
I made it safely to the hotel and was greeted with a warm welcome from Jenny -the family’s nanny.
We made our way to the 16th floor on the apartment side of the building. Yet again a warm welcome, this time from the animals. One of them I had already met in Finland and she seemed to remember me.
The apartment has a view of the Canton tower, located in the heart of the city.
Thanks for reading the first update of my trip to China! <3
If you have any questions you can leave them in the comments or send a message through Instagram. And if there are any requests for me to make blogs in Finnish, I will in the future. Let me know! 🙂
