The China World Hotel, by the way, is dazzling. And since my stay is three weeks, I qualified for a “club floor” room, which included all sorts of groovy perks. Starting with complimentary car service from the airport.
I was met by a handler no more than three feet off of the plane, and she whisked me through customs, baggage, and immigration lines with martial efficiency. At the hotel they greeted me like I was a rock star. I was shuttled out of the enormous, gilded, perfumed lobby up to the exclusive Horizon Club where I relaxed and sipped a beverage while they checked me in.
The service in this place is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. There’s a pillow menu in the room, for heaven’s sake.
When I got to the room it was about 4:30 p.m. It was 2:30 a.m. for me and I’d been awake for 23 hours. Still, I felt reasonably okay, so I stumbled down to the lobby and began exploring the huge shopping mall underneath the complex.
I was hoping to find a charger for my GameBoy. This is China, I thought, which is right next to Japan. There’s got to be LOTS of game stores! Sadly the mall was nothing but wildly upscale American and European boutiques, restaurants, and “Le Cool” Ice Skating Rink. I ate at Pizza Hut (sue me), then went back to my room and managed to stay awake until almost ten o’clock.
The next morning, Sunday, I dealt with my jet lag by heading up to the Badaling section of the Great Wall (it’s about an hour out of the city). It’s pretty amazing and I got some good pictures, including several of me atop a very bored Bactrian camel.
There are two major places where you visit the wall near Beijing, and I went to the “less touristy” one. It was still a mass of tacky souvenir stands with shockingly aggressive vendors. How aggressive? Well, if you walked away from them they’d body block you in an attempt to keep your attention while they whittled down their price some more on the crappy t-shirt they wanted to sell you. Or they’d grab you. I’m not very fond of strangers grabbing me for any reason, and let’s just say it’s lucky there was no international incident.
After hours in the bus and lots of steep climbing on and near the Wall, I was ready for bed early.
I’m loving reading about your journey to China, Ray. Clever, interesting and funny.
Love, Witchen