Day 1 - Planes, Trains and Automobiles
A bus had to take us to the plane; it was so full we were squashed like sardines for the short journey. On board our Air China flight we were surprised to learn that we weren’t allowed to use electronics on board, so we had to entertain ourselves by attempting to read Chinese magazines and talking to each other! We also experienced our first taste of Chinese cuisine, with chicken and pork with rice for lunch. On the side we had a delicious custard desert. We are quickly realising that custard is the dessert of choice here. It comes in all forms at all meals. No complaints from us!
We arrived into Beijing about 2pm, where we were again bused to the terminal. After going through customs we were met by our first guide of the trip-Chris. He works at Huawei here in Beijing. We began our drive to our hotel, which is about 40 minutes away from Bejing’s CBD. There was a lot of traffic but he kept us entertained with lots of facts about China.
He told us cars cost about 1 million Yuan, which is just over 200k New Zealand dollars. We couldn’t get over the flash cars people have here. There are Audi’s, Mercedes and Volkswagen cars everywhere. We also got to see two Tesla Model S’s. He told us housing is very expensive, and usually parents have to buy apartments for their children.
He also told us we were lucky to come here now, in autumn. He says it is known as the golden month because all the flowers are out and it is so warm and beautiful. He was right. We were told to expect lots of pollution in Beijing, but we lucked out. We have been greeted with bright blue skies since we touched down. Everywhere we go, trees line the streets. It couldn’t have been more different to what the media portrays.
Chris had amazing English. We only had one translation error. We asked where we could get suits made. But he thought we were asking for suitors- or girls. After a good laugh, he said there might be some girls around for us!
We finally arrived at our hotel, which is at one of the universities. We checked in, relaxed for an hour, then went and had dinner.
