Day 179, China day 1

Yes I know it's not the 179th day here anymore, but I will just write about my trip to China and North Korea on the day it happened. So here is Day 1 of the trip.

Day 1 was a crazy experience. I'll start off with Air China, they weren't bad at all, even served a meal for a flight that was less than 2 hours. Better than Air Canada for sure, if it was a flight from Vancouver to Calgary by them you only get a bag of pretzels...
Anyway, after landing in Beijing, I thought I'd have a hard time finding Su, but somehow I picked him out of the crowd that was waiting. To be honest, when I first eyed him, I didn't know if it was him or not, since he had a different hair cut and look, so I looked at his shoes and that's when I knew it was him :P

After the airport, which by the way is the size of a small city itself, we made our way to the accommodations which were located in the Chinese Academy of Science's campus. I was thinking "oh we'll be staying with one of Su's friends in their dorm..." turns out that was completely wrong. We actually stayed in an air defense basement complex on the campus...AKA an air defense bunker. Technically, foreigners werent allowed to stay in this facility, but thanks to Su's convincing and persistence, I was allowed. I think he convinced them by saying "Look he's Chinese and here's his Chinese name..." Even though I had a Canadian passport. It only cost 48 RMB a night, which is equivalent to about $8, cheapest place I've ever stayed at. That has a two way meaning though. The place looked very cheap, but it was intended for when the city was being bombed and was for citizens or military personnel. I'm sure that explains the lack of hot water running in the taps, and squat toilets. That was another surprise. And I couldn't believe how easy those were to use. The fear of soiling my pants when going on one of those has completely faded after learning the right way of going :D

To end the day, we had dinner with Su's friend Wang Hai Long and his girlfriend (Yeah her name was hard to remember). I was surprised they ordered Peking duck since it was just the first night and I was thinking this is too much for me on the first night. But good thing it was ordered though, it was the absolute best Peking duck I've ever had. The duck skin was extremely crispy and flavorful, unlike the ones I've had in Calgary. And I had actually considered the ones in Calgary tasted good...an another thing happened. Anyone who knows me knows I hate mushrooms, but I ate every one of them served to me. Overall, it was a really good dinner.

Last thing me and Su did for the first night was visit the Bird's Nest stadium, or Olympic stadium. It looked very complex of course, and it's too bad we couldnt go in and look around where the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics took place. Oh and before I forget, I came on the day of the lantern festival, so there were continuous firecrackers and fireworks going off on every block. There were times when I thought Beijing was getting bombed...And to top all that, Su got us lost heading back to the bunker...

That was day 1 in Beijing, but it wasn't even a full day!