Last blog before I'm in China!

So after all of this hard work with fundraising, the time has finally come to leave England in a China direction!

I'm leaving home today and will be staying the night at Heathrow in order to get an early start for the flight. The first flight will be around 7 hours to Abu Dhabi airport (which apparently has an amazing roof) where we will wait for two hours, before another 7 hour flight to Beijing. Earlier today we were emailed the schedule of what we'll be doing while we're in Beijing and it sounds so fun.
We arrive at about 9am on saturday and we'll be met by Alicia and Mike (our China reps.. they're people who are linked to PT who can look after us a bit while we're in China) and they will take us to the hostel. We get a chance to freshen up before dashing off to Tiananmen Square for the day! We've been warned about pickpocketing in the area though so it might be a bit scary.. I'll let you all know how that went on in my next blog! We will then all go out for a meal in the evening at Yunnan Restaurant - my dad looked it up on google and apparently they often have a few cats wandering around the restaurant, which is reassuring as it means that they aren't in fact on our plates!
The following day will be filled with cooking classes and 'scavenger hunts'. I assume this is where they give us a list of things to get and we have to try our best to talk to people and work out where to get things, how much they cost and how to get back to the hostel! That evening we will head off to stay at the Great Wall guesthouse.. Then surprise surprise, the day after will be spent walking around the Great Wall! Apparently you can toboggan down it too. So that's definitely happening. Later that day we will be given a Chinese Language class and then will eat out again at a restaurant specialising in Peking Duck. So excited for that.
Tuesday will be spent in meetings with important people and then eating with them in the evening.. that's basically all we've been told for that day so either it'll be pretty boring OR there will be surprises and it'll be SO fun! Let's hope it's the latter.
Then on the Wednesday we will leave the hostel bright and early to go to Beijing West Railway Station. This is where 27 will become 17 and the long long train journey to the west of China will begin. The 10 volunteers going to Zhangye in the province of Gansu will get off at 4:54am on Thursday 30th and me and the 6 other volunteers going all the way to Urumqi in Xinjiang will stay on the train until 7:59pm. So that's a pretty long journey. Then we'll be separating into our pairs and threes and we will hop on a bus for 4 hours to get to Kuitun.

So that's the plan for the next week! I'll be keeping busy I assure you.
As far as getting ready to actually leave goes, I think I'm packed. After 3 practise packs which weighed in at 15kg, I felt pretty confident. But as soon as it was time for the final pack, my bag suddenly put on over 10kg. Which isn't cool. So I've had to say bye to numerous pairs of jeans and hoodies and boots and things.. it's a sad time for us all. However, now my bag is bang on 23kg so hopefully I'll be allowed in the country!

I've said bye to all of my friends, old friends and most of my family now. It's strange saying bye for a year because usually you just expect to bump into them.. it still hasn't hit me that I won't be bumping into anyone I know for a year.. or anyone English come to that!
But I will have such an amazing year and can't wait to live with my partners and work out how to live in a completely different country.

SO thank you for reading this far. It's lovely that people are interested and care about what I'm doing! And if you've helped me in any way to get to this stage where I've raised the money and am saying bye, then thank you so much.
Have a brilliant year and I wish you all the luck!

I will hopefully keep you posted on what's happening but it may be an issue trying to sort out internet or banned websites or something.. so bare with me!

The boy.

So the last week I basically spent time with my boyfriend at his house as he left for Honduras earlier today... If you didn't know already, he's going to Honduras for a year with Project Trust, like me. We're both teaching english but the main difference is that he's learning Spanish and I'm learning Chinese while we're out there... Also he leaves about 3 weeks before I do!
Anyway. He had his leaving party on friday which was basically a whole day thing - people came at 2ish and we had snacks and a water fight and watched some of the Olympics and then in the evening the party started with some Just Dance, some alcohol and a lovely BBQ! By the end of it, everyone was shattered and people had to begin to leave. Which was really pretty emotional... It suddenly became really real for him that he wasn't going to be seeing all of these people for a year and many tears were shed. It was also pretty sad for me as I've gotten really close to his friends and it was kind of a goodbye for me too!
Then yesterday, we had a last minute panic shop in Basingstoke, he had a last minute hair cut and then we had to come home for last minute packing! It was all very stressful.. and in the end we watched too much of the Olympics and didn't do enough packing.. so we finished at about 3am. Not fun.
The best bit half way through the packing, probably at around 1am was when still a lot of his stuff was laid over the sitting room floor and we were just looking over what was needed to be done. Then all of a sudden his mum walked in, holding a tray and just said 'I made you custard!'. Basically they made a list of food that he wanted before he left and apparently custard was on the list. So there we go. We were given late night custard. It was lovely.
We were more or less ok emotion-wise previously, but once we finished packing and headed up to bed, the crying began. We were just lying there and listening to music while slightly dissolving in tears... It was hitting me even stronger that he was going and we wouldn't see each other for a year, but I guess I still didn't fully believe it.
We woke up this morning at 6:45 - 45 minutes later than planned! We wanted to leave at 7 so it was a VERY rushed morning... We had our cereal in the car though which was exciting.. The milk was flying everywhere! Brilliant. Once we got to the airport we soon met up with the group of people who he was going to Honduras with, including his partner Jameel. After about an hour of sitting around the airport, he checked in and booked his bags on the plane. However there was a scary moment where he lost his passport. He emptied his hand luggage bag all over the front of the queue (everybody was waiting for him) and then he found it! In his pocket. What a fool.
Shortly after this, the group decided to go to the next stage of the morning and leave the people who came to drop them off. Chris hugged his family goodbye and it was all pretty sad.. his dad was manly but kind, his mum cried and his big brother was manly and laughed. We then had our goodbye hug and kiss and cry for about 2 or 3 minutes.. When I say cry, I was surprisingly emotionless... he did all the crying. I knew that he was going and I would see or talk to him for a long long time, it just didn't completely hit me. So he left and my parents came and then it hit me. After him walking away for about 5 seconds I was a blubbering wreck so had to go again for goodbye number 2. He got my hair wet and I got his neck/shoulder wet and we then parted for good.

So that's that. The next time we see each other will be at the same airport but in a year's time, and our years away will be over... So surreal.

So now I just can't wait for me to actually leave. When I'm still at home it feels as though I should be able to talk to him or for him to be round the corner but when I'm in a new, exciting place, I'm sure it'll be much easier.