We knew we were in for a very long day. Our Shanghai Airlines flight would take us from Shanghai far north to the well known city of Harbin via Jining. We would then catch a China Southern flight from Harbin south to Guangzhou just north of Hong Kong, arriving in the very early hours of the morning. The good news was that our flight to Harbin left Shanghai at a very civilised hour of 11:20 am, and that we had plenty of time between connections. Far too much time as it happened....

Our Shanghai Airlines flight was very pleasant. Again, we were fortunate to be travelling in the first row seats in Business Class where there was plenty of room for Alan's long legs. And the food was surprisingly good for a day flight.

Just after lunch we descended into Jining, a city in the north-east Shandong Province. An attractive flat rural landscape housed a patchwork of orderly farming enterprises, dotted with numerous cluster settlements and interspersed by large canals. Vast areas of mining could be seen closer to the city. From an aerial view, the farming still appeared to be based on a communal system with no obvious single properties.

We had not heard much about Jining and expected it to be a middle sized city - which I suppose in terms of China statistics, it is! Jining is in fact a prefecture level city housing a population of some 8 million people. This is where it is difficult for us Australians to get our heads around the staggering relativity of the Chinese population. It is almost double the population of our largest city of Sydney. And it is not even a capital city (Jinan is in fact the capital of Shandong Province with around 9 million people). 

A largely industrial port city located on The Great Canal of China, the surrounding area of Jining is famous also for its picturesque lakes, wetlands, parks and wildlife. It is also known as the Holy Land of Chinese Confucian and Taoist Culture, being once home to China's five saints of philosophy - Confucius, Mencius, Zengzi, Yanhui and Zisi.

We did not fly over Jining city itself, landing at nearby Qufu Airport where we would wait for just an hour before our flight to Harbin. Obviously, we could not obtain any feel for Jining city and its surrounds, but our short time at Qufu Airport will always hold fond memories.

There was nothing all that eye catching about Qufu Airport, except that it was larger and much more impressive than we had anticipated. 

What was noticeable however, was that we were the only foreigners in the entire airport. And from the curious gazes from the local people waiting for the Harbin flight, it was obvious we were quite a rarity. 

A group of people sitting opposite us looked like a farming family. Tanned and wiry they appeared to be dressed in their best clothes for the Harbin flight. And they were all very excited. 

One of the men in the group sat staring at me, unashamedly moving so close that there must have been no more than a meter between us. It was not in any way offensive. He just looked totally fascinated. 

One of the couples was very friendly and inquisitive. The woman wore a brilliant ruby silk embroidered top over baggy black trousers and a man, presumably her husband, wore a loose embroidered long over shirt. A young woman wearing "ripped off at the thighs" denim shorts and a t-shirt printed with something like "New World Economics - You Suck" accompanied them.

It was not long before the group began to try to communicate with us, asking through the young woman's halting English what country we were from and to where we were travelling. That was just too complicated, so we just replied "Harbin". And then they opened up a large bag full of beautiful ripe apricots, insisting that we took some. And they were not content with us taking just one each. We were plied with fruit. It was indeed one of the nicer experiences and so typical of the friendliness we have found from Chinese people.  

We often talk about the unfortunate stereotyping of the Chinese in terms of "lots of faceless people" that we hear so frequently from those in our home country of Australia. And most disappointingly it is often heard from educated and supposedly informed members of society. In our experience, we have found them to be friendly, helpful and unbelievably honest - especially those in the rural areas of the country.

As we waited for our flight, we watched the crowds starting to mill around the Departure Gate. Interested, we watched young people in fashionable "ripped around the knees" denim jeans and others wearing see-through tuille dresses over t-shirts and jeans. The dresses were certainly "all the go" and we were to see them all through our travels in China, and especially in Shanghai.

Our China Eastern Airlines flight was slightly early and in no time we were boarded. It was all very efficient and most impressive to actually be ahead of time.

Alan on taking his seat, unfortunately knocked his wrist and broke his watchband, parts of which ended up on the aircraft floor. If it had not been so annoying it would have been hilarious watching Alan and the kind flight attendant on their hands and knees looking for the vital watch strap parts. It was sadly hopeless and for Alan who is so wristwatch dependent, it was a real nuisance.

This incident may sound like a minor mishap, but it did have a rather nice outcome - in Grozny of all places...

As we were changing airlines in Harbin, we of course had to retrieve our luggage and check in at the China Southern Airlines desk. Our flight would take us to Guangzhou where we would be spending the evening then flying on the Moscow the next morning. 

Sometimes Alan's frequent misfortunes at airports can be quite useful. His luggage apparently triggered the alarm system of the baggage scanners, and he was summoned into a check in office where his bag had to be opened and thoroughly searched. This is nothing unusual for Alan... What was unusual was that it gave us an opportunity to read the baggage tags which indicated that our luggage had been booked all the way through the Moscow. 

Now, if you wanted this to happen it never would. There have been countless times when we have asked for our luggage to be booked through to an ongoing destination to be told a firm "This is not possible". But on this occasion we would obviously need our luggage for our night in Guangzhou.

Despite it being only a matter of some ten minutes or so since we had checked in, the counter staff told us it was impossible to reverse the process. Our luggage had gone and that was that. After some pretty hefty insistence, the problem was quickly resolved and we managed to book our luggage through to just Guangzhou. We did wonder however, whether the process had been successful....

Business Class lounges in China can be pretty woeful. But Harbin was just about as bad as they get. Not only was it shabby but there was very little food and worse still - no alcohol at all! Usually, it is possible to get a glass of beer or wine but not in Harbin. We began to wonder why we bothered travelled Business Class in China. And when we asked the lounge staff, we were told "We used to serve alcoholic beverages, but we discontinued because no-one wanted them". I'm afraid we found that impossible to believe.

In the end, Alan again insisted and one of the staff finally took him to a snack bar within the airport where he could buy some beer and bring it back to the lounge.... 

It was just as well. Our flight was more than two hours late and it felt like a very long wait in the Harbin Business Lounge. We also were beginning to be concerned that had it been delayed any longer we may have had to stay in the airport lounge in Guangzhou for the night.

We did not arrive in Guangzhou until 2.15 am the next morning. Fortunately, we slept most of the way. 

To our relief our luggage arrived and equally surprisingly, a China Southern Airlines guide was there waiting to take us to our hotel. The hotel was fine, and we spent a very short but pleasant time in Guangzhou!

Again, we could not complain, it was all going pretty well considering the mad route we were taking.