I slept little on the plane, but with some movies provided by the in-flight entertainment it was quite durable. Although for the first 15 minutes I was afraid all movies were Chinese dubbed. It later turned out I just had to switch the channel.
Anyhow, we finally arrived and we decided we should just head to the hotel we booked. Stefan had made reservation at a hotel close to the old city and had printed the address in Chinese. Since we were not to sure on which bus to take and being a bit tired we decided to take a taxi to take us to the hotel. We got in line for the taxis and were appointed to a small fan which was old and crooked but did the job. The drive would take around 45 minutes and cost 480 yuan for 3 people. This is about 50 euros in total. Of course this later turned out to be quite the rip-off, but hey, first time in China not sure what the prices were. From our point of view this was still relatively cheap compared to back home.
During our ride to the hotel we got a quick introduction to the Chinese traffic rules, which basically state:
- use the clutch at all time
- on a 3 way lane drive with at least 4 cars next to each other
- the safety lane can be used to speed along the traffic
- use your big light when the person in front of you is not moving fast enough to your liking.
In other words complete chaos!
I personally thought it was quite a miracle we didn't get in any accidents, but it seemed we had a driver familiar with all these rules so we went amazingly fast.
We arrived at The Emperor Hotel, located just east from the Forbidden City. This is where we would stay during our 5 nights in Beijing.
During the wait for our check-in we all got a cup of tea and a wet hot rug to wash our hands and face. Quite nice after such a trip.
Taken to our rooms we were quite amazed with the style used in the rooms. The design really stood out especially the placement of the shower. This design inevitably caused this picture to be taken by Stefan.
After a quick shower we decided to explore the surrounding area. Walking up north, we started to understand that this place was not just a tourist place for internationals but also for the Chinese. Trust me there were a lot of them! After a nice walk we got a bit hungry and decided to just pick a restaurant and check it out.
Frank noticed one on our way he said it looked pretty decent. So we had a check and encountered a few internationals. We sat down and had a look at the menu.
I wanted to order something traditional, to get in the Chinese spirit.
I ordered a portion of dumpling, of course chopsticks were provided and we agreed to force ourself to learn to eat with it.
During dinner we heard the other internationals speak in Dutch, so we thought saying "hello" wouldn't be a bad idea. It turned out that they were students from the same city as us, Delft. I thought this was quite funny to meet people from the same city within 6 hours in an unfamiliar country and that just by chance. After dinner we headed back to our hotel. I had quite a jetlag from flying through 13 time zones within 48 hours so I went to bed at 20:00. To wake up the next morning feeling greatly refreshed.
0 reacties:
Post a Comment