I woke up yesterday morning around 6 with a panic about the amount of stuff I had to do, like iron a bajillion shirts (which ironed up great but were a crumpled mess when I unpacked them due to my folding skills or lack thereof).
I also needed to update my camera firmware and upload some Malaysian and Chines maps to my
Garmin c510 ancient piece of crap and gGrmin xt on to my mobile which all went fine or so i thought...
So headed out to the airport after triple checking i had packed everything i needed. And soon realised the bloody Irish maps had been overwritten.... I only had the base map which is not good as the motorway structure around the airport is being developed and all the layout seems to have changed since last time. I arrived at the long term carpark with minutes to spare for the ferry bus to the main airport. The flights were uneventful. However on the leg from Amsterdam I got sitting beside a Swedish guy that met his wife on a dating site and was going to visit her. So as you can imagine we swapped stories and he was a nice guy so enjoyed his company.
I was dreading the swine flu checks in Beijing airport but it was all very efficiently done I must say.
We were all let of the plane and were directed to an area and given out forms to fill in asking where you had been in the last 7 days, have you experienced any symptoms such as runny nose, aches etc etc in the last few days. Stuff like that. They also wanted a contact in China which for a regular tourist travelling alone would be a show stopper i imagine.
Forms filed out, they lets us go though a thermal camera scanning zone, you went to a checkpoint where some one looks at your form and stamps them. While you are waiting there about 20 feet away a bunch of dudes in medical gear are looking at thermal images of you. A small girl in front of me who wasn't coughing or anything was taken away. They did it gently and she didn't seem traumatised by it, though I imagine as western girl would have started screaming probably when they put the mask on her.
So i collected my baggage, freshened up in the restroom and went out to meet Ling..who wasn't there.
I tried ringing her and the mobile kept saying invalid number. The damn payphones there only seem to accept credit cards for international calls and not coins or notes at all.
I decided to give a little time. 30 mins later am starting to freak a little. So I go to this phone kiosk and ask if they can sell me one of the regular phone cards to use in the payphones. So I got one and still couldn't work the damn machine haha, totally freaking out at this point. I ask the girl who sold me the phone card could she ring Lings number for me, she rang her and of course it worked first time (i needed to add an extra 0 at the start of the mobile number ringing from a payphone..go figure!!).
Ling was stuck in traffic but said she would be there soon (a white lie, more on that later!).
So massively relieved I waited and she arrived not long after with a big smile on her face and looking stunning, she gave me a big hug and called me honey and guys, I must have had the biggest grin in China at that moment, talk about a different response to the last time I went over to meet another lady!)
So our plan was to drive to Beijing and have a nice meal then head back to Tianjin and check in the hotel and then she would show me how to find the train station where i could buy a bullet train ticket to Beijing.
She had a slick looking Garmin GPS in the car, problem is the roads in and around Beijing at such a rate its only right some of the time, and secondly, Ling has a habit of paying more attention to talking and looking at me than paying attention to what the Garmin is telling her haha! She also thought it would a good idea to change the speech to English so I could participate...which didn't help haha!!
This also goes for regular driving, her mobile goes off maybe every 15 mins or so and animated conversations take place..par for the course, I'm well used to this and accept it as normal. This is the real reason she was late collecting me, she took wrong turns several times
We eventually found the restaurant and had Peking duck which was stunningly good with several other dishes that defy description. One of them was chicken feet, but unlike in Guangzhou where you have too suck the skin off the bones here its already removed, still had pretty boring taste I thought. It came with a dipping sauce that was like English mustard but eye wateringly stronger. She was so funny, I asked her what the sauce was and she said spicy and did i want to try it..so i said sure, I love the spicy. So she lathered one of these Chicken feet skins in it and gave to me, man!!!my eyes almost popped out of their sockets and my nose started running right away, she thought it hilarious the little minx. Funny thing is
she then did it to herself to see what it was like...so then it was my turn to laugh!!
We had a lovely dinner and didn't get though half the food we ordered. Then it was time to pay the bill, I saw it out of the corner out my eye 578 RMB!!, I thought Jesus this is a incredible place but man that bill is killer. But first date and all it was suck it up time so i asked her much the bill was pretending not to know. She wouldn't show me and insisted on paying herself!! More on this later, very unusual behaviour for a Chinese girl, but I'm learning Ling is not a usual Chinese girl and in every way I'm loving it.
The elevators were busy going down to the ground floor from the restaurant so we took the stairs, I jumped in front of her and told her hop on (wondering just how playful she was) with a yell she hopped aboard and we laughed our way down a couple of flight of stairs until we came across some older folk and she slid off and said enough giggling.
We got the car back to Tianjin which probably took about three times as long as necessary as she kept getting lost. She told me to sleep and rest so she could concentrate haha. So I did and noticed out of the corner of my eye she kept taking little looks at me.
Eventually i did nod off for a few minutes and then the car stopped on the side of the motorway. I said did we have a flat, she said no, she saw me sleeping and then felt sleepy herself!!, so she decided to pull over and freshen up haha!! I really like this girl, she's quirky, generous, funny and warm. Oh I forgot to mention as son as we got out of the car in Beijing she grabbed my hand and held it..again a huge change from my last visit.
We talked abut a lot of stuff on the way back in the car, it was really nice despite getting lost. After all I'm here to see her, who cares where we are as long as its together. Did I mention how much more pretty she is in real life?!!
I am staying in the Orange Hotel which is in a part of Tianjin which there is a lot of construction going on but its beside a lovely river and I get the real feeling here of an up and coming town. The hotel exterior is a bit rough and ready because of the construction going all around it but its spotless inside. The room I have is lovely, the bathroom is lovely and clean, with a decent shower and warm marble floor, its really nice. I also have a view of the river from my window. Its one of the more expensive rooms at 248 RMB per night but its excellent value.
The walk to the train station where you get the bullet train to Beijing is about 3km I guess along the river and is a beautiful walk, a pleasure to do in the tropical heat. There was thunder and lightening on my first night but that was fine too! After showing me where to get the bullet train I had said I,d like to get a backpack. So she took me to the local walmart and it was great, dirt cheap and exactly what i wanted.
We then walked around the "Italian Village" part of town, it was very strange seeing all the old Mediterranean style buildings in the middle of a Chinese city. I don't think anyone actually lived in these building, looks like the facade has been maintained.
Ling reckons because the old buildings have no air con that they would be too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer to live in. It is extremely hot here so I can well understand that, living without air con must have been pretty rough in the past in places like Taishan.
After that it was getting late so we went to cheap restaurant and had noodles with kinda sausages in them and some kebab type things , I had a nice beer to wash it all down down. She told me that one of the cals she had earlier was from her boss. Apparently a big customer was please with her departments work and had invited the whole department to a dinner to show his appreciation. I know from the past that these things are not uncommon here and she would loose face if she didn't attend this so I said no problem of course she could go. She looked real relieved and suggested to make up for the lost time together that we spend the weekend in Bejing together. As before she insisted on paying for the dinner. She said as I wil be paying for her in Malaysia she felt she should pay for me in China.
We walked back to the hotel and had a nice hug and Ling went home, I went to bed and fell asleep in about 0.5 seconds!
I had a great time in Beijing the next day and a little story there too, more on that later..
