The Adventure Begins...

An opportunity to go to China? In October? A month when I would normally be happily toiling away teaching biology or some other awesome science to freshman and sophomores? Hell yeah! Since I love to travel, especially to places that are culturally different from the US, I was definitely on board with the idea. But should I really take off when I just resigned form my teaching job last June and currently had no income? I was pleasantly surprised though when I checked airfares and found that a Portland, Me to Beijing to Shanghai and then back to Portland itinerary was actually reasonably priced. So after booking fare, filling out Visa forms, reading up on China and studying Mandarin for a few minutes I was off.

After being in transit for approximately 36 hours ( oh yeah , the way to get a reasonable air fare is to have a long layover in Chicago after getting up at 3 am to catch the originating flight in Portland. Sigh), I landed safely in Beijing, and after an hour or so in the immigration line, picked up my small bag and found my brother waiting by the baggage carousel.  So far so good! Everything was going as planned....at least for the moment.

Our first adventure was getting to the hotel that I had booked online. Beijing has a new high speed train linking the airport to down town.  It's inexpensive compared with taxis and also faster.  Ticket selling machines are ubiquitous and can often be, to put it mildly, frustrating.  But guess what?  The Chinese have this one figured out!.  It took us less than 1.5 minutes to navigate the elegantly simple ticket seller after which we hopped aboard the sleek new train. Twenty minutes later we found ourselves in the midst of downtown Beijing, a city swarming with a population nearing 20 million. That’s up 45% from just 10 years ago, mainly due to people moving from the countryside in search of opportunity, a trend mirrored in cities worldwide. But we were not at the hotel yet. A string of taxis queued outside the train station. After attempts to communicate with a couple of drivers, we followed one of them ...and discovered that we had arranged transport via rickshaw. We hesitated just long enough for the wiry old driver to grab our bags and throw them aboard.

We glanced at each other, shrugged and climbed in to the rickety seat. Our driver (is that the correct word? He was pedaling!) knew exactly how close he could get to parked vehicles and cars changing lanes in front of us.  He did all in his power to avoid momentum loss so this measnt never putting opn the brakes!.Traffic in a city like this is like a beautifully choreographed dance ; it’s also like a seriously hair raising hell ride!  In any case, it was an exciting and breezy way to be introduced to the city and we somehow arrived unscathed at our hotel, Tian Ryu on Budang Hutong Lu.

At the hotel I have my first chance to really use my practically non -existent Mandarin language speaking skills, which pretty much amount to the very useful phrase: “I only speak a little Mandarin, Do you speak English?” The young lady at the reception desk found my attempts rather amusing apparently. She didn't exactly laugh out loud, but the grin on her face was as wide as  my bell bottoms in 1970. I was so glad that I had devoted time to learning the language! Even if it comes out somewhat unintelligible, it helps break the ice if you at least try.   After a bit of confusion, it was determined that yes indeed there was a room reserved in my name! After inspecting the facilities (more on that subject later) and eating some apple pie that I had brought in my suitcase, we crashed and slept for the next 10 hours. Bejing would be there in the morning and we might be able to handle it better sans jet lag!