Days 8-9 New York - Toronto-Beijing, China

Day 8  – Hers

Well, here we go – our first big travel day.  We were up at 4:45am – I set 3 alarms to make sure – and, as Rob predicted, my mother got up to see us off.  She had also set the coffee to be ready for us at 5am. How’s that for thoughtful!  We drove to JFK, just beating the morning rush hour, and returned the car.  We found the Air Canada desk, checked in and set off for Toronto.  Toronto airport was modern, efficient and empty.  They obviously keep lots of people employed by insisting on full security checks even for transit passengers – both for arrival and departure.  We were lucky that our Toronto to Beijing flight didn’t have a stop in Vancouver because then we would have had to collect and re-check our luggage as well.

Air Canada’s seats were considerably more comfortable than those of Iceland Air – and we were fed 3 times on the 14 hour flight to Beijing (though some of the food was a bit disappointing).  The first meal was very Western – chicken or pork with salad and chocolate cake.  The middle meal was incongruously noodles (with complimentary chop sticks) and a roast beef sandwich.  The third was a breakfast choice of plastic omelette or rice with pickles.  The Chinese girl next to Rob seemed to enjoy the rice more than we enjoyed the omelette.....

We arrived in Beijing at 4:45pm local time – 12 hours ahead of New York – so exactly 24 hours from when we got up – and half a world away.

 

Day 9 – His.

My poor arse! You try sitting still for 14 hours and see how numb your backside gets. We have now gone so far round the world we are beginning to come back on ourselves. The plan was certainly to circumnavigate and in one sense we are doing it quicker than Fogg but in another we are going more slowly.

The Chinese seem a very orderly people. They love to form ‘official’ queues for everything including the taxis. Taxis are any airport traveller’s nightmare. Every traveller I know fears being ripped off by rogue taxi drivers and i am sure we have been overcharged once or twice at least. Well in Beijing they have notices everywhere and an official queue and as long as you don’t get diverted from the queue the charge is pretty reasonable – we paid £11 from the airport to the hotel and it was miles – if we had been in London it would have been a good £60-£70 at least.

 

I always assumed that Chinese painting was metaphorical and whimsical. That when they painted the hills and trees they did so with a degree of poetic licence but it turns out the trees actually do look like they do in the paintings; It is astounding. Our taxi drive took us past Tian’ anmen  square, past the forbidden city and the government palaces. Quite cool.

 

The street we are on is only a short walk from the forbidden city and it is like an exploded China town in London. The street heaves with people: tourists, sellers, dogs, children and of course bicycles. We checked in at the hotel which is a little basic but does have complementary toothbrushes so it’s not all bad! And almost immediately we went for a walk to breath in a little of this vibrant, colourful and exciting place. Often when we arrive in new cities they can be a little intimidating but Beijing completely breaks this mold. It is friendly and welcoming and the people helpful and pleasant – so far our experiences of it have been nothing but positive – but then i guess we have only been here a few hours and like any tourist the thing we most have to do is chuck ourselves in, try the language, get lost, eat the street food and be overcharged – well it is kind of obvious we don’t belong. It is kind of a shame we are so exhausted after being up for 24 hours – i would have liked to explore more – but to be honest we are dead on our feet and stretching out for a good sleep seems like the only thing we are really going to be able to do from now. AH well tomorrow awaits and a whole new set of experiences beckon from the front doors of our hotel.