Michelle
So we arrive at Beijing airport for the second time, a month after our first arrival. It started out fairly well, we waited for our luggage, Chelsea rather nervously, as again hers was the last suitcase to appear, then we went down to hail a taxi. This is when it all started downhill........First we realized that we had not copied down the address for the hostel. We decided to give it a try and see if we could find a cabbie who knew where the Happy Dragon Hostel was. Looking back at it now, this was probably not the smartest thinking on our part as Beijing is a huge city with a population of 15.8 million. Chances of finding someone who spoke English AND knew where this mystery hostel was were not in our favor. Nevertheless, we tried anyway. So grabbing a cab from the airport in Beijing is kind of like being in a race where you are trying to grab a cab before anyone else. You literally stand in a huge line and the taxis all pull in forming a huge line, two cars deep. The attendant then opens the gate and everyone goes running for the closest cab, if you're unlucky you have to walk to the end of this huge line while taxis are taking off all around you or beeping at you to get out of the way. So there we are, the three Canadians, trying to get a cab to our unknown hostel. We keep running to different taxis which all keep waving us away as they don't speak English and just want an easy fare where they don't have to try to decipher what we are saying. Anyways, as you can probably guess, we were not successful at all and were left standing in the dust, as all the other successful travelers took off in their taxis. The next batch of taxis started to pull in, so we shuffled to the side out of the way and decided to go back into the airport to try to get the address off the internet.
Finding wireless or even anywhere that has access to the internet at midnight in the Beijing airport is like finding a needle in a haystack. We went up escalators, down elevators, to Starbucks, to an information desk, to another information desk.......and so on. We were not successful in our search and the girls at the final information desk just did not seem to know how to help us. We finally settled on getting to the general direction of the hostel. We knew it was in the downtown core so we aimed for that area hoping to find an internet cafe that was still open. The girl at the desk gave us the name of the central train station and wrote it on a piece of paper for us so we could hand it to the taxi driver. We headed down to the taxi 10m dash for the second time. Again, we broke away from the starting gate and tried our hardest not to be left behind. We kept meeting with the same reaction we got the first time: no one wanted to take us. Finally, after a few rejections there was only two taxis left at the end of the line. We kind of surrounded one so no one else could take it and he could not drive off. We tried to pass him the paper with the address on it which he unwillingly took. We also got the attendant involved who spoke a tiny bit of English and said "Make him drive us!" He finally relented and we were on our way away from the airport.
After about an hour drive, we arrive at the Beijing Train Station at around 1:45am. We are tired and all we want to do is find this hostel and crash into bed but unfortunately, we still do not know where our hostel is. The train station was an experience all unto itself. I am sure it is probably a very decent place in the daylight but it was not where I wanted to be in the middle of the night. We kind of skirted around it to get to a walking overpass so we could cross the road and ask to use the internet at a hotel that looked decent across the way. I can say one thing, I will not miss the smell of pee when I leave China. Due to the popular form of toilet over here, the squatter, the smell of unrine is pretty strong in all public washrooms. The public washroom at the Beijing train station was the strongest I have ever smelled in my life, and this washroom had great air circulation, being that it was in the great outdoors. So there we are walking through the cabbies, and random people sleeping on the cement so they will not miss their trains in the morning, gagging and trying to hold our breath. We walked up and over the crosswalk, with Suzanne and I groaning about our legs which were still sore from the mountain, and made it to the hotel. The hotel then directed us to this internet cafe outdoors and downstairs. So we are looking at the entrance to this so called internet cafe and decided that Susanne and I would wait outside with all our luggage while Chelsea quickly ran down to check the address. Well it was not so quick. Chelsea yelled up that there were lots of computers but the clerk was on the phone and she'd have to wait. While Susanne and I patiently waited, looking around at our beautiful surroundings (not so beautiful- deserted streets, brick buildings, looming dark mass that was the train station across the street) people kept coming up to us and laying their heads on their hands trying to ask us if we wanted a hotel. Other people kept coming out of the internet cafe but not Chelsea. At one point one guy came out with no shirt, and started doing stretches on the stairs below us, then went back in. Finally Chelsea came up and explained that the clerk was still on the phone but she finally got fed up and went to use a computer anyway and just left some money. She also explained that there were a whole bunch of people down there playing video games, which would explain the guy that came out to stretch. We finally had an address, now all we had to do was find a cab.
We walked to the road and saw a few cabs lined up. The first one waved us away when we approached him but the second cabbie was very nice and took us in. He even spoke a BIT of English. We negotiated with him, trying to use our Mandarin phrase book to aid us. He was not really sure of the address but Chelsea had written some main things that were beside our hostel, so we negotiated a price and took off. The hostel was really not far from where we had originally been let off but the cabbie was not sure where to go so we stopped on the side of the road while he made a call. While we were stopped, a woman just happened to walk by the cab and looked in. We quickly asked her if she spoke English. Thankfully she did, and while hanging in through my window she had a lively discussion with our cabbie. She must have told him that the number we had on the paper was the hostel's number so he called them to get directions. They said a few more things and laughed, then we thanked the nice lady and literally drove 10 seconds down a side street and found the Happy Dragon Hostel. (That must have been what they were laughing about). I have never been so happy to see a hostel in my life. There was finally a happy ending to this story even though it took until about 2:45am to reach it!
We decided to sleep in after our long, adventurous night. We woke up and showered and finally left the hostel at about noon time. We walked towards the Forbidden City and found a restaurant to eat along the way. We had a huge meal of assorted Chinese dishes which were very tasty and then headed back on our way. Susanne ended up not feeling well and headed back to the hostel to rest, while Chelsea and I decided to just roam around and see what kind of trouble we could get into. We walked around the moat of the Forbidden City and then through its Main Square. The Square was packed with people entering and leaving the City. We just happened to bump into a couple of Chinese girls who were visiting Beijing from their rural town and got to talking with them as we headed out with the throng of sightseers. They spoke very good English and asked us if we would like to hang out with them for the remainder of the afternoon. They took us to the Emperor's park and explained many things to us about Chinese culture and asked us all about Canada. One of the girls was studying to be an English teacher so she had tons of questions for Chelsea and I. After we visited the park, we went to a traditional Chinese tea house to relax and have a drink. We sat in this little room while a server brought us in two plates full of snacks and then made us tea from a selection that was displayed on the table. The tea was unlimited and I think I ended up drinking about 10 cups. It was very cool though to be spending the afternoon with local people and being able to learn about Chinese culture in a way that you cannot from a book or a tour guide. The bill was quite hefty compared to what we were used to spending on food and drinks but it was well worth it.
After tea, we parted ways and Chelsea and I headed back to the hostel to check on Susanne. We were about three quarters of the way back when all the tea we had drank kicked in. Deciding that there was no way we were using a public toilet when we had a nice clean, non-squatting one at the hostel, which was so close but so far, Chelsea and I basically walk/ran the rest of the way and then nearly burst the door down on Susanne. We made it though! Susanne was still feeling kind of gross, so Chelsea and I headed down to the hostel bar/restaurant for the Peking Duck party. There we used the internet, had a jenga tournament with a guy we met from Austria and ate some duck. It was delicious! I didn't know if I'd be a fan but it was very good. You roll it up in rice paper with onion and cucumber and this really good sauce. We finished off with sharing a sundae, which is fast becoming a tradition for Chelsea and I and then headed to bed!
No comments:
Post a Comment