Wednesday, June 8, 2011
We are starting things off early today. Our flight leaves at 12:10pm from Pudong International Airport on China Eastern Airline Flight MU564. We have 12 people to get up, feed and get ready… and any last minute packing. The time schedule dictates we leave the apartment by 9am. We must walk to the subway, board with luggage, get off at the Maglev station and then board the high speed train to the airport. We needed to make sure we had plenty of time for anything that might go wrong or delay us. Little did we know…
So I hit the floor running. I am running in high gear this morning… in and out of the shower by 5:45am. I did not want to be the last one in the shower and in a panic to get ready. So I am ready long before it is time to leave and able to make sure everything is done.
We have been rushing around so much that by 8:30am everyone is sitting around tapping their toes ready to leave. We make sure everything is locked up and turned off and are out the door by 9am sharp. We are at the subway platform when Marcy realizes she has left her glasses at the apartment.
Mom: Do you want to walk back to the apartment to get them?
Marcy: no.. it will be alright.
Mom: Are you sure?
Marcy: Yes… I do not want to walk back to the apartment.
So we board the subway and get to the Maglev station.
Mom: Last chance… do you want to go back for your glasses?
Marcy: No… it will be ok
Mom: Are you sure? We can hop a cab and get them and get back … we have time.
Marcy: Well… I don’t know… I just want to be able to see what everyone else sees, but … ah… ah…
Mom: We are going to get them… (conversation with the rest of the family that we are going to the apartment and get her glasses)
Marcy: Thanks Mom
So Marcy and I hop in a cab and back to the apartment. On the way I am looking up in my book how to tell him to wait for me. We get to the apartment and I tell Marcy to take my backpack and stay in the taxi so he will not drive away. Thankfully she knows exactly where they are and I am in and out in less than 5 minutes. We get back to the Maglev station and no one is there. I call them only to discover they are in McDonald’s having a second breakfast. I should not have bothered…
But they are wrapping it up and on their way to the Maglev Ticket Office where Marcy and I are waiting on them. Again Brooklyn and Austin are small enough they do not have to buy a ticket… so I purchased 9 round trip Maglev tickets and we make our way to the platform and the train. It runs every 15 minutes. Another first for the clan… the high speed train!!!
Everyone is amazed that the ride to the airport is only 7 minutes compared to the 40 minute ride in a taxi only days ago. At 430 kmh, it is definitely the way to go to the airport. It takes longer to walk to the ticket counters from the Maglev than the ride to the airport.
And we are all on the airplane… and we wait… and wait … and wait!! They served us lunch while we are on the taxi way… waiting. This was not a good sign, but after an hour… finally we get clearance to take off!!!
We arrived in Beijing ready to start our adventure. Now if those darn bags will just get here!
With bags in tow, we are off to find our tour guide, Kasi. She is supposed to be standing outside baggage claim with a sign. But we get there and she is nowhere to be found. We got off to the side out of the main flow of people and I called her. She is at the wrong terminal and is making her way to us.
With sign in hand, Kasi, has found us. Now to find the bus and load up. It took 2 elevators to get us all down to the bus. There were other folks wanting on the elevator and darn near ran us down. I finally had enough and told one of the guys beating me up with trolley that if he hit me with it again it was not going to be pretty. I do not know whether he understood it all of not, but he must have caught my drift because he stopped ramming me with it.
We are all finally on the bus…yea!!!
Now the ride to the city center which Kasi used the time to fill us in on the history of Beijing and what we would be doing the next couple of days.
I found it interesting… she said, ‘If you want to see 100 years of Chinese history, go to Shanghai. If you want to see 1000 years of history, go to Beijing. If you want to see 3000 years of history, go to Xi’An (pronounced she-an).” Xi’An is the province where the Terracotta Soldiers are located. It is about 1100 miles west of Beijing. We would have to settle for the 1000 years of history.
A few pictures from the bus window of Beijing.
We got all checked into the Howard Johnson’s Paragon. Once we dumped the luggage, it was time to find a place to have dinner. Beijing is very Chinese compared to Shanghai. Most of the places we saw, the menus were all Chinese. We made the block around the hotel a time or two and decided on the one restaurant that had a menu with pictures. During the search for a restaurant, all we heard from the kids was McDonald’s. All of us got seated and we tried to order drinks. It went downhill quickly and the frustration level sky rocketed. A simple request in Mandarin for a bottle of water could not be understood. I have ordered water many times and can say it in Mandarin perfectly… but she was waving me off. After a short time, it was clear we were not meant to be in this restaurant so we got up and left.
The kids got their wish. We ordered McDonald’s for them and took it back to the hotel restaurant, where the adults ordered off the menu. The kids enjoyed their Mickey D’s and we enjoyed ours! That was the one and only time we tried to eat in Beijing in a regular restaurant. It simply was not worth the frustration.
It has been a long day… I hear my single bed calling my name. The bus will be here to pick us up at 8am sharp. We reconvene for breakfast at 7am. Better rest while I can… we were warned that tomorrow is a lot of walking.
No comments:
Post a Comment