Grand China – Travel Days

Grand China

Travel Days – 16/17 October….I think….2010

Flying over the International Date Line was a funny thing. It took some precise calculation when booking flights to ensure I got to Asia on the right day. Flying from Canada to China meant I left in the mid afternoon and after a twelve hour flight, I arrived in mid afternoon – the next day. Coming back was a bit more of a brain teaser as I would leave mid afternoon one day and arrive in Canada an hour before I left.

Yeah, triple check your flights to make sure you get the right ones.

My cats had me up at five which started off my very long day of travelling a little early. Or was it two days? My flight to Toronto was scheduled for 7:30, so my sister crawled out of bed to drive me to the airport. I decided to go a day early in order to give myself a day to catch up on my sleep in Beijing.

Or does my sleep catch up to me?

Yup. International Date Line. Funny thing, that.

Anyway, it was a good thing I worked in the pre-day as a Nor’easter was rampaging up the east coast, targeting Newfoundland and there could have been weather delays.

Granted, an Air Canada jet did land in St. John’s at three in the afternoon on Sept 21st – right in the middle of Hurricane Igor with torrential rains and winds around 130 kph with gusts to 170kph. They got on the ground in one piece, but then they couldn’t let the passengers off because the wind was too high to open the door. They spent three hours on the tarmac until they could pull the plane into a spot sheltered from the wind.

So, back to the present…or is it past? (Oh, there’s that Date Line thing again). My sister dropped me at the airport and I get up to the check in counter and the agent tells me that since I’m a Prestige Aeroplan member, I could use the express check-in aisle. My eyes pop out of my head and ask “you mean I can get on the plane with the executive and business class people??”

No, she says, crushing my hopes. Just at check-in to the ticket counters. I need another 10,000 miles to get to that level for 2011.

Just how far away is New Zealand?

Once again, my Air Canada flight is on time. I’m batting .100 with them. About five minutes before boarding, they came on to say they were over-booked and offered $100 cash or $200 voucher if someone gave up their seat. Well, you wanna see about a hundred people all shrink down in their seats?

I was online, so I took a quick gander to see if there was another flight that I could take, but nothing would get me into Toronto fast enough. Otherwise, I would have tried to deal for a business seat on the Toronto-Beijing leg.

Turns out, they didn’t need to bump anyone, but we had a bumpy ride to Toronto. There was that Nor’easter just south east of the city, so we had to fly through part of it.

I watched Russell Crowe in Robin Hood on the way up. The rest of the ride into Toronto was smooth. I went straight to the International Departures because had a Maple Leaf Lounge pass!!

And since I was there in June, Toronto Pearson had introduced free wi-fi. Finally!

It gave me one last chance to check Twitter and Facebook before I got to Beijing. I was told they were banned there, so unless I figure out how to use a VPN, I might be Twittered-out and Face-less for three weeks.

After a few hours in the lounge, I went out to join the line where I had a guy behind me singing. Yes. Singing. In Chinese. Not quite a chant, not quite Bat Out of Hell. He wasn’t loud but it wasn’t a whisper either. He didn’t seem to mind the peculiar looks he was getting and sang all the way on to the plane.

Once the line started to move, it moved fast with three agents processing the passports. We had to open the passport to the Chinese Visa page so that way they ensured they didn’t get anyone returned from the Chinese authorities in Beijing.

As I walked down the aisle, I kept an eye on Pavarotti and he kept on going to the back of the plane. Guess all the passengers back there didn’t realize their ticket price included free entertainment.

I found my seat filled. A Chinese woman and her grandson. I convinced her that seat G was on the other side and she switched. Turned out her parents were Chinese though she was born in Jamaica, lives in Canada and doesn’t speak a word of Mandarin. Her grandson was a high-functioning autistic teenager and a real sweetheart. Who knew that I could talk for an hour about video games and anime?

