I came to this city to take a ferry to South Korea, I prefer to avoid planes, I wanna physically feel I’m traveling.
Once reached my hostel I understood it wouldn’t has been easy: nobody spoke English, even at the reception.
Luckily I found some Korean girls and one of them spoke a little English, so she assisted me to buy some apples and cookies in a convenient store near by.
The day after I needed to buy my ferry ticket, the ugly thing I had it was a paper that Daniel from Shanghai wrote in Chinese, instructions about how to find the ticket office.
I showed the paper to a lady at the reception, she grabbed my hand and she dragged me for few minutes along the street and finally she pushed me on a bus.
I was surrounded by people that apparently didn’t speak English and I had no idea about where I was going.
Abruptly some magic words:
” Do you need help? ”
It was a girl, she spoke a bit of English, incredible!
I showed her my magic paper and she started to check on it.
Unfortunately the address was about Shanghai… So she made some phony calls and she found the right place.
We left the bus at the station, she tried to find a taxi but it was holiday, everything was busy.
She proposed me to call the police and initially I was afraid, most of the time police means problems!
She reassured me I could be relaxed, police in china is good.
In fact it was, they escorted me to the ticket office where I found a very helpful lady: Smile.
We found the ferry I needed and she called me the day after to confirm me the reservation.
The last night I went out to find food, it was almost two days without a real meal and I was hungry.
I walked for about half an hour but no way to find somebody who could help me.
I came back sad, hungry and disappointed, but during the last minute I tried to think positive.
While I was walking up the stairs I heard some magic words, once again:
” Excuse me, do you need help? ”
I was safe!
I immediately said yes, I explained to my angel the situation and she walked with me to a restaurant.
When I told her I am Italian she responded me in Italian… incredible, two occasional Italian meetings in two different Chinese cities.
I realized I should never lose the hope, once again, a positive thinking can give us what we need.
Thanks to everybody at the hostel, thanks to the people on the bus, thanks to the police, one of them wanted also to shake my hand.
Thanks to Lucia, my Italian savior and thanks to Smile, she helped me for the ticket more than her responsibilities.
Bye bye China
