Anyway it all turned out fine in the end and we managed to complete the getting of the new pass and going through customs with about 40minutes to spare, which was good, considering how we did have to wait about 10minutes for the lady to give us our new boarding passes…
We left Hong Kong at 08:30 and finally arrived in Beijing at 11:40. WHAT a journey that had been.
However, the first thing we experienced as we got off the little bus to take us from the
plane to the airport was mouthful of pollution. Eurgh, you just breathed
pollution as you got out and it wasn’t nice. Not at all. On the other hand, the
floors in the airport were pretty damn shiny. Even more so than at Hong Kong
airport, which we thought were pretty darn clean. Beijing Airport’s floors were
so clean, you could literally see people’s reflections, and even a clear
reflection of the ceiling off it. Nice.
We got ourselves checked through immigration, had our passports
stamped (ohh yeaaa!!) and then claimed our baggage. To do so, we had to ride a
tube train to take us there. It’s amazing how the train was firstly clean,
secondly wider than London’s underground trains, and thirdly had air
conditioning. The latter is probably the best thing you could ask for, and one
thing which London seriously needs to start considering. Oh how I hate the
London tubes in summer… D<
In order to make our way from the airport to the university
area, and the area where Tanya and Charlotte’s apartment is, we had to take a
taxi. We were pretty shocked with what we were presented with. One of the men
in charge of the taxis, and a taxi driver himself, told us that it would cost
between 880-1100RMB altogether. We only paid 900RMB though, a rough price of
£78. Split up between us, this is £36 each which seems like a lot but I guess
was kinda worth it since it took an hour to drive to the apartment and because
of the huge amount of luggage between the three of us, we required a larger
taxi – one of the shuttle bus sized ones. I guess we probably got ripped off but I don't think this really mattered. Thank goodness I can claim this money
back at the end of the year. Phew. Will definitely just be sticking to public transport in the future.
As we drew closer to the area we were to be staying, it
seemed like Beijing was not what we had expected. The area we’re in reminds me
of a cross between Bangladesh and Brunei. I thought Beijing would be a bit more
modernised than that.. Maybe that’s just this particular area though?. Well, at
least I hope so. Who knows? :S
Luckily, there are a good number of shops near us. More
importantly though, there is a big shopping mall called Feng Lan Guo Ji (枫蓝国际)just a 5minute walk down the road where everything is so
cheap, it’s unbelievable. Normal sized bottle of drinks like you get in the UK
are only about 30p each or less. There was a 5litre bottle of water being sold
for approximately £1.50. There were even rice cookers being sold for a mere £15
– this particular one I had actually found on a UK website being on sale for
about £40. What a bargain eh.
We didn’t really do much today since all the focus was on
getting to the apartment, buying something to eat, and getting some rest. The
landlady to the apartment came along, a few contracts were signed between her
and Tanya and Charlotte, she showed us a bit around the area and that was
pretty much it. No thanks to jet lag, we were all pretty darn tired and sleepy.
So sleepy in fact that we just couldn’t be bothered to go to an actual bed but
just fell dead asleep on the spot.
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