Loose Feet

I arrived in Beijing this afternoon. I had this idea in my mind that when I got to the airport it would be this noisy, crazy mess of people running around everywhere speaking Chinese and trying to take my money. It wasn't like that at all. It was relatively quiet, really. Immigration was no problem, walked right out and got into the taxi....And then it got a bit strange.

I gave the taxi driver my information for the hostel I am staying at, a place called The Chinesebox Hostel -- which has been fantastic, but more about that later. The taxi driver had no idea where it was. It's located in the Hutong area of Beijing, which is one of the older areas comprised of tiny little alleyways. He kept calling and calling but noone was picking up and I started to sweat. I was thinking in my head that I would get dropped off on the side of the road somewhere and would be paying wayyy too much money to get to my bed. Go figure, I'm a huge worrywart and it all worked out. Eventually, he turned down some small little street and parked on the side of the tiny road -- and there it was! Two huge red doors with lion knockers and a very handsome guy came out and brought me in and got me all sorted out.

I sat down with the two guys at the front desk (I'll just say this...Chinese men are handsome) and they got me all sorted out. I told them where I wanted to go and they got together my train tickets, my airplane tickets...everything. Now I just have to figure out where I'm going to stay in all these places. Looks like I'll be staying here in Beijing until Friday. Then off to X'ian for the weekend to see the terracotta warriors. After that I'll take the train to Shanghai for one day, then fly to Hong Kong for 4 days. Then I'll come back to Shanghai for the weekend and Sunday night will take the train down to Hangzhou to see Penny for Christmas.

Yikes. Lots of translation, confusion, craziness involved in all that. But I'm pretty sure it'll be a lot of fun.