This was the longest flight I had taken to date. I never found nine hours to be really bad and twelve wasn’t much worse. I think the key was to get up and walk. I only figured out at the end of the flight that I could have walked down one aisle, across at the back and up the other aisle and back again. What walking I did kept my troublesome knees very happy.

The dinner was the first indication of our destination.

Chop sticks!!!

The autistic boy gave me a lesson. Not sure if I got it, but when lunch came around with a cup of noodles and chopsticks (and only chopsticks), I had no choice but to figure it out and the fact that I got the noodles in my mouth and not my lap was an indication that I got it right.

Breakfast was the next indication of our destination. We had a choice between an omelet and congee. Course, my mind is thinking, “what is congee?” The attendant turned to me and said “omelet or Chinese porridge?”

Okay. This flight attendant has done this before.

The beverage service came around several times. The first time, I asked for a tea with caffeine, so she suggested jasmine tea. I said okay.

She returned the next time and I said, what else do you have? She laughed.

Wow. That was some strong tea. Like drinking perfume.

The flight was smooth, right to the tarmac. Didn’t even know we had landed till I caught a glimpse of a building in the fog.

Oh wait! It was Beijing.

Yup. Like walking into a different world, even on the ramp. When people ask if you got a taste of a certain destination, it was not hard in Beijing. Almost immediately, I got a ‘taste’ in my mouth and a little burning in the eyes. But it didn’t get much worse than that, and I knew I needed water with me at all times as well as cough drops or something to suck on like Lifesavers or Certs. The forecast was for rain the next day, and that might dampen the smog.

Anyway, the airport was beautiful. A definite product of the Olympic Games. We had to fill out a card with some basic information (which was usually done on the plane, but they had run out and we had to pick up the cards as we approached passport control.) They only needed the usual information, including the name and address of the hotel, visa number, passport number etc. I filled it out as I moved along the passport line.

Took about fifteen minutes to get through the line. The agent did her thing and off I went, following everyone else and hoping the guy in the lead knew where he’s going.

(Don’t laugh!! My mother led the way off a flight in Halifax, turned right, went down a flight of stairs to a dead end. We turned around to see that everyone on the flight had followed us).

We went down a set of escalators and I wasn’t sure what everyone was lined up for at the bottom of the escalator. Then suddenly, they all walked towards and disappeared into the wall.

It was a subway to another terminal.

I squeezed myself in before the doors chopped my backpack off and we must have sped along for ten minutes. I followed everyone off the subway and entered a huge baggage sorting area with more than forty conveyors. The display to tell you which one to go sometimes takes a minute to reflect a flight, so you just need to stand and stare.

Or follow everyone else to number thirty-nine.

Once again, a sigh of relief as my luggage rolled off the belt. I picked it up and started to roll through the “Nothing to Declare” aisle.

Now, that line usually ends at the arrivals lounge. Not this one. There was a phalanx of security standing there and they picked out travellers to determine if they really had nothing to declare. Or should I say, they picked out men.

So, I sidestepped a guard that was staring at the man behind me and walked through the doors only to be faced with a wall of people and half of them holding up a sign with a name on it. There must have been hundreds of people.

It was like something out of the Amazing Race.

Roadblock: There are more than a billion people in China. Fifty million are at the Beijing airport waiting to pick up relatives. Find your driver.

I literally had to go in slow motion and read each sign. I was like a novice driver in the fast lane on the 401. Then I see a Uniworld/Trafalgar sign on the other side of the aisle.

And I cut across five lanes of traffic.

I spoke to the rep and she showed me a list but it was for the Splendors of China tour and my name wasn’t there. She said she had a more detailed list and started to dig for it, but glancing at the remaining wall of people with notices held up, I told her I would check in case there was a taxi driver waiting for me.

So, I crossed back across five lanes of traffic and near the end I saw my name! I pointed at him, he waved me over, but I told him I had to tell the Uniworld rep that I had found him.

