Rotterdam is HOME

Sydney-Hong Kong-Amsterdam was a 6 plus 13 hours trip with a 15 minutes short break for transfer. Flying 19 hours was indeed unbearable especially when the transfer was only 15 minutes due to the delay of Sydney-Hong Kong trip. Even Cathay Pacific (CX) doesn’t feel much better than KLM when my trips were both really long. A special note here: the food was crap! Dragon Air has better food!

What amazed me was how flights can be speed up. Here is the conversation I had with one of the staff from CX when I was in Sydney International Airport:
Me: I heard there is going to be a delay of the flight due to the breakdown of the luggage belt.
CX: No, not yet.
Me: I hope not because I have a connecting flight to catch 1.5 hours after we land in Hong Kong.
CX: Even though we do have delay here, we can catch up in the air.

Wow! Shortening the journey in the air?! Come to think of this idea, is there a speed limit for planes? I don’t have any knowledge in this area. (For example, how does a plane find its lane in the air?) But we did end up our journey 2 hours shorter than scheduled which is a quarter of the whole length!!! Then again, my Hong Kong-Amsterdam trip was 1 hour shorter. Amazing!

The rude shop assistants in the duty free shops in Schipol (Amsterdam International Airport) confirmed that I am in The Netherlands now. I do miss ‘Hey, how are ya?’ greetings in all shops in Australia. (Thought I was usually frightened by this sudden greeting and didn’t know what to reply. ;p) But the Dutch rudeness makes this country special as well. (Not judging I like it or not!)

Then I caught the train to Rotterdam Central then tram to Hofdijk (the building I am staying at). On the way, I saw a black family and a Japanese couple. This reminded me of a feeling I had when I was in Australia last month. (Maybe not many countries are like Australia. There was race riot just happened. And most of the white Australians probably still associate their country as a white people’s country. But I didn’t feel like a foreigner when moving around. I saw people from different ethnical groups hanging out together.)

The Netherlands is so different when it comes to multi-cultural or multi-ethnical compared to Australia. It is like cocktail here - not blended enough. And the Dutch now are wondering if they’ve been too tolerant to immigrants. Well…if you don’t want to integrate them, why let them come and your society suffer?

Finally I got home - for a minute, I was thinking which floor I lived. I had this smile on my face when I managed to open the door. Nobody is back from holiday yet. I unpacked, took shower, change my bed clothes, wrapped some gifts for some teammates and watched BBC news (this might be what I missed the most). Not that this country is easier to be compared to the rest I have been to. But like many other teammates, I do consider Rotterdam as home. So it is good to be back. ;-)

Sydney: New Year's Eve - Fireworks!

Finally I am leaving. It is a whole drama as how I ended up here since Nov 28th, 8 days earlier than I expected. Either life is drama or I need to take things easier.

Sitting in the airport, waiting to board - if we can still board on time, I heard there is going to be a delay (the 101st delay I’ve experienced), the city skyline looks so familiar and beautiful. Not that I have been here for long enough to claim that I am an Australian (I guess I would always love to be a Chinese), after 3 weeks good time in this city, everything grows on me at the end of the day. (So Rotterdam will have its own chance.)

Last night, all of us (approximately 50 @ers and our ‘stakeholders’) were at Cremorne Point watching fireworks from the Harbour. It was really exciting watching the beautiful fireworks. And those ‘hearts’ made of red lights made me feel love is everywhere. Yeah, it also reminded me of the movie ‘love actually’. (I wanted to watch it again this Christmas but somehow forgot to.)

Shanghai used to have fabulous fireworks at National Day. Or probably I grew up enough that fireworks doesn’t excite me any more. For the first time, I have an interesting feeling of spending New Year abroad. (Well…Christmas is not important for me. New Year is the start of a new calendar year when I always reflect what I’ve learnt and how I would like to move on. So it is very special for me.)

Australians were chanting and felt truly proud being Aussies. (Meanwhile they were very drunk, since they came to Cremorne Point to occupy a good spot since 11am. It also means they started drinking since then.) I did feel abroad and lonely. This is obviously not my country. And I was wondering how China is going to be in 2006 or more years to come. Are we still going to be the fastest growing economy? Even though how people’s life is going to be? How our society will become?

Meanwhile, realizing that I might spend more New Years abroad (just like this one) was an interesting feeling - hard to describe. It is indeed exciting since everything is different. Also I wonder how many more times the feeling of being a foreigner or outsider will strike me.

Naturally I need to make New Year Resolutions. Strange and funny enough, one of the first thing I thought about is love affair. While waiting for the fireworks, we (Mazzy, her sister, Tom, James and me) had this discussion that how having a girlfriend and boyfriend is perceived as success nowadays. How we return home for Christmas and being asked if we’ve got a partner! Well…I guess I want to be ‘successful’ as well in 2006. Haven’t got anything happen for 9 months already.

Also my cousin who is 2 years younger than me just got married a month ago. She has never dated anybody before. I still remember her as this innocent girl when I was seeing her off (she was leaving for France to study university) in April, 2003. And now I saw her wedding pictures online and she is a mature women. She has this part of experience which I don’t have.

I guess I am pressured. Or I do feel lonely. Yet I am still who I am - can’t and will not change. Oh well, I am sure I am still young and I do deserve the one I have been waiting for.

So that was my ‘dramatic’ New Year’s Eve celebration in Sydney. I slept at Tilly’s house again. It was wonderful seeing her parents once again. And I left about 10kg summer clothes in the MC apartment. ;-( So I still go back with 1 backpack and 1 piece of luggage. ;-) I am finally approaching home. I do miss my bed, my team (the office is always really noisy after 4pm every day), the weekend market, the routine life. Nevertheless, it was a lovely 3 months trip. After all, I am tanned and fatter (oops, ate too much) and hopefully more mature.