(*disclaimer: I wrote this blog the day after we landed in Cairns. However, I never posted it. I took my computer with me to Cairns and had the best of intentions to blog while there, but I got lazy, and this is the only blog that I ever wrote. I’ll try my best to get caught up this week!*)
This has been the weirdest Christmas ever. Every single Christmas pre-2011 was the same: Midnight Mass with the family, presents on Christmas morning, feasting in the afternoon, family game or movie time that night. Last year was my first year away from home. It was weird not to do those things. However, this year has definitely been the most different. Christmas in Australia…….where it’s summertime….QUITE different!
My Christmas vacation is a full two weeks….HURRAY! It started last Saturday, and thanks to the Emperor’s birthday, we had a three day weekend. We spent Christmas Eve packing and finishing up last minute things before leaving Yunomae in the dust. (I actually had to take some of my summer clothes out of storage!!) Knowing that we’d be traveling on Christmas Day, we skyped our families and friends on Christmas Eve. Later that night we met up with Mollee and Melissa in Hitoyoshi for Christmas Eve dinner at Cafe Gusto. Then Melissa, Ian, and I went to Christmas Eve Mass at 7PM (below, left), Baskin Robbins for ice cream, and back to Melissa’s to watch a movie and eat Christmas cookies (below, right).
Christmas Day was a blast! From the moment we woke up, we were giddy and excited knowing that our Australian vacation finally had arrived! 
We loaded down the car and ate delicious homemade banana bread that Melissa had made on our way to Kumamoto City to pick up Mary. Since Mary has the bigger car, we transferred our luggage into her car, and she drove to Fukuoka. As promised in an earlier blog, Ian and I wore our Santa hats all day through the airports. Several people stared, giggled, and we even got a few “Merry Christmas” wishes from flight attendants and other airport workers.
I felt super sorry for the China Eastern (our airline) employee who checked us in. Ian, Melissa, and I all checked in together since our tickets were booked together. We lumbered up to the counter together, and as we did, I’m sure our airline employee’s heart beat a little faster. She was a trainee, and I think the fact that Melissa and I share the same first and middle names, and Ian and I have the same last name completely and utterly confused her. If that wasn’t a big enough issue, our pictures were so completely different from how we currently look. Ian’s passport picture was taken when he was seventeen. He looks like a gaunt baby Ian! In Melissa’s picture, she has blonde hair. In my picture, I have long hair and no glasses (so that I don’t have the issue of dry eyes, I never wear my contacts when I fly). Bless her heart! It took her about twenty minutes to get everything sorted through, and she apologized profusely. We didn’t care. We had more than enough time and understood that she was training.
None of us have ever been to or through China or flown on a Chinese airline…...so the experience was…..QUITE different. For one, we were surprised to have lunch served to us on the tiny hour and a half flight from Fukuoka to Shanghai. (Side note: Fukuoka’s airport code is FUK. Shanghai’s airport is called Pu Dong, so we flew from FUK to Pu Dong. *giggles*) In the States, you’d be lucky to get a drink service on that short of a flight!! To make it even more interesting…it was Chinese airline food….not the best in the world. We joked and said that it was our Christmas dinner! 
The main course was a shrimp noodle dish. I automatically couldn’t eat that due to my shellfish allergy. 
There was a side dish of…..something. I didn’t eat it because I thought I saw a few red flakes, and I was afraid that it might contain crab or shrimp meat. The dessert was some type of pudding. I didn’t try it because Melissa said that it tasted like plain gelatin…. My saving grace of the meal was a tiny cup of watermelon. Neither Melissa nor Ian wanted theirs, so I ate that.
Even though we didn’t leave the airport in the seven hours we were in Shanghai, I’m claiming the fact that I’ve been to China! 
