Beijing, China Day 1

Our 23 day cruise from Vancouver BC ended in Tianjin, China (port for Beijing) on October 9, 2012.  Weather again was cloudy but the temperature was mild.  The day previously we spent some time in our cabin doing the dreaded job of packing!  All that stuff that we brought with us now had to be rearranged back into our suitcases.  For this cruise plus post-cruise time in Beijing, this is what we brought:  1 28" suitcase,expandable; 1 carry on for dear husband; 1 24" suitcase for me.  Now I do have to admit that I also had a purse and a backpack while the netbook and information went into the over the shoulder bag that my dear other half carried.  We both had our own digital cameras.

Disembarkation was very efficient as all the Platinum and Elite passengers gathered in one lounge (Club Fusion).  We waited for our colour Orange 5 to be called.  By 8:00 we walked through the cruise terminal (brand new) with our luggage, which we had taken off by ourselves.  We saved time by taking our own luggage from our cabin instead of putting it out the night previously.  If you put your luggage out, the next day you have to search for it in the cruise terminal.

It was wonderful to see Sam, our tour guide for the next few days, waiting very patiently for us.  When we saw our name on his sign, we greeted him and a little cheer erupted from his friends.  We asked him about this later in our trip and he smiled.  You see, we were the first passengers off the ship to find their driver!  (of course, we are not talking about the Princess transfers).  Maybe there was a wager set to see who would win?  Anyways, he was very happy to see us; it is not uncommon for these tour guides and drivers to wait over an hour for their clients to appear.  Our driver's name was Lee, who proved to be an excellent driver indeed!

I almost forget:  we were under the assumption that we were just 2 people in a group.  With the price that our travel agent quoted us, we felt that was a fairly safe bet.  Imagine our surprise when I asked Sam where the other people were and he said:  You are on a private tour.  Yes, it was the two of us with a guide and driver!  How fortunate we felt as that meant no tour buses filled with many other passengers.

It took about 2 hours from Tiajin to our hotel in Beijing.  This was a very new highway that we were on with quite a few toll booths.  The road had been built to accommodate the new cruise terminal, which unfortunately has not seen the economic changes that they were hoping would occur.

What amazed us as were entering Beijing:  the skyscrapers and modern feel of the city.  Lots of different bank names, American brand name stores, many hotels, and of course, stores upon stores, and people galore!  It was different for us as we did have this image of Beijing as being less modern than North America.  Myth busted for sure!

We drove through the financial part of Beijing and continued on many roads, names unknown, until Sam said:  We are now in the older section of the city.  A few twists and turns and voila, our home for the next few days appeared!

The front of our Best Western Royal Phoenix Hotel.  And Sam helped us register at the Front Desk as English is not readily spoken in this hotel.  After saying goodbye to him, we went up to the fifth floor to our room 520:

Taken from the door to show you the size of the room.  The bathroom is to your right and the closet is to your left.

Yes, a king sized comfy bed with a bench at the foot of the bed, which we found quite handy for unpacking our suitcases.

And here is the bathroom which had a good sized shower and wash basin.  Two bottles of bottled water were supplied by the hotel as it is possibly not safe to use the tap water.  The white towels were thick and fluffy.  Soap, shampoo, and conditioner were supplied.  Note the telephone in the picture below in the bathroom.  There was a second telephone in the bedroom area.  This hotel also supplied red plush robes and white slippers, wrapped in plastic.  There was a mini-fridge and a water kettle, which we did use nightly.

 

 

 





After we munched on the fresh fruit, peeled, we decided to explore the surroundings.  Oh, I failed to mention that our Hotel was in Qianliang hutong....yes, we are actually in a real hutong.  Before this trip, we had planned to find a hutong and wander about.  Well, to our very pleased delight, we are in a hutong already.  So, we walked one block and turned left and found....the Bank.  Which Bank it was I am not sure, but we entered, the lady gave us a number, and we waited 2 minutes.  We went up to the male teller who was behind his glass barrier.  We wanted to exchange some money for Chinese money.  First question he asked us:  May I see your passport?  Well, we had taken a copy with us but no, with Chinese rules, we needed the real passport.

Thank goodness we backtracked only a very short distance, got our passports, and returned to the bank and repeated the number, then the waiting, more waiting, more waiting.  After about 15 minutes our number came up on the electronic display board.  We know now that if you enter a bank, everyone waits for the tellers!  And we thought our waits were bad...actually, in Beijing, they supply chairs for the waiting.  Maybe our bank could install some chairs!

Okay, it's our turn.  Passport turned in, money given to him.  Request should be fairly simple, right?
Nope, he examines the money, smooths it out, counts it, puts it through this machine that flips the bills out, then he calls his supervisor over, who now re-counts the money and flips it about to make sure it is paper? perhaps?  Papers to be printed out, papers to be signed.....well, finally, we get our Chinese yuan bills, passport returned, and a BANKING EXPERIENCE, NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN!  Never ever complain about your bank again, please, not after what we had to do.  Interesting, yes, fun, of course.

What did we do after our banking?  Just plain walking around the streets which weren't all that crowded.  We saw fashion stores beside hardware stores beside scooter stores.  Mid-priced scooter is about $400 Canadian.  As we were walking, we did see sights like this:

We were looking for a specific park that Sam had mentioned to us but we never did find it.  But that was fine as we did find the nearest Subway stop, Dongxi, which a few days later we would enter and use the subway line. (2 yuan per ride)

We had a wonderful dinner that may have been on the expensive side but it truly was fresh, as it was cooked right in front of us.

Believe it or not, as it got darker, we continued to walk the hutong streets and we finally found a really interesting shop!  It had all sorts of 'fun stuff' ready to be cooked on the skewers.  Are you ready to see this?

 

 

Yes, you are seeing juicy black scorpions!  And if you look closely, you will see crickers or grasshoppers, some cocoons, and not sure of the other set of skewers.

 

After roaming around some more that night, we finally decided it was time for bed.  What a fun day this has been!  Tomorrow Sam and Lee will meet us at 8 AM for more explorations.