Thursday, February
24th
2000 |
Beijing,
Sunny
– Max: 5,2; Min: -4,8; Avg: 0,2 |
We
landed more or less on time at 11:30am
Chinese
time (5:30am
Danish time). We queued up
for passport control (it took about 20 minutes) and then went down to collect our luggage. It
had all arrived. We said goodbye to Jens, Gunhild and family (they were staying
at another hotel).
The Arrivals
Hall was packed - but nobody was waiting for us! We decided
to exchange some of our Dollars (we didn’t have any Chinese money at all!) and
get a taxi to the hotel. We went to the Hotels Desk at the airport to ask them to
write down the Chinese name of our hotel – most taxi drivers don’t speak any English!
Outside
it was cold and there were two taxi queues – we went to one of them and were
told to go to the other queue. The taxis were of various sizes, but none of
them seemed to be big enough for 3 westerners and their entire luggage! Finally we
were ushered into a waiting taxi with enough room for all of us – and off we went
for our first trip in China
!
  We arrived
safely at the hotel after a 30 minute ride – 112RMB was far cheaper
than the equivalent trip in Denmark
- but then again it wasn't a Mercedes Benz either.
We checked in – the
Internet booking had worked and we went up to
our rooms. Thomas turned on the TV – zapped through
a handful of channels and
of all things, found a NBA match on TV (our
son is basketball crazy) - it wasn't exactly what we were expecting
as our first experience of TV in
China.
We
unpacked, relaxed a bit, had a snack
and waited for Thomas’ match to finish.
We took a map in reception
and realised for the first time, that Holiday Inn Downtown wasn’t at all ‘downtown’
but next to the inner ring road, a few kilometres from downtown.
It was cold but sunny and
we decided to
walk into town along Fuchengmen Nei Avenue. Here we got a real picture
of life in Beijing
–
thousands of people and
hundreds of small shops. We were surprised by the many cars - we were expecting
bicycles. Many people stopped
up to look at us.
We walked to the
Forbidden City; it took about an hour. Near
the
Forbidden City
we saw the entrance to some
of the low dwellings that were everywhere in
Beijing
in former times - Hutongs
that probably won't be there in 5-10 years time.
 We
entered the Forbidden City from the southern Entrance and took a leisurely trip
around, seeing many of the sites, but not really knowing very much about them as
we didn't have any guide books with us. However it was our first taste of
Chinese culture - the sun was setting and it was getting cold. A
young Chinese artist sold us one of his pictures – he told us that the
proceeds from the sale were to pay for a trip to Munich
later that
year - Lene at least believed him. We were surprised that there were so few
people in the Forbidden City, and next to no tourists.
 We left the
Forbidden City
and walked across
Tiananmen Square
and took a photo of Lene and
Thomas in front
of the famous Mao picture on the square. We saw three Chinese soldiers running
(not just marching) in step – it was a pity that the camera wasn’t on hand just then. We started to head back towards the hotel along
Xichang’an Avenue,
past the Great Hall of The
People. Thomas was very tired by now, and we were all feeling the cold.
As
we headed back towards the hotel, we were stopped by a group of Chinese in
their 20’s. They pushed a camera towards us. We thought that they wanted to
sell it to us and politely declined. When they persisted we thought that they
wanted us to take a picture of them. We went to take the
camera, but that
wasn’t what they wanted either. They wanted to take our picture together with
them. We obliged, and we hope that it’s a good picture.
We
headed up Xidan North and Xidan South. Thomas refreshed on the way after
spending sometime in a sports shop. Back at the hotel we eat a light dinner –
even Thomas couldn’t empty the buffet. We could hardly keep our eyes open.
It
had been an interesting first day in China.
We all slept well. Still no real time to think about what wonders Yanmei would
bring!
NEXT
DAY (25th)
|
