Arrival in Beijing

Arrival was like nothing I expected. As we neared the city, the air outside went from black to brown. The smog was intense. All the way from 2000 feet or so, to 50 feet off the ground, we couldn't see a thing. Finally, emerging from the 'cloud', I got my first glimpse of China's capital, or at least, the airport. Upon entering the gigantic Terminal 3 (I think that's the one), I could see the utterly monstrous size of the place. The ceiling was easily 200 feet up. Walking in with a single planeload felt like walking through a deserted city, up to customs, at which the feeling changed entirely. Passing through was easy (no Mandarin required). Not to mention everything, and I mean everything is in English. Then, of course, came my first experience with Beijing's infamously packed subway lines (this one was an airport shuttle). Everyone comes to China thinking that they will be awash in a sea of people: that it will be foreign, strange and utterly congested with pedestrians. Not so. Perhaps it is busier than North American public transit - but not on a regular basis is it truly as packed as the stories say it is.

Having walked for several hundred meters to get to the exit (that's the challenge), I found myself in a taxi with no ability to communicate the location of my hostel to my driver. After about 15 minutes of 2-becomes-3 lane driving, I found the number of my hostel, called it, and spent the next hour and a half (or at least what seemed like it) in the taxi, learning pinyin pronunciations, my first being that of the Jishuitan station (Jeeshwaytan, tones:1,3,1 I think).

Having made our way to Deshengmen Nei Dajie (duhshungmeun nay dahjie, tones:2,4,0,1,4,1), we pulled into Dashihu Hutong, and up to the most classic set of chinese gates I could have imagined. Entirely red, they contained a smaller door for personal entry, and old iron-bar padlocks. My hostess/hostel manager spoke some english-- a very welcome sound to hear in a strange city.

Walking into the hostel, it became apparent just how classic it was. An open courtyard contained the doors to all of the rooms, with the main office and bathroom on separate walls of the same courtyard.

It took some time to get used to the surroundings - but I learned to love it. I spent the first day at the hostel learning a bit more about my surroundings. Of the things that I discovered, the best was the traditional market, just a couple of minutes walk from the hostel itself. There, as long as one was canny enough to realize that westerners were asked for twice the regular price, one could obtain a cheap, tasty, and quite authentic meal.

Travel

It took me quite a while to make my way from the end of my first year of UoG to Beijing, China. I spent a month at home, and then a day in Toronto, and then two weeks in Vancouver, and then virtually a day in the air, just getting there. Of course, having heard the saying 'the journey is more important than the destination', I knew this was going to be one of the best parts of my trip: the travel. I learned a lot from those few weeks I spent in between home and Beijing. I ate my first Dim Sum (real Dim Sum), I met my girlfriend's parents, I learned how to handle horses, and about the excitement that builds as your horse reaches the finish line. I learned a lot about China, too in my efforts to get there.

I understand my visa status in China and in the US better than I did before, I've spent ages learning Chinese from my dictionary (yes, I'm nuts like that), and I have experienced the full range of Chinese lifestyles. But let me start from the beginning again. It's sometime around 11:00 am in Vancouver, on June 12th, 2008.

Having braved the secondary security check at the US customs office, I arrived at the terminal that handled my flight to Beijing, via San Fran. I'd had to leave my water outside security (an amusing prospect when it comes to short flights, and a painful one when you consider a 12-hour flight in a multilevel jet with only a few stewards/esses to dispense the precious liquid. Once on the plane I met Dan, an Australian with considerable Asian heritage that gave me some more on-target advice than I had previously recieved. He was a fellow traveller, spending time circumnavigating the states. We talked until San Fran, then dodged off to catch our connections, which is where things get really interesting.

Apparently, the San Francisco International Airport picked that day to have rolling blackouts. Result: checking no baggage saved my ass. The Air China check-in was down, and nothing was happening. I waited a while, but eventually people started getting antsy, and one of the others in line asked an attendant if there was some way to get going faster. As it turns out, we were allowed to check in at the gate, even though seat reservations evidently don't exist for Air China (but there was still space on the plane). My seat turned out to be immediatly in front of the tv, positioned directly in the center on the middle aisle such that my view was of wall or tv, nothing else (I'm not actually complaining, because it meant that I had reasonable leg room).

There wasn't much to say of the flight, save for the fact that it was long, I was tired, and leg room counts for nothing when you've been sitting on your ass for that long.