Why was it, then, that I was intentionally choosing to go from a "180" to a ".25" (China would have been a 0 if I wasn't using a scale of 1-10)?
Our Asian experience had happened just a little more quickly than we were expecting. We were flying Korean Air, which thoughtfully stocks both western and Asian meals. Unfortunately, Sarah and I (two of maybe six westerners on the plane) were sitting near the back and apparently all 450 Koreans on the flight wanted the western meal. So we enjoyed some rice thing mixed with fermented seaweed and crumbled beef, accompanied by a picked yellow beet and what looked like a brown marshmallow.
The 10 hour flight to Seoul passed quickly even though I decided not to watch the kung-fu movie, and our layover in Seoul was uneventful. As we descended into Beijing we both felt nervous for the first time on our trip. What were we thinking? Why leave a sunny nation of fit, smiling Australians and head into a steamy, crowded concrete jungle? Maybe it was the jet-lag talkin', but I was ready to ask the captain to turn the plane around. But we landed.
We stepped into the most beautiful, spotless airport terminal I've ever seen, all glistening marble, sparking floors, and soaring ceilings. The place couldn't have been more than two months old. The first Chinese officials we saw matched the building; standing straight in crisp uniforms. We reached Immigration and -- while not friendly -- they processed us quickly and efficiently. We picked up our bags and the customs agent waved us through. No problems.
So far so good, but this was where I was expecting things to get tough. Months earlier, I'd reserved a hotel room through the Internet and I'd requested airport pickup. I was 100% certain that no one would be waiting for us. After all, they hadn't requested a credit card number or deposit, and they hadn't sent me a confirmation. Furthermore, it was a Chinese national holiday and millions of Chinese had come to Beijing for the celebration, so I was pretty sure our room would be gone.
But as we left Customs, we saw a guy holding a neatly typed sheet of paper with my name on it. China was looking OK! He drove the 1/2 hour drive to our hotel. The first 15 KM he did at about 140 KM/hour on a smooth expressway, and the next 15 KM he did at about the same speed on crowded city streets. Our first images of China were a blur. Giant hotels next to small one-room hovels. Dingy, decrepit apartment buildings next to brand new office complexes. Lots of bikes, but also lots of cars. We turned in and out of alleys, drove on both sides of the road, weaved in and out of traffic, and finally came to a stop in the middle of a small, narrow alley. Our hotel.
Again I was expecting the worst, and again I was pleasantly surprised. Our hotel is in a very old building (supposedly a former home of the royal family) in a traditional construction of quiet courtyards and low rectangular buildings. The staff spoke a bit of English so check in was easy, and best of all when we got to our room we found. . . a western toilet! Since then we've found that the toilet doesn't really flush; more like it carefully lets a few rivulets of water in and out. We even had a TV, though it had 32 Chinese channels on the only english language channel is CNNFN with 24 hour coverage of how bad the stock market is doing, exactly the one kind of news I was hoping NOT to get on this trip.
It was still early enough in the day, before noon, and we needed to keep ourselves awake, so we decided to go for a long walk. Beijing is laid out in a grid with the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square right at the middle. We were staying a bit north of there in an old "Hutong" -- a tangled mess of alleys sprinkled with food stalls, small shops, and dwellings. I'll never forget our first steps outside the hotel that day. As we walked down that muddy alley, I'd swear we were tip-toeing, afraid of what we would see or do.
We got to our first intersection, looked at our map, and were suddenly and completely confused. Our map had nice friendly English street names, which were totally useless when the street signs were in Chinese. It was only then, I think, that we really understood we were someone absolutely foreign to us.
By sheer luck we turned the right direction and worked our way toward the center of town. We came to a busy 6 lane road and couldn't figure out how to get across. You see, in China is seems that traffic laws, lights, lanes, and signs are more like gentle suggestions to the drivers than they are rules. Finally -- and I'm not ashamed to admit this -- we tucked ourselves behind a pregnant lady holding a baby and followed her across. The ploy worked! Drivers steered clear of the baby and we got across the street.
Soon we reached a walled park, paid our fee, and entered. [Note: The Chinese word for "park" can roughly be translated as "place-where-foreigners-are-charged-10-times-what-locals-pay-to-see-some-trees-and-temples-but-you-better-not-walk-on-the-grass-or-else".] Our Lonely Planet guidebook said that this park contained an artificial hill built using the dirt from the moat of the Forbidden City. We climbed up the hill, packed in with a few thousand Chinese, and hoped to get a good view of the city. We shuffled shoulder-to-shoulder with the sweaty mob and reached an even more crowded place at the top. There, we saw Beijing stretching in every direction around us.
We looked out over the city in silence. Both of us were thinking the same thing -- can we really handle three months in Asia? Are we up for it? Even though things had gone well so far, I wasn't quite ready to ditch my Formula. Though I did start to think that maybe I should revise it, perhaps throw in some credit for 2500 years of advanced civilization or something. Well, we will see. It's a big country and there's a lot to experience. But first we have to get off this hill and get some sleep.