Back in Beijing

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We spent the day in Beijing, awaiting our early morning flight to Tokyo. Fortunately I read in our Lonely Planet that Sichuan Airlines (our airline from Chengdu to Beijing) offers free shuttles to and from the airport for their customers. The minibus service from the hostel was a whopping 70Yuan so this was a welcome relief. We asked the tour operator at the hostel to phone them and make arrangements, and he informed us to be waiting at the end of the alley at 5:40am (due to construction our alley is not passable by vehicles).

Morning came and we bid goodbye to Dragon Town Youth Hostel and trekked off in the dark down the slightly muddy alleyway. Sure enough, before long, the yellow shuttle appears and we climb on board.

We’ve discovered that North America seems to have the only airlines which have eliminated free meals. Our flight from Chengdu to Beijing was only 2 hours, yet as soon as we took off we received drinks, and breakfast! Breakfast was hot porridge and a muffin, nothing spectacular, but still it was free!

We left our luggage in storage at the Beijing airport and caught a shuttle into the city. Our flight to Tokyo is not until tomorrow morning. For a good price we were dropped off near a subway station and headed to the hostel where we stayed when in Beijing 3 weeks ago, to eat lunch at the restaurant.

Wandering through the streets we came across…a Walmart! I had no idea that China had Walmarts, but apparently they’ve been open since 1996! Despite it being a sign of commercialism and Westernization, we enjoyed walking around for an hour and a half, and we purchased some extra pairs of underwear and some toiletries.

With time still to kill we headed to one of our favorite shopping streets, Wangfujing, and ate dinner here, browsed the bookshop, and looked at the Olympic merchandise.

I would love to live in Beijing, I really enjoy the feel of the city, and they have a decent subway system. We hopped on the subway at the end of the evening to catch it back to the International Hotel where we had to pick up the Airport Shuttle again. It was 10:00pm when we reached the hotel, and the hotel reception staff politely informed us that the shuttle stops running at 7:30pm and won’t start again until 6:30am. Oh damn. After we paid to store our luggage at the airport we realized we could have just taken it with us into the city and gotten a cheap dorm room at a hostel, and had a nice place to sleep for the night, but the money was spent so we tried not to think about it. Now our only option of getting back to the airport was a taxi, and when you combine the cost of the left luggage and taxi back we had definitely spent more than a hostel would have cost. If we had not been required to pick up our luggage by 11pm I think we would have found a place to lay our heads, but we didn’t want to spend even more by going over our storage time so we asked the porter outside the hotel to please flag us a taxi. At least by catching a taxi from such a high end hotel we were assured that we would not be ripped off. When the cab pulled up we were given a card with the taxi number and the phone number of the manager of the hotel, who we were to contact if the meter wasn’t working or the driver attempted to scam us. I was a little nervous, because I noticed our driver nodding off while he was driving, but I kept shifting around in the backseat hoping my movement and noise would keep him awake long enough to deliver us alive. We arrived in one piece at the airport and collected our belongings.

Now we sit awaiting our 9:55am flight, I think we’ll try to snooze on a bench for a bit.

One week in Tokyo and then we’re back to China to continue our adventure. We’re a little curious to see what Tokyo will feel like after China. It seems like ages ago that we started our trip in Tokyo!

Until next time…

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Comments

[Lins]

probably too late, but there's this site that can be awesome if you find yourself stuck sleeping in the airport. I've gotten a few good tips when stuck in an airport with 8 hours to wait and needing sleep. (Best area to sleep, etc...) Beijing doesn't look to have too many tips. But keep in mind for other airports? http://www.sleepinginairports.net/asia/beijing.htm