Warm reminders and dandier lions

Ironside are in country, finally! Telecommunications are challenging to navigate when one is stricken with jetlag and facing an entire new continent full of strangers and slightly different cultures. You can park on the other side of the road here! 

After a very gruelling 32 hours, we can safely advise that you should NEVER, EVER FLY CHINA SOUTHERN AIRLINES!!! Seriously, save the extra $500 or so and fly Emirates or someone better than the Bi-Lo/Crazy Clarks of the sky. The first leg of the journey comprised a 'cattle truck that can fly': 9 hours of knees behind your ears (or the person's in front/beside you), 1 carton of warm beer and 3 bottles of wine shared amongst 120 people. Needless to say, by the time of the second trolley run up the aisle, halfway through the flight, they had well and truly run out of anything relaxing. Too early and untimely for the xanax though.

We land in Guangzhou and are immediately ushered onto a bus/cattle truck that was possibly built in 1968 (and last maintained/serviced in '72) before being driven to the arse end of the international terminal. One poor guy is left stranded, trying to wave the bus back to him. Professionalism and thoroughness take a distant second place to militant promptness. The first heart skip presents when passing through a security check and the mostly non English speaking staff become confused by the guitar effects pedals in my bag, mostly home made. How the hell does one explain a "Dooms-Delay Device" to someone who doesn't speak English!? Thankfully, after being called aside and being told it's because she finds me "velly cute", any trouble is escaped by some air guitar explanations by another border security staff member.

Did I mention it was 34 degrees and approximately 113% humidity?

We have 6.5 hours to kill, however the wing of the airport we're in is only about 80 meters long with about 4 shops worthy of attention, none of which had English speaking staff. Signs indicate "Wi-Fi Free", however we soon discover that this just means it's a Wi-Fi-Free zone because none of our party are actually able to connect. A duty free shop yeilds a carton of Panda brand cigarettes for Disco, the cost of which we soon realise is still relative to back at home. Time to search for a drink... Downstairs in one of the designated smoking rooms (which closely resemble Auswich-inspired rooms of hazy death) we find a water despenser with 3 temperature settings: Cold, Warm and Hot, complete with temperature display. People are milling around taking shots of water in miniature paper cups. I approach to fill my Evian bottle from the 'Cold' setting. The display shows 39 degrees. I assume this must be reading in farenheit however the warmness against my hand indicates otherwise. Halfway through the bottle filling I decide to test the 'Warm' setting for comparison and discover a stream of 54 degrees. What the fuck are these people thinking!? I opt to fill my bottle and leave it for a while the air conditioning (a term I use rather loosely, as it seems to be in similar condition to the bus we were herded onto earlier) to cool. The same people return for more shots of warm 'cold' water.

EVERYTHING about Guangzhou is warm. There's even a sign just near our departure gate giving us a 'warm reminder' about something I don't read because I've deliriously lost my shit in a fit of laughter and might just start running around naked pretty soon. I return to the warm water dispenser to refill my bottle so that it might cool before I need a drink on the plane: 42 degrees on the 'cold' setting now.

Amstergoddam!!! Cheese. Wi-Fi. People with incredibly sexy accents. England is not far away. Must come back and check this place out more. Didn't see any windmills but the airport shops are full of clogs and orange shirts/merchandise. Plenty here to keep us occupied and entertained for our 4 hour stop over. Coffee!

We land in Manchester to a blast of arctic winds and virtually no security checks. Despite the unnerving lack of security checks, we still manage to find ourselves in the 'naughty corner' for about 30 mins, slowly getting concerned about our immediate futures as we await visa clearance. The woman at the gate seemed rather put out by the extra paperwork involved in processing us bloody musicians, however our fears of being waylayed too long (like poor Dina from Utah, former drummer from Zombiance, fucking awesome name! who has been there for 3.5 hours) are alleviated fairly promptly after the main queue dies down and time allows gate woman the chance to process us.

Thanks to the relaxed efficiency of the Dutch, our connecting KLM flight has found us landing early and even with our brief hold up at the border, we're ready to meet our tour guide, Graham (Ironside's drummer) earlier than listed on our itinerary. None of us have working mobile phones yet so I find a small gaming area (poker machines are strange here) that has a change dispenser. The smallest note I have is a £20. Little did I realise, the machine only gives out 50p coins. There are not enough pockets in the world for that amount of coins! I call Graham. He's 15 minutes away.

Walking outside, we're met with icy cold droplets of rain. Disco quickly befriends some locals, bound for Morocco and strikes up conversation and cigarettes with them. They tell of the hail storm the previous day and mention the icy cold rain might well turn to hail. Perfectly timed words as tiny bean bag stuffing sized pellets of ice start scattering everywhere. Again, delirium gets the better of me and I start laughing uncontrollably at the poor attept nature has of showing these northerners what hail really is. I explain to the Moroccan bound intrepids that I'm laughing because our hail is the size of cricket balls (not that it's a competition). We seem to be standing out in this crowd.

One thing I noticed when flying into Manchester is that every single building appears to have been built by the same person, who has no concept of variety. I then realise that they're all built by the Monopoly guy!

Our first stroll to the local shops to get our bearings and to be able to survive the next couple of days without Graham whilst he's at work, reveals that the Monopoly guy built Liverpool too. It's nice though. So much heritage. I hear an almost familiar sound being called from the sky to our left. I quickly spot what I can only assume is a seagull, except this thing is fucking huge! It's call is very much like that of a pirate and not much like a seagull at all. "Arrrgh" I pirate back at it as it flies over, undoubtedly looking for hot chips. We quickly surmise that it's actually a seagullbatross. Then Disco points out that even the dandelions are bigger, quickly qualifying that they're more dandy than the ones back home: "dandyerlions".

Graham leaves us at the local Tesco, where we purchase our sim cards so we can communicate with one another and the rest of the world whilst we're here. There's a pub across the road that seems the perfect place to figure out how to set up our phones: The Pineapple Hotel. Unlike the seagullbatrosses and dandyerlions, this is a hell of a lot smaller than the one we have back home. Jetlag is getting the better of me. 6 hours sleep on a 32 hour trip and the worst selection of music you could imagine, being blasted through the tiny pub, compounds my frustration with my phone that I can not get working. I just want to let people back home know that we're here, safe and sound. It's not going to happen today, Daniel.

SLEEEEEEEP!