China!
Well, I made it safe and sound to China! These past 3 days have been incredible. Beijing’s been really foggy, and the air here smells so different. Here’s what’s been going on:Monday: I arrived in Beijing at 1 pm on Monday after leaving at 3 am from Vancounver on Sunday. The whole time change thing plus 16 hours of flying resulting in a missing day. I can’t complain about the flights; no screaming babies, I slept for half the time. When I got to the airport Beibei (Cameron’s cousin) greeted me. He doesn’t speak English, but with the help of a packet of Chinese-English phrases Cameron’s aunt made, we were able to communicate! We took a cab ride home (cab rides in China are so ridiculously scary! Lanes barely exist, every one cuts people off, everyone honks!) Beibei and I had lunch, and he served me beer, no questions asked. Apparently there’s no drinking age in China. The rest of the day was spent at the hostel. Tuesday: Slept till 5 am. I haven’t had terrible jet lag, yay! Got up, had dumplings for breakfast with Beibei, then we went to the airport to pick up Gustav and Cameron. We ended up waiting for them for 3 hours because Gustav’s bag got lost. Gustav was in pretty bad shape, he got sick from the plane food! He went to the hostel to sleep while the rest of us ate at a nearby hot pot restaurant. It was amazing! You could pick all sorts of foods to dip in the boiling pot. Again, Beibei served me beer without even asking me. Not that I’m complaining too much… Being new to authentic Chinese food, Cam and I stayed away from such menu items as sheep pizzle, white ox haggis, and ox spinal cord. (What’s pizzle? 🙂 )
Wednesday: Slept till 7, yay! I feel pretty used to the time difference. Today was pretty low-key because Gustav still isn’t fully recovered from the questionable airplane food. We had a lot of good food and went shopping at the silk center. Man, are the people at the silk center demanding! You walk by and they yell at you to buy their shoes and purses. Literally yell at you. I stopped for 2 seconds and a woman grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go. I was terrified and yanking my arm and trying to walk away and she wouldn’t freaking let go! What was up with that? She held on for 30 seconds and Beibei had to help set me free.
Well, got to go to sleep!
Tags: China, Travel
afretheim
July 12th, 2008 at 12:54 am
My dear, its not fog.