Touch Down in China

I’m in Beijing! I arrived late last night. I had no idea how I was getting from the airport to my hotel or even where in the city the hotel is located but as we were coming in for a landing I had that same feeling I had when I was heading nowhere on a bus in Bangladesh. Not really having total control over every detail is kind of a great feeling and I couldn’t stop smiling.

I really had no master plan for getting to my hotel. I’d heard that no cabbies speak English so my plan had been to show them the hotel’s address in Mandarin, work out a price with some sort of system of grunts and hand signals, and then head off for a good nights sleep. As it turns out, I found an English speaking guy posing as a taxi driver who led me to his beat up car outside, drove like a crazy person and had bad late 90’s dance tunes cranking the whole way. I probably paid way too much for the honour but I was happy to be on my way.

So it’s morning now and I’m sitting in my really nice hotel room watching painting shows on TV. I still have no idea where in the city I am except that I’m a hell of a long way out so I’m mustering up the energy to relocate myself to my hostel, buy a mobile phone, start the apartment hunt, look for a language school and call some friends I have here to arrange to meet up.

It’s all giving me a bit of a headache thinking about it but I’m really excited to get life in China rolling. But first I’ve got to tear myself away from the TV. China’s main news channel is called ‘CCTV’. Surely I can’t be the only person who finds that funny?