After a very long flight, we finally made it to Beijing. Will did so awesome, he charmed all of the Chinese ladies on the flight who kept coming over to look at him.
Once we made it through customs and immigration (Which was surprisingly easy), we were out in the main lobby of the airport where there were a bunch of people holding signs. I was so sure there would be one with our name on it, but no! We walked the line of people three times but could not see a sign with our name on it. Here we were, the only three Americans in the lobby, dragging more than a few suitcases and we had a baby strapped to Joel's chest. We definitely did not blend in.
After 45 minutes, we finally were able to find the lady that had a sign with our name on it and we got in a taxi van and made it to apartment at about 2:00 am Beijing time, which was only noon according to our body clocks. But, we were so exhausted from the flight that we were all able to sleep.
In China, you have register as a foreign alien with the local police department in the first 24 hours you are there. Our apartment building did that for us, but they needed our passports to do it. In order to exchange dollars for RMB, you need your passport and it's actually a pretty long ordeal. So, because our front desk had our passports, we were unable to exchange any money and the one supermarket we were able to locate did not take a visa card (which was probably ok because it was a yucky looking place and I had no idea what anything was!). So all we had eaten in our first 24 hours were Clif bars and gummy dinosaurs.
We're on day 2 here in Beijing and haven't really dared to venture out much yet. There are tall skyscrapers as far as the eye can see and it smells weird. But, I can't wait until we are better able to find our way around and can find some fun things to go see and do.
For now, we are just glad we made it safely and have something other than a granola bar to eat.
No comments:
Post a Comment