I’ll preface this entry with an explanation. A lot of people were a little confused as to the whys and hows of me ending up in Beijing semi by my self. It’s not that confusing, so follow along.
I live in South Korea because this is where my husband is stationed with the Army.
My friend, Allie, is in law school and took a summer abroad trip through her school that went to Shanghai (or similar, I forget where they actually were).
Allie’s group was going to have a weekend in Beijing (a lot of cool China stuff is there).
Beijing is actually not that far away from where I live.
So since it was
a) cheaper than flying to the states to see my friend and
b) there is a lot of cool stuff in Beijing I wanted to see
It made sense for me to plan a long weekend trip to Beijing and mooch off Allie and her school group by staying in her hotel room.
Plus it wasn’t AS scary as going to China all by myself and not having anyone to notice if I went missing until after my trip was supposed to be over. (Justin isn’t really supposed to go to China for security reasons, plus he doesn’t have a passport yet and he really doesn’t have the days-off necessary, so he couldn’t come with me).
So that’s how I ended up in Beijing “alone” while my friend was on her school tours etc.
***
Thursday (6:40pm Hotel Lobby)
"Somewhere beyond the Sea" came on the lobby music stream. It seemed appropriate since I was sitting there (6 hours later) waiting to meet my friend and thinking I could be with my husband instead.
The bus ride to the airport that morning was fine (after I talked myself down from a panic attack), and everything in the giant Seoul airport went smoothly too. I only had to glance at signs a few times, but otherwise everything was basically intuitive. The flight was short, just under 2 hours and easy. The only down side was my chair didn't recline because I was in front of an exit row. China Air: 1. Lucy: 0.
I got out of the Chinese airport which was even bigger than Seoul's international airport and found a taxi (after a few tries) that seemed to understand where I wanted to go. I was SO pleased that I made it to the hotel right in time for lunch, which seemed over priced, but might not have been as I wasn't used to thinking in the new currency I'd have to use yet. The pizza was 98y and bottled water was 45y, I felt like I was paying 150 dollars for lunch. I mean I wasn't, but still.
So I ate pizza and talked to the concierge about tours, since I wasn't sure what Allie's group would be doing or if I could tag along. I had my plans in place, but I had to be checked in before I could book any tours. ugh.
The biggest problem with hanging out in a hotel lobby (for six hours) is not with finding something to do, I'd brought a book (well Kindle). But it was keeping the staff from looking at me like I might be homeless. I moved around a bit, reading in different places in the lobby and sat even sat outside just to shake things up.
I wished Allie had been able to tell me Before I bought my ticket what time she would be arriving in Beijing, so that I could have arrived closer to when she would. She told me last week that they should be due at the airport about 4pm, so they'd be at the hotel by 5pm. But one of the nice concierge people I had talked to came over and told me that a large school group just called from the airport and were running very late. Well, at least I knew.
Allie showed up about 7pm, sans group. She'd heard they were running late and would be taken from the airport to dinner before coming to the hotel. But she didn't want me to wait longer than I had to so she convinced one of her teachers or something to get a taxi with her and they skipped dinner to come meet me and check in. (yay!)
We checked in, caught up a little while having a dinner of granola bars I'd brought. A group from her school wanted to go the the Silk Market. So we all hopped into two cabs and had a surprisingly nice nighttime cab ride. The windows were open and it was late enough that there was no traffic so we got a running breeze. We also unexpectedly drove past the Forbidden city and Tiananmen square lit up with strings of white lights.
The Silk Market was a standard indoor Asian market. Tons of crowded stalls inside a huge multi floor building with knock-off brands and insistent sales people who were really, really pushy. We got to the market at closing time and inadvertently got some better deals though we didn't have time to shop much.
Getting a ride back was another thing. It was now "late" about 9:30pm and the cabbies wanted to bargain with you instead of running the meter. Five of us ended up getting into a small van that was NOT a taxi, just some guy who gave us a better deal (ie not trying to rip us waaaay off). I would have never done this alone or with a small group of just girls… but we had two guys with us, and it was the middle of a crowded city, but still. We did get back safely. I showered and passed out getting every minute of sleep possible before my 7am tour pick up.
(see next entry)
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