Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Hellooo from China!! Gonna be very strange writing this blog by myself but I will try and keep you updated as much as possible!
China is so exciting and Beijing is eerily similar to Moscow! Arriving yesterday evening it was the first thing that hit me with loads of modern grey communist buildings and not many old buildings insight despite it being such an ancient city. Also hardly anyone speaks English which I am finding very odd after being in tourism-orientated South East Asia for 2 and a half months! God help me with my signs, gestures and fingers crossed a smile goes down as well as thank you..didn't learn how to say thank you until this morning!
My journey to the hotel was a NIGHTMARE. I got off the plane an hour after it was supposed to land (gah!) and breezed through security (a miracle considering the stress over my visa..sorry Dad) and managed to get my bag off second to last from baggage reclaim..probably my fault for being one of the first to check in- my bad! I then decided to be super independent and clever by taking the airport express followed by the tube to my hotel. As I said no one speaks English so thank goodness for electronic ticket machines and 20 minutes later I was safe ensconced in a seat heading towards central Beijing. Cleverly I hadn't counted the stops so had to jump up every time we stopped to read the signs! Getting off at the right stop eventually (no thanks so any of the not so contentious other passengers who seemed to be trying hard to forget my existence) I realised that I was supposed to be at my hotel for a meeting with my group in 20 minutes..eek! I ran through the station to get to my tube line (once again feeling stupidly proud for getting to grips with the metro), grabbed a ticket which costed 20p (why oh why is our tube so expensive!?) and threw myself into a carriage before the doors closed. Of course only when we started moving did I realise i was going in the wrong direction..! It was by now time for me to be at the meeting and after realising that I had 9 stops between me and my hotel stop..and then a 15 minute walk to the hotel..I thought it best to surface and grab a taxi.
Lady Luck was not favouring me as I happened to be in the middle of no where and there were no taxis in sight! I took to standing in the road and waving frantically until finally one appeared. I was prepared with my hotel name and address in Chinese script but of course..he didn't know where it was! I showed him my google maps, got out the map in my lonely planet and everything...he didn't understand and just chatted in Chinese to me!? He drove off with me still trying to explain and then started shouting and pointing at the meter and looking at me, willing me to understand..kind of like my dog Molly does when she wants a walk! I realised that I'd scribbled down the number for Gadventures somewhere so dug that out and called it. My luck was doomed. She didn't work for Gadventures any more. I begged her to look up the number I should be calling and finally got through to the right person! She called the taxi driver back on his phone and talked him through directions for me, he then chucked his phone at me and she explained that he forgot to turn the meter on - explained the puppy dog eyes! 5 minutes after she hung up she called back and told me that my tour didn't start in Beijing..it started in Hong Kong...huddbitgikgfhhfsry!!! Ready to kill myself I calmly looked at my notes and assured her it blooming well did! She found it- crisis averted!
When I eventually got to the hotel an hour after I was supposed to I found it deserted with a very unhelpful receptionist who had no idea what I was supposed to do. Had to call the Gadventures lady again and she called my CEO to come and find me :)
Went out to a local restaurant for dinner and all shared amaazing Chinese dishes with rice, king pow chicken, sizzling beef, some other random chicken thing, BROCOLLI YEYY (Tess will understand my craving) and Aubergine :) our CEO Vivian is very sweet and shorter than me..WOOHOO! We headed back to bed after for a good nights sleep for our early wake up this morning..great wall tiime!!
(Gonna do that in a separate post do it isn't tainted by my awful but rather amusingly unlucky travel day!)
Lots of love, Flo x x x
- comments
YKW So brave xxx