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Published: February 23rd 2012
Friends to send us off
Jacquie & Kaila, who sent us off on our trip!A year ago when researching our honeymoon to the USVI, the idea dawned on Steph that we could get away for longer, for cheaper. Colin had mentioned long ago that he would love to go to Thailand one day - this memory came to mind, and upon looking up flight prices and realizing they were considerably cheaper than either of us had ever thought, the decision was made, and the "non-research" began. USVI was thrown out of the window for another time (and anyway, we already knew we would be there for a day for our wedding anyway, during the cruise stop!) and the trip to Thailand, with an extended layover in Beijing, and a few days spent in Malaysia, was born.
Time seemed to pass at an alarming rate - with our destination wedding over & done with, the home reception and thank you cards (finally!) wrapped up, then Christmas & New Years, before we knew it, it was time to put our backpacks on and begin our honeymoon!
Early Tuesday morning, we exchanged Valentines Day cards (surprisingly we both bought each other cards even though we said we weren't going to celebrate), said goodbye to our two
YVR
One last goodbye to Vancouver, at the airport cats, locked up the condo, and walked down the street to the train station. We live close by a commuter train and the entire journey from our house in Port Coquitlam, to YVR airport took just over an hour thanks to the Westcoast Express and new sky train line. This was quicker than driving!
The travel to the airport was made even sweeter by the presence of our friends Jacquie & Kaila, who both take the train to commute downtown. Jacquie treated us to Starbucks on the way down there - a dangerous stop in which Steph nearly knocked over no less than 3 people with her backpack (there's a learning curve to wearing these things, okay?!). Kaila didn't need to be anywhere until 10 so she was kind enough to accompany us the full distance and carry Steph's camera bag & carry-on bag so that Steph could 100% concentrate on not hitting people with her backpack!
All checked in for our flight and through security with 3 hours to spare, we sat down for a "final Western meal" at Milestones and chatted about the fact that this trip we had been planning and anticipating for so long
Honeymooners
About to go through airport security! No turning back now! was finally here. Steph has never been away for more than 3 weeks, and the only times Colin has gone away for a month was to see his Dad in Greece, so still around the comforts of home. This backpacking trip is a big deal for us. Steph being a micromanager, type A extreme personality, let go of all of that to fly by the seat of her pants. Colin, so dependent on Steph's organizational skills, but always a fly by the seat of his pants kind of dude, was ready to spend a month away from it all to relax on the beach, beer in one hand, rum & coke in the other.
We were happy to have a window and aisle seat, and the chairs reclined well, for our Air Asia flight to Beijing. We were very tired from (purposely) staying up late the night before, and soon after our flight left Vancouver at 12:40pm, we had eaten and fallen asleep. Thanks to some pharmaceuticals, we slept the majority of the flight, waking only for our dinner and refills of the free beer & wine! Nearly 12 hours passed, and we landed at 4:30pm Beijing time, which
Beijing
We have finally landed in Beijing! was close to Midnight Vancouver time.
It was easy to see why the airport in Beijing was rated one of the top in the world. It was enormous and beautiful, and customs was a breeze. We decided to take the Airport Express Subway, since our hotel was within walking distance from the subway with only 1 transfer needed. The Subway system was incredibly easy to navigate, with all signs and announcements in both Mandarin & English. It was bright and clean, and took us only about 35 minutes to reach our stop.
That is where the easy part ended. When we emerged to the street, we had absolutely no idea where to go next! There was no one nearby to speak English and of course our iPhones were useless in China without having an astronomical fee. Thankfully, a Chinese lady who spoke broken English stopped to ask us if we needed help. In retrospect, that was the final time that a random act of kindness would occur while we were in Beijing.
Pointed in the right direction, we began our ten minute walk down a busy Beijing street, finally realizing just how cold we would be for
Beijing2
Beautiful architecture at the Beijing Capital Airport the next two days! Beijing was -10, with the windchill making it seem impossibly colder. Thank goodness for thermals & down jackets! We stopped at a Starbucks for some familiarity, because let us tell you, there was nothing familiar about this place! Blowing a huge part of our budget (when you can spend $2 on two coffees as opposed to $12, you realize quickly how frivolous Starbucks is on a backpackers budget!), we continued our journey with Vanilla Spice Lattes in tow (vanilla + nutmeg, yum yum. Get on it, North American Starbucks!).
Finally we arrived at our hotel, with frozen faces but excitement to check out the hotel. We picked it due to 1) good TripAdvisor reviews 2) proximity to Beijings nightlife district, Sanlutin - the "Granville St" of Beijing, you might say 3) it is unique in that it is built into the Workers Stadium. Vancouverites, imagine a hotel being built into 4 floors of BC Place. Pretty cool, eh?
Our hotel was ultra modern and trendy. We could have gone with a traditional Chinese hotel in a hutong, but figured we would have enough of traditional when winging accommodation during the rest of our trip.
Ahotel
A.Hotel hallway The front desk staff had very limited English skills and were quite cold (no English but a smile is still very helpful), so we decided to bundle up and venture out into the street on our own for dinner and some drinks.
We were staying near some major clubs, Vic's and Mix, as well as tons of trendy bars and clubs all withing walking distance. But, when it came down to it, we were both feeling pretty tired and it was so cold that we couldn't possibly imagine putting on clothes that would be acceptable to wear out. So, we ended up wandering the streets for a while and covered some pretty good area. We walked up some busy roads filled with lights and clubs, and some dark alleys, but never did we feel unsafe. We noted even the alleys to be very clean and well kept.
We were so indecisive about where to eat, because no restaurants had menus written in English or English speaking staff. We also didn't want to spend an arm & a leg knowing that our budget for the month could easily be blown if we stick to our usual home habits of
eating at expensive restaurants. After walking in circles (or at least it felt like it!) we finally settled on - get this - an Irish Pub. Yes, here we were in China, eating at an Irish Pub. There were two other tables eating at the restaurant, both filled with Westerners of course. We each ordered burgers & fries, mostly because they were on special for 40rmb ($6.30ish Canadian) which really isn't a deal in China but at this point we didn't care. To be honest, we were both wishing that Steph had done the research about authentic Chinese restaurants near our hotel at this point! Anyway, the burgers were GOOD considering we were in China.... At an Irish Pub... And so were the beers we downed along with it! Jet lagged and still feeling a bit groggy from the sleeping pills we took on the plane (Steph is such a great nurse that she is pretty sure she overdosed herself, because it took over 24 hours for that sleeping pill grogginess to dissipate!), we called it a night soon after dinner, heading back to the hotel in the bitter cold. We climbed into bed, although it felt more like a
slab of concrete, eager for morning to come so we could begin our journey to the Great Wall of China!
Beijing FYI:
Safe Pedestrians: We were definitely not prepared for their style of driving over here! In North America, it is against the law not to stop for pedestrians crossing at crosswalks. In China, the drivers will run you over! You actually have to dodge cars and just focus on making it from one lane to the next as opposed to crossing the street all at once.
Subway Chronicles: While we were changing Subway lines, an Asian lady stopped us and in very, very broken English, told Steph "I love you! You are beautiful! I love you very much!" It was doubtful that she understood Steph's reply, but hopefully our smiles helped! It was very cute.
Subway Chronicles #2: This was a "please may this not have been my fault" moment. While on the escalator leaving the Subway station, Steph was pretty certain she had gotten used to carrying her bag and the way in which she needed to move with it on her. She is also pretty certain that if she hit anyone or anything,
she would have felt it! Another certainty is that there was no one behind us for at least four steps on the escalator. There was some sudden commotion and we turned around to see a man falling down the escalator into a huge crowd of people, with his suitcases falling on top of him. How he did not knock more people down, we do not know...... Colin was insistent that it was not Stephs doing, but she can't help but have a shadow of doubt!
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Mom
non-member comment
Love it
You should be a writer for novice back packers - got quite the chuckle!!