Beijing Bound

The ten of us head out early for the airport on a mini-bus limosine. The Singapore airport has the quickest arrival and departure procedures of any airport I have ever seen. We fly Thai Airways and the flight attendants look gorgeous in their traditional long, narrow Thai skirts in purple or pink silks. After a change of planes in the phenomenally beautiful and new Bangkok airport, we land in Beijing in the afternoon. Our driver is nowhere in sight after we pass through customs and baggage claim but a quick cellphone call locates him just outside the terminal doors. He was recommended by friends who adopted from China last year. We pile into the twenty passenger luxury bus and head for central Beijing. The roads are great. The skyscrapers are many. The city is big.


On the ride to the hotel we plan for the driver to pick us up from the hotel in the morning and take us to the Great Wall. I wanted to go to Mutaniyo not Badalang. Mutaniyo is a little further away from Beijing so there are fewer crowds, more mountainous area, and it has both a chairlift to ride up to the wall and a long, shiny, metal luge to ride down. The boys are all into the thought of descending from the Great Wall on a luge ride. Our driver, however, is not so sure.

"No, too far," he says.

"How far?, " I ask.


"Oh, maybe three, four hours."

"Really? I thought it was pretty close to Beijing and was more scenic, fewer crowds, luge ride...."

"No, I think best you go to Badalang."

"How far is Badalang?"

"Maybe one hour and a half."

We quickly peruse our quidebooks and determine that the mileage from the City to both locations is not that different.

"No, I think we really want to go to Mutinayo. Can you take us there or should we check with another driver?"

"Yes, I can take you there but we will not have so much time for lunch and afternoon for hutong tour by rickshaw and tea demonstation and acrobatics show and dinner."

"That's okay. We'll just start with the Wall, okay?"

"Okay, so next day we do tour of the Tianamin Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the boat tour...."

"Hmmm...." We exchange glances.

"We will see you tomorrow for Great Wall and then we'll see about the rest. Okay?"

"Okay, no problem."

"We arrive at the Park Plaza Beijing near Wafungjing Street. It is new, sleek, Asian, lovely. We dine at the Oodles, the noodle restaurant downstairs at the hotel. There is a Starbucks across from the lobby and the main shopping street is just a block away. Great location. Great interior.