Tuesday 20 October 2015
All packed and ready to go, my mate Gary took me to Amy’s house for 14:30 and
we said our goodbyes. Just after he had driven away I realised that I had left
my lovingly prepared salad and fruit for the coach journey in his
car! Thankfully I got hold of him and we met him and set off again. Doh! Not
the best start to the trip.
Amy and I got to Air Ambulance HQ at 15:45, just in time for the photo
shoot in front of the helicopter. We all piled in the coach and it left on time
at 16:00. I sat on the back seat with Mike, Kevin and Faye. Mike and I had a
good catch up for almost the entire journey to the Premier Inn at Heathrow. We
arrived at 21:30 and Dean met us as we checked in. Sarah and I put our bags in
our room and met up with some of the team in the bar. We had a good laugh,
partly reminiscing about Peru. I turned in at 23:00, leaving Sarah there. I
went to bed and Sarah returned to the room about midnight.
Wednesday 21 October 2015
Our room was near the lift so we were disturbed about 05:00 by people
moving around. Our alarm went off at 06:00, we got ready
and met the rest of the group in the foyer about 06:30. We caught the shuttle
bus to Terminal 3 and checked in.
I spent the couple of hours we had to wait for our flight with Leroy.
We found some food and had a wander around the shops. We met the others at Gate
3a and boarded our flight to Helsinki on time at 09:45. The flight took 3 hours
and I managed to doze for some of it, however I had a young chap sitting behind
me who kept fidgeting, knocking my seat and randomly breaking out into song, in Finnish I think!
We landed at Helsinki on time and we had 2 hours to kill. We looked around the photographic exhibition, went to the Nordic Kitchen for a smoothie / coffee and then boarded
our flight to Beijing on time at 18:05 from Gate 37e. I was in seat 24C (an
aisle seat) next to a Finnish business lady. She was going to a conference in Beijing and
hoping to have time to see some of the Great Wall. We were served lamb meatballs for dinner and then, just before we landed, omelette for breakfast. I slept reasonably well and just had time to watch the first half of the film Jurassic World.
I don’t think I’ll bother watching the second half at a later date!
Thursday 22 October 2015
The flight landed at Beijing airport on time at about 06:00. We cleared passport control and claimed our baggage. Sadly we were missing two bags, one containing Shaun and Lauren’s belongings and the other was Katie’s.
The baggage carousel in Beijing airport
Alan gives us his first talk, on Tiananmen Square
We met our local guide, Alan, and we all piled onto the coach. His real name isn't really Alan, but it's the name he has chosen for himself to use when guiding people like us who wouldn't be able to pronounce his actual name! It was chilly and there was light drizzle, just like the weather we had left in the UK. The coach sat in heavy traffic for an hour or so and then we arrived at Tiananmen Square.
My first selfie of the trip, with my roomie Sarah in the chilly drizzle!
We parked and had a
wander around. Some Chinese people asked Leroy if they could have their photo
taken with him. We thought this was a really random thing to happen but at
least one of us was asked most days, apparently because Chinese people here rarely get to see
white Caucasians.
19YN for chicken nuggets and fries (That's £1.90!!!)
We then went to MacDonald’s as we were chilly and hungry. We
left there at midday and walked back to the coach.
As our guide was called
Alan, whenever we called him we did so just like the advert "Alan, Alan, Alan..." and at one point we were standing on Tiananmen Square debating what type of
animal it is that is in the comedy video. Not what I expected to be doing in Beijing!
When we arrived at the Rainbow Hotel, which was large but clean and had
big well-furnished rooms, our rooms weren’t ready so we waited in the main
Lobby for a while. There was intermittent wi-fi signal there so I managed to
send a message home that all was well and we had arrived.
Sarah and I were given our room key about 14:00 and, as we had heard
there were leisure facilities in the basement (sauna, massage etc), we went to
investigate. We asked the man at the reception desk of the leisure area if we
could use the pool. He just said a flat “no”. We waved our arms as if swimming
and he, again, said “no”. We showed him our room key card. “No.” We decided to
go and ask our Guide, Alan, for help and found him at the main reception. We
described what had happened and he explained that there is no pool! Ah, that explains it! Sarah
was having trouble with muscle stiffness in her shoulders so we told him we
were interested in having a massage. “Urrrr, no, you don’t want that.” he said.
Apparently, the Chinese give very vigorous massage and he wouldn’t advise we
try that in the hotel, so we returned to our room and Sarah got her head down
for a doze while I prepared my bag for the next day.
When I had finished, about 15:00, I went down to the Lobby where I met
Di who wanted to go to the local ‘market’ but couldn’t go on her own, so I
agreed to go with her. We hopped in a taxi that was waiting outside the hotel
and for 17YN we arrived at the market. It wasn’t what I was expecting of a
‘market’.
Di buys memory cards and a new mobile phone
It was a large indoor area crammed with counters full of mobile
phones and accessories, headphones, speakers etc etc. I got a couple of gifts
to take home and had a good time haggling the prices down. Di bought some SD
cards and, while I was browsing in a little store, bought a Galaxy phone for
530YN. Di had now spent a big chunk of her cash for the trip. We decided it was time to go!
We walked to a rank of taxis and showed the hotel card to the driver of
the first taxi. He said 100YN to take us. We said we’d got there for 17YN just
20 minutes earlier! “No. Rush hour” he said. So we went to the next taxi.
“80YN” was the offer, so we went to the next “60YN”, and then the driver of the
fourth car offered to take us for 50YN. He walked towards his car muttering
something under his breath holding our hotel card. We quickly caught up with
him and confirmed that he would take us for 50YN (about £5). Yes! We had a
deal. It took us probably 3 times as long to get back to the hotel as it had to
get there because there was so much traffic, so we decided the taxi drivers had
a valid reason to charge more than the 17YN we had paid earlier, but 100YN was
still extortionate.
Once back at the hotel, I took my purchases to our room and returned to
the Lobby where I was gradually joined by the rest of the team. Dean gave his
leader talk at 18:00 (day sack contents, anit-bac, expectations, anti-bac,
medication, anti-bac, encourage each other, anti-bac) and then we went for
dinner in the hotel restaurant. We divided onto 2 large round tables with a
huge Lazy Susan in the centre of each that was constantly topped up with dishes
of food for us all to share. Everyone on our table used chopsticks to eat with
and I was so proud of myself for being able to use them to eat my whole meal. As
it had been a very long day with little sleep on the plane, we turned in about
21:00, after Charya massaged Sarah’s aching neck/shoulders.
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