Now, imagine the poor novice driver turning around and driving against those five lanes of traffic.

Yeee! Ha!

I told the rep I was fine and found the driver waiting with another solo female traveller. He put our luggage on a cart and led us out to the elevator down to the parking level. Now, in North America, we line up behind the people standing in front of the elevator.

But he’s a taxi driver in Beijing.

He skipped the line and stuck the front of the cart in until it touched the elevator doors. He got in and turned around and almost threw someone out so that we would fit. Once in the car, I quickly learned what being a taxi driver in Beijing means.

Nope. It’s not like the Russian taxi driver in Moscow. The Russian does 160 kph along a two lane country road at 3 in the morning in the pouring rain.

Our taxi driver obeyed the speed limit, but not much else. The rest of the ride was like trying to fit two midsize cars into a space meant for a Smart Car. Like in Egypt, the lines on the road were  often only a suggestion. It got really interesting when the bus on your left signals for your lane just as the bus on your right signals for your lane.

Ever see the movie Speed?

It took close to an hour to get to the Wanda Hotel. Traffic was moderate. I tipped the driver 20 RMD (he was really sweet) and went to check in with my fellow traveller. We got our rooms on the 17th floor and asked if the Uniworld rep had left anything for us. Nothing yet.

Wanda Hotel Lobby
Wanda Hotel Lobby

Then I asked if they provided day tours and told the Concierge that I was interested in seeing the Great Wall at Mutianyu. He said no problem and I asked my tourmate if she had any plans and that she was welcomed to come along. I told her it was better than Badaling as it had fewer tourists, had a cable car to get up and a slide to get down and that this time of year was a great time to see it as the leaves were turning.

The Concierge was listening to me with wide eyes and said, “you must have been here before.”

I said no and he looked perplexed then asked how I knew so much.

I said “Google!!”

Of course, I completely forgot that Google was banned there. LOL

My tourmate agreed to go along, so we dropped off our stuff and went for a cup of tea in the hotel restaurant. She had a plate of beef strips and peas in the pod and I had a ginger tea.

Or should I say, I had a cup of ginger.

Holy cow!!

I’m seeing a pattern here. Some countries have their own favorite spice whether it’s paprika or curry etc. China likes it all and lets you know it. My tourmate didn’t like spicy food and decided to skip the “spicy duck.”

Probably a good idea.

Until she tasted the peas.

I couldn’t handle more than a few sips of my tea and she pushed the peas aside. I said, maybe we should have went to McDonalds and she looked at me with wide eyes.

Yeah. Google.

She couldn’t believe there was one close by – but I wasn’t willing to search for it in the dark. But I think I know where we’re going for dinner tomorrow.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI returned to my room by eight and was ready to lapse into a coma, but had to get a little organized. This hotel has to be one of the nicest ones I’ve been in. First, I have an amazing view.

To a certain point.

No, it’s not fog or haze.

The room had the bathroom divided from the main room by a glass wall, so if you were doing a room share with a stranger, search for the switch that drops the privacy curtain or neither of you would be getting a bath.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThere was a widescreen with some English language channels including National Geographic. There was a safe, bar fridge and treats including cups for tea and coffee with condiments, but I couldn’t find the kettle. There was the usual shampoos and soaps but this hotel also provided robes. Really nice robes.

First time I’ve ever wondered if I could fit a hotel robe in my luggage. And slippers.

What an amazing place to end up at after twenty-six hours of travelling.

Internet was wireless and free.  So I checked on my email and that and determined that I indeed cannot access Facebook, Twitter or Google. So, I had to do a little research.

Oh crap. No Google. I had to find another search engine. LOL

And I discovered proxy servers. But to get one that does the job in China, I paid $15 for a month-long subscription. It protects me from censors and everything. Worth it to be able to use Facebook.

I finally crawled into bed after figuring out which button turned off all the lights. That took a while. The Chinese love buttons!

 

 

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