i <3 the internet

So I am realizing how much I really appreciate a good Internet connection, sitting here 26 stories up on a hijacked wireless connection that is dirt slow and incredibly unreliable. I have been trying to send the same e-mail since last night and I think it just sent. Yay! Now let’s see if I can actually get this update to post! I would pull up my blog to see where I left off, but I’m afraid the Internet connection couldn’t handle it, so I’m just going to give a brief update and will fill in the rest in a detailed trip report to come later.

I met up with Wendy yesterday and we spent the day running around Beijing trying to find a cell phone for her to buy so she can communicate with her husband Howard and her parents, who are in Hong Kong. We also needed to call travel agents to book our transportation to Hong Kong. Once she was finally able to buy two phones (one for her, one for Howard), we then had the fun adventure of trying to find a travel agency. Let’s just say it was like a wild goose chase, and we finally ended up searching online and calling late last night to book. The tickets are more than we wanted to pay, but I think the day’s searching had just worn us down and we just wanted to book it and not have to worry about it anymore.

We didn’t do the Great Wall yesterday (obviously), which is fine because I was actually feeling really weird…strange headache and nauseous. But I feel much better today, which is good because we are doing the Great Wall and trying to squeeze in some shopping before we leave for Hong Kong tonight.

We hired a car and driver to take us around today, which we got hooked up on because Howard’s coworker who lives here referred us to the driver he uses in town. It’s only going to be 400 RMB for both of us (around $50, or $25 each) for the day to have her pick us up at 7:30 a.m., take us to the Great Wall, wait for us, drive us back into town to go shopping, bring us back to the apartment to get ready to go to Hong Kong, and take us to the airport. That’s an awesome deal! Especially considering the group tours cost about that much and you’re at the mercy of some organized tour thing and don’t have the luxury of setting your own schedule and going exactly the places you want to go.

Getting around Beijing has actually been really easy. Basically, you just hop in a cab and go! The taxis here are really really cheap. A 10- to 15-minute cab ride will cost anywhere from a little over a $1 to $2. The biggest fare I’ve seen so far was when we had a cab drive us to the Hard Rock Cafe so I could buy a pin, wait for us, and then take us to a Korean restaurant that seemed kinda far away (and was AWFUL…so bad we actually stopped eating and left…but I’ll go into that another time)…and that fare was still around $3.

It’s only 5:41 a.m. and I got about four hours of sleep but I’m up, bright and early, because the room I’m sleeping in has walls of windows and no curtains or blinds. The sun rises around 4:45 to 5 a.m. here, so I did too. It’s okay though, since it takes about 30 minutes to get one e-mail to send. In the time I’ve been up I’ve managed to read a few e-mails and send one. Yay!

So it’s only Tuesday and it already feels like I’ve been gone for a while. Then I stop and think about the fact that I don’t even leave China until Saturday! We’re going to Hong Kong tonight, and I’m returning on Friday night since my flight out leaves Saturday morning. Wendy is staying in Hong Kong with her parents and Howard will be out of town at a conference, so I am going to come stay in the Beijing apartment on my own, which should be fun. I realized I speak absolutely no Chinese whatsoever, aside from hello and thank you, and I’ve spent a lot of time just smiling and shaking my head, shrugging with an "I don’t know" look on my face, since I haven’t understood a word anyone has said to me in Chinese and certainly haven’t been able to say anything back. I have managed to do okay, and fortunately there have been a few people who speak at least a teeny bit of English when I really needed it.

Anyway, I’m going to go do some research on Chinese visas since Wendy and I want to take the train from Hong Kong to Shenzhen to buy the really good quality fake designer handbags. She said she put up a fake LV purse next to a real one of the same style, and she and her friend couldn’t tell them apart. Not bad.

Will update again when I can, and I’m looking forward to sharing some pics eventually. That will likely have to wait until I get back though. I am looking forward to relaxing in Maui and am really glad we didn’t put together any sort of crazy itinerary for that part of the trip. We’re also staying in upcountry Maui, away from the hustle and bustle of the big resorts, so it will be nice chilling in the mountains after this whirlwind week in Asia!