Last Day
Hard to believe that I start heading home today.
I got up in the morning reasonably early and headed out to Tiananmen Square. I had been thinking about checking out Mao’s Mausoleum, but unfortunately it was all closed up. I spent a bit of time wandering the square, doing some quality people watching and bargaining with vendors for some tacky souvenirs. I was approached by a couple of art students - the usual China fun.
Headed over for a Happy Meal just before heading back to the hotel - I needed to get my sister a Chinese toy. Unfortunately, however, the toys come extra - I could have just come in to purchase the toy and not have been forced to consume Chicken McNuggets and french fries in the morning hours. Ah well.
Back at the hotel I packed everything up before heading to the airport. Gerald had written down the instructions for me to hand the cab driver, and the bellhops at the hotel ran out to get me a cab. Instead of calling a taxi, they would run out to the road and flag one down. It was a pretty funny way of doing it.
I arrived at the airport bus in plenty of time - it was packed and pretty confusing. It was state-operated, which was obvious based on the attitude of the bus driver. It’s funny how true the stories are when it comes to state-operated shops and services! Surly, lazy, over-employed…
I ended up sitting beside an American high school teacher for the ride out to the airport. She was going to fly to a city in China for a vacation… she was “brushing up” on her Mandarin in Harbin. She teaches Mandarin to rich kids at a Washington, DC-area private school… we talked about places to learn, and in her experience and based on recommendations from others, she said that Harbin would probably be the best place in China to pick it up. Relatively low-cost, industrial city, lots of opportunity to practice, overnight train-ride away from Beijing, very slight accent.
The airport was confusing. You go through customs and immigration formalities before you even check in for your flight. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that. Free carts, however. So far I think Toronto is the only “world class” airport that makes you pay for carts. Definitely not cool. I checked in for my flight - she offered to check it as far as Washington, but said I’d have to pick it up there and check in again for my flight to Toronto. I decided just to take it to Tokyo - I remembered the excellent service at the hotel there.
The Beijing airport wasn’t that great. I went to their Olympic store, but they only had the really expensive stuff. I was hungry, so I also tried to find something decent to eat - the cheapest food was Korean, but there was no way on earth I was going to pay $9 for bibimbap. The Starbucks also only had an overpriced fruit salad. I decided to suck it up and wait for the flight. I changed all my Chinese money into Canadian dollars… I had to show the receipt from the ATM proving that I had originally withdrawn it. Definitely an interesting quirk of the Chinese foreign exchange process.
The flight to Japan wasn’t too bad. It was relatively quick - I had enough time to eat and watch Miss Congeniality 2. They had video on demand, which was nice, although the video games sucked. It was a newer airplane as well.
Landed in Japan… have I ever said how much I hate Japanese immigration and customs? I got into the country no problem, despite the long line up. I definitely wait longer there than anywhere else. Customs was a pain - I obviously had a woman who had been having a bad day. She was less than impressed with the full page Korean and Chinese visas in my passport, demanding why I had bothered to visit those countries and also demanding why I was only staying for a day in Japan. She then decided she wanted to check one of my bags - fortunately she chose the carry on full of tacky souvenirs, therefore I didn’t have to repack everything. There were some Korean girls behind me who were there travelling, they also had a bit of a hassle. Ugh.
They gave me a fantastic room at the hotel - it was massive. Huge bed, better view, nice desk, sitting chair, awesome bathroom - only problem was no heated toilet seat. Which wasn’t really a problem so much as just being disappointing. This toilet just had your normal bidet and cleaning functions.
Had another bad night’s sleep in Japan (so far I’m 2 for 2)… tomorrow is the travel day from hell. Also, since I’m flying into the Land of the Free, the United States of America (insert dorky fake American accent), I can’t check in at the hotel due to some ridiculous security regulations. Yeehaw.
