The Lonely Planet Incident

So i arrive back in China, and you need to be aware that i bought a lonely planet travel guide in hong kong, which is really thick and weighs a ton, and i have carted it all over japan and korea.

and anyway i get to immigration and give the girl my passport as i smile and say hello,

and then next thing she calls over a manager and i am told to wait while my passport is taken away to a back office.

so 10 minutes later an official comes up to me and wants to know why i had been to dubai.

err, a tourist???

seeing as they are about to "welcome" a million foreigners to the olympic games i was a bit taken aback.

10 minutes later another official comes over and proper gives me the third degree as to why i am here, exactly where am i going, and why have i been to Cambodia?

Eventually i get let through and am followed by 2 officials who watch me put my bag through the x ray machine and then stop it as it goes through.

i am going to prison i am thinking, or i am back on that ferry to Korea.

The ferry is the more appealing option at this point..

so here we go again. so they make me take everything out of my rucksack and make a b line for my books.

they open my lonely planet "china" travle guide and demand to know why it includes a faint outline of taiwan?

eh?

not being up to date on history and politics i just looked at them wandering what i had done wrong.

after lots of waving the book in the air and pointing at it they throw it away and let me through.

ok.

the only problem is that the travel guide had the street map of qingdaou and where my hostel was, so i stand outside wandering do i go left or right?/?

next installment................the wrong way, the dead end and the red light district..........