Day 1 - Oct 15, 2006: Departure and Arrival

Finally the day came. Funny, I felt pretty normal this time. Not much excitement, nor was there any pressure or nervousness about the competition. Maybe competitions had become a norm or a routine.

Left: The luggages I brought along.

It's not much, only 3 bags. 2 to be sent into cargo, and 1 hand carry.

My plane was scheduled for take-off at 0800 which means I had to reach the airport by 0600. To do that, I left my house by 0500.

At the airport, things were pretty smooth though there were some minor hiccups. I saw 2 of my teammates already there. I know the 2 because we're from the same association and we trained together. These are the 2 that I'll be taking care off while in China. It's when your the senior you're expected to take care of the younger ones. You can say that I'll be baby-sitting them as well.

One of them forgot to bring a competition declaration form which were supposed to be submitted but we never did and she also left her passport sized photos for the form at home. Ok, no need to panic. This isn't a big matter, so I'll save the details.

For the rest of the team, I don't even know a single one of them. We checked-in after the whole team Malaysian team arrived, which consist of only 9 people this time, a huge drop in numbers when almost 100 people participated in the competition 2 years ago. And of the 9, only 5 are competing. The rest are there on leisure and for Wushu examination which will take place right after the competition.

We're scheduled to transit from Shenzhen to Zhengzhou City, Henan. The flight to Shenzhen was estimated to take 3 and a 1/2 hours while from Shenzhen to Zhengzhou takes about 2 hours. The moment we touched-down at Shenzhen airport and adjourned to the entry counter, I had a big shock. Just look at the photo below.
I think they meant "Visa For Foreigners". Suddenly I felt very alienated after seeing that sign.

I can now imagine the level of English to expect from them.

Earlier, one left a form and photos, this time, the other gal left all the entry and declaration forms in the plane. She had to refill them. Luckily, there was no delay in the process. Otherwise, we'll have to wait for her and risk the chance of missing our next flight. And just as things didn't get even more hilarious, I sent a SMS to Alex (my sifu - if you didn't know) informing him of our arrival at Shenzhen airport. In his reply, he just reminded us to take care of our weapons and luggage. Right after I showed the 2 gals the message, this was the conversation that took place:

Eng: See... Alex only said to take care of the weapons and luggage. He didn't ask me to take care
of you 2. So you'll have to take care of yourself.
T: No no, you must take care of us.
Eng: No I don't.
T: Yes you do.
Eng: Why is that?
T: Because I'm the weapon and she (while pointing to the other gal) is the luggage.

I was swept off my feet. I became speechless....

The whole transiting process had been quite a rush. Fortunately, we have some experienced travellers so many of the complications were avoided or solved.

As we finally reached Zhengzhou, the organisers has already arranged a bus to fetch us to the hotel. The city were decorated with many banners and posters of the competition. It's a huge event here in China but back in Malaysia, this was hardly heard of. And to illustrate to you how huge this is, imagine seeing a signboard on the competition which was almost 2 times the height and 5 times the width of our Malaysian highway signboard. And almost every taxi in the city has the competition emblem stuck at the rear side window with every lamp post decorated with the banner below.
Interestingly, the traffic lights look like this. How it works? I don't know.

The city is an industrial area. So the air is more poluted compared to Malaysia. With winter coming, the air has some mist which makes it hard to tell whether the air is filled with haze or mist.

When we reached the hotel and after checking in, we brought our bags up to our room and then had our dinner.

Below: This is the hotel.














The hotel is called Song Yang Hotel. At the main entrance hung this banner as shown in the picture on the above.

The food served here are extra oily and salty. And the water... worst. It's so diluted that imagine drinking an orange juice with 1:10. That's one portion of the juice, 10 portion of added water. And it's all warm as well. All drinks that were served were warm. After dinner, my nightmare begins.

Firstly, we found out that both my events will take place tomorrow. One in the morning and another in the afternoon. Blast!!! There was no time for me to get used to the environment and carpet condition (the competition takes place on 2 huge carpets combined and I've not been on the carpet for almost 4 years already).

OK fine. I took things easy. But things aren't getting any easier or better. One of my padlock broke. I could not get it to open and I had to prepare my things for competition the next day. After some moment of trying, I went down to the reception for help. Luckily they have some technicians on standby. They saw my lock open. Yaye!!! problem solved. So things are set, items are packed... and it's time to rest.

But darn, now I can't sleep. I have this problem of not being able to sleep on a first few nights away from home. No, this is not homesick. Just that I could not get used to the bed and I wasn't feeling tired enough to sleep. Instead of rolling around on my bed, I went down to the lobby for a walk (China don't use Ground Floor like us or the British. They uses First Floor like the Americans).

Just as I left my room, I saw my team leader who then handed me my athlete tag and some meal coupons. I was also given the responsibility to pass over those items to my 2 gals (sigh... my responsibility can't seem to end). Below: the athlete tag.

Downstairs, I saw a local English daily on one of the shelf and just grab it to read. It's a business paper and who would have thought that I'll be actually reading news about Proton and Malaysian stocks. Hehehe... it's not that I'd care and I can't remember what the news was about. After that, I returned to my room to rest even if I can't sleep. And gosh, my roommate can sure snore and it's a terribly loud one too.

My roommate and I.














End of Day 1.