Go East: Memories of China- Part II

For some people you travel the world and see places you never thought you would see...A couple of months ago I traveled to China to see MsMinaInternational , who moved there recently. She moved to Zhuhai, which is a city on the southern coast. It's located in the Pearl River Delta as Hong Kong and Macau. Zhuhai is also one of China's premier tourist destinations, being called the Chinese Riviera. Today I want to talk about my experience traveling the first time to Asia and share some tips with you:

1. Preparation 

Traveling to China was pretty spontaneous. I found super affordable tickets with the Russian Airline Aeroflot one months before my trip.  If I had booked the flights for a later period, they would have been super expensive due to the Chinese New Year. So two tips here:

book your flights early or travel at a time where not a lot of other people are traveling to your destination! 

Next thing you want to do is to get a visa at the Chinese Embassy. There are plenty different visas depending on your purpose of your journey and what you want to do in China. I was flying out to Hong Kong and knew that I wanted to visit Macau later on. These two are special administrative regions of China, so that as a European Citizen I didn't need any Visa to get in. But I needed a visa to get into Zhuhai, which is in Mainland China. As I said, I wanted to visit Macau later on, which required to exit Mainland China. That's why I got a two- way entry visa to  get into Mainland China from Hong Kong, exit it to visit Macau and get back into it.

What kind of visa you have is really important, otherwise you get stuck at border control. So make sure you get the right one!

Depending on what region you are traveling to,

make sure you got the right vaccinations beforehand!

2. The journey

I started my journey on the29th of January. Since I traveled with Aeroflot, my first stop was from Zurich to Moscow. Unfortunately, the plane was an hour delayed, which was the exact time to get my connecting flight to Hong Kong. So I was pretty much panicking and running as fast as I could. It didn't really help that the airport was packed with people. Luckily they knew at the airport that my plane was delated and helped me to skip the lines. And fortunately I made it to the plane.

It took me in total 13 hours to get to Hong Kong.

It was a pleasant flight with a good entertainment program. Though my legs started to hurt due to the long hours of sitting. So I can just advice everyone to keep your legs moving from time to time on the plane. When I arrived at Hong Kong airport, I had to make my way to Zhuhai. And now comes what just blew my mind:

Ferries are leaving directly from the Hong Kong Airport to Zhuhai and other destinations in the Pearl River Delta.

So right after I left the plane, I just had to go to the ticket counter for the ferries and get a ticket. They even took care of my luggage. I only needed to give them my plane ticket and they put my luggage on the ferry and I could pick it up in Zhuhai.

But then the next shock: My luggage was stuck in Moscow due to the delated plane!

At the end, everything turned out well. They delivered my luggage a day later to my address. But that taught me a lesson:

Have some necessaries, like underwear, in your hand luggage!

3. My memories in photos

I spend solid 10 days in Southern China and got a feeling for it. Though I guess there is much more to see and experience, especially when you live there. Therefore, check out MsMinaInternational's new life in China. Here are some of my memories of Zhuhai in pictures. Stay tuned for more experiences in Part III of this series. But for now enjoy the pictures:

xo, MadVoyage