Sydney to Beijing

Saturday 29th July 2017

Well, off we go on ur trip to China to see Benny. Colleen and I are on our way. I was feeