Day 0 - getting to Beijing from Omama

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Allie and I packed the night before we were flying. For some bizarre reason, it took me, with a full wardrobe, less time to pack than him, living out of a backpack. We were up early, in case there were other things to do at the last minute. Unfortunately, we still didn't have time for all the washing up! We did some pre-emptive damage control.

Allie and I walked to the station, where we bought a ticket for Gabe as well, since he'd be meeting us on the train an Ota, and wanted to sit with us. By the time Gabe joined us, we'd already started on the beer. We weren't sure whether Brandi and Josh were meeting us on the train, as neither of them had actually told us, so we hadn't bought tickets for them. Gabe, Allie and I ended up doing a little bit of poppers on the train. Other than that, arriving at Narita was relatively uneventful… Brandi and Josh were late, due to them eating IN the restaurant we said we'd meet OUTSIDE of.

Got to Narita, checked in, and waited for the flight. Iran Air has a no drinking policy, due to it being an Islamic country. There was even an area where passengers could pray, with prayer mats, in case passengers wanted to maintain their prayer routine, and were air-bourne at sunrise or sunset, or any of the other times when they face East. It was an uneventful flight. Take off was delayed by about 45 minutes, so we were behind schedule. We arrived in Beijing Airport, collected our bags, changed money (something you can't do outside China), and found our ride to the hostel.

At the hostel, we found that they'd screwed up our booking a little. I'd reserved 2 mixed bed rooms for 4 people. We got 1 4bed room, which already had a lady in it, and 1 empty 4 bed room with a bathroom. The girls HAD to take the room with the lady, as she'd said that she would ONLY stay with other girls. The boys got the nice room. Of course, this would lead to problems when Tomoko arrived… there'd be 5 girls wanting to stay in 1 room.

After cleaning up a bit, we headed out for food. We found Pizza Hut. In Japan, it's nigh on impossible to find GOOD pizza. We'd all gone to China knowing that we would eat at Pizza Hut once when we were there. We ordered our food, and when the drinks came, someone decided to make a missile out of their straw covering. I copied them, and mine went streaking across the restaurant, narrowly avoiding one of the waiters, who found it rather amusing. Because we arrived at the restaurant late in the evening, we were given free cakes to eat. A nice added bonus! We strolled back to the hostel, our bellies bursting (at least, mine was stuffed!), hung out for a bit, then headed for our respective rooms for some shut-eye.

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