China Blog - Day 1 & 2 Synopsis

This is probably a better mechanism to give a longer account of my stay in Asia, China in particular. Sorry for the lack of photos but I seem to be having horrible problems uploading photos from this country, even with VPN. I don't know what's going on...


Arrival and Temporary Customs Detainment
So, on day 1, we arrived in China, from South Korea and while going through customs at the airport, I was pulled aside with no explanation as to what was wrong. I was told to have a seat in an area off to the side and to look into a security camera indefinitely. My guess is that they use facial recognition software to match the identity of someone to their passport photo and the software was having trouble with me. Needless to say, my wife and I got a little nervous, as did the western couple behind us. However, after about 15 mins. of sitting and staring into that security camera, I as allowed to enter without further incident.

Diversity of Cars


I was immediately struck by the amount of variety of cars on the highway leaving the airport to go to my wife's friend's apartment in Beijing. There were a great deal of western cars such as BMWs, Volkswagens, Nissans and Toyotas and especially Korean cars, Hyundai & Kia. Oh, also some American cars too. I found this a bit surprising only because I have been to South Korea several times before and never saw that much diversity in cars, especially western cars, until this very trip (to Korea).

Starving
It was early morning when we arrived at the apartment and my wife's friend decided to take her to a beauty salon immediately, leaving me alone with my two sons. By around noon, I started getting hungry and there wasn't much to eat at the apartment so I decided to attempt to go out into the mean streets of Beijing to find some form of fast-food and hopefully NOT get lost. Now here's the thing, I know a number of Mandarin expressions and can even take bits of those expressions and string them together into something that might seem as though I can sort-of speak Mandarin. However, I'm coming to realize those expressions are more useful to me in America when encountering Mandarin speaker there, than they are here. They're expressions like, "Where are you from", "Do you speak {language}?", "Where do you live?", crap like that. NONE of those expressions are particularly useful IN Beijing LOL. I do however, speak a fair amount of Korean. My listening comprehension is pretty horrible, but I can speak somewhat fluently. So, after leaving the apartment, I immediately realized I wasn't as certain as I'd thought I'd be, of which direction to start walking. But suddenly, I heard a woman talking to her baby in... Korean! I immediately went over to her and asked her if she was Korean, to which she replied, "No.", to which I replied, "Ok, but you speak Korean?", to which she replied, "Yes.". And so I was happy to be able to fully (more or less) communicate with someone and more importantly, get directions to the nearest fast-food joint. As it turns out, my wife's friend lives in a sort of Korea Town section of Beijing.  So, I walk about 15 minutes, in light rain, without an umbrella, and find a McDonalds. This McDonalds is not like any other I've ever seen though. It was VERY basic and none of the familiar menus with big pictures were to be found. It was at this moment that I thought to check my wallet and realized I hand't gotten any Chinese money from my wife. We skipped exchanging money in the airport because back in Korea, my wife's cousin's husband, who's a banker and is about to go to Vietnam himself, privately exchanged some of our American dollars for Korean and Chinese money at a better rate. I never bothered to get any of that money from her though. So, I realize I'm broke, except for my Discover and Visa card - neither of which they'll take. So I leave and notice KFC across the street and decide to go there. Now this may be the coolest KFC I've ever seen. I could tell that KFC must be a much more popular restaurant in Beijing, than McDonalds (which I'd heard numerous times but hadn't seen 'till now). However, not even KFC would take my plastic. So I had to hike all the way back to the apartment without food.

Beijing Traffic
During my walk to and from the fast-food joints, I got to see first-hand, just how different people treat traffic here. Basically, they act like there are almost no traffic laws at all, especially pedestrians and people on motor bikes. They seem to just go whenever they can with little to no regard for oncoming traffic. And some cars seem to do the same as well. Standing at a light waiting to cross, you may start to feel a bit stupid as others just go whenever they can.

Weather
It's been rainy since we got here two days ago, however, today, Thursday (I think), the sun has finally come out.