It might have been only seven hours, but I feel like we learned a LOT about China and Chinese culture in that short amount of time. I might be stereotyping, but I thought that all east Asian cultures were similar, (passive, indirect, quiet, group mentality, etc) but spending the day in China definitely taught me differently! China is not one of those countries that you want to joke around in, and we QUICKLY realized that. As soon as we got off the plane, things were SOOOOO much different than Japan! Our plane did one of those stop-in-the-middle-of-the-tarmac-and-everyone-board-a-bus-to-the-terminal things, so right off the bat I noticed that China drives on the right side of the road like America. I didn’t realize that! While on the bus, I observed a woman speaking rather loudly on the phone….which I thought was very, very strange. Actually, the noise level on the bus was rather loud. (In Japan, no matter where you go the noise level is always very, very quiet.) When we got to the terminal, our first order of business was going to the “transit flights” counter and then on through security. Our first taste of Chinese culture was at this counter. All they did was check our passport and that we had a connecting flight boarding pass and then point us in the next direction. However, it was the mannerism in which they did it. It was almost like being at home in the States. They were extremely direct, and it seemed like they hated their jobs and lives. Not one word was spoken during this transaction, and then they pointed us to the next checkpoint. (Had this happened in Japan, the airline officials would have at least smiled, been super polite, and probably even bowed to us.) It was reeeeeeeally weird. Never in my life have I walked through such a quiet airport. Ian was separated from us, but Melissa, Mary, and I were almost wondering if we went the wrong way……..just because it was so quiet and abandoned looking. We had to walk through several hallways until we got to a security checkpoint. Just like the previous airport employees, these guys weren’t joking around and were downright rude and scary. (Just like TSA agents!)
Mary studied Chinese and Chinese culture while in college, so once we settled down at our gate, she told us a little about it. Chinese culture is apparently (unlike Japanese culture) VERY direct and to the point. I can appreciate the directness, (because the indirectness of Japan often gets on my nerves) but it came across as very rude. Mary also told us that the Chinese are loud…..it’s just part of their culture to get loud when talking. After being in quiet Japan where no one dares to raise their voice above a casual chatting voice, it came as quite a surprise to see the Chinese shouting at one another! Another thing that surprised us about China was the store clerks. Since we had such a long layover, we wandered around in the airport browsing in and out of shops. In whatever shop we went into, the clerks pretty much followed us around trying to get us to buy things. If we pointed at something or expressed any interest at all in an item, the clerks seemed ready to start bagging it up for us……even though we didn’t want to buy it. When we were looking for restaurants to eat dinner at, we’d ask to see a menu before sitting down. As we stood (literally) with one foot in the restaurant and one in the main drag of the airport just browsing at the menu, a server pounced on us, ready to take our order.
Our flight left at 9PM and arrived in Cairns around 9AM the following morning. Thanks to the magical powers of melatonin, Ian and I enjoyed a fairly good night’s sleep on the plane. When we left Shanghai, it was about 40 degrees. When we arrived in Cairns, it was about 90. 
To go from one season to another within a day was certainly a change! We left Shanghai in winter coats and arrived in Cairns sweating! Before we even left the airport, we could feel the humidity in the air. To say that it was HOT is an UNDERSTATEMENT.
Our first impression of Australia wasn’t exactly the happiest. While we were excited to be in Aussie-land, customs and quarantine seemed MUCH more strict than the States. For example, before the plane even landed, the stewards were required by law to go through the cabin and spray some type of bug spray to kill any critters that might have accidentally boarded. Australian law requires ALL incoming flights to do that. Although the custom sheet seemed easier to fill out than the American one, we had to claim ANY food that we brought with us into the country. If you have a snickers bar on you, you have to claim it. If you have a package of cookies to give someone as a gift, you have to claim it. If you have a package of airplane peanuts that you were saving for a later snack, you have to claim it. You get the idea…… For the most part, the Aussies don’t mind you bringing in the food, but you HAVE to claim it. Ian and I both made it through passport control okay, (we got another stamp on our passport…..YESSSSSS!!) BUT on the other side of the counter was a security guard randomly stopping and checking people. Guess who he just so happened to stop and ask? Us! I guess we looked suspicious. (I hate situations like this because I panic. Whenever any authority figure starts asking questions, my stress level immediately goes up…..even though I haven’t done anything! The guy could have asked me my name, and I probably would have said something like “Um….uh…I…um…Melissa Reed.” Yeah….that doesn’t look suspicious at all! 
) He asked us what we were doing in Australia (vacation), when we booked our flights (September), how long we were staying (eleven days), where we were staying (Cairns City Backpackers), what we planned on doing (explore the reef and rain forest, shop, and enjoy the beach), etc before allowing us to go through quarantine. Ian and I once again got randomly selected for a luggage search. They made us line up against a wall with about fifteen other people, put all of our luggage on the floor, and allow the cute little beagle to sniff our bags for illegal items. We passed the test, and after that Cairns awaited us through a set of glass doors!
I’m going to stop here because that concludes our travels to Australia. In the next couple of blogs there will be tales of biking to tropical waterfalls and exploring the Great Barrier Reef. Stay tuned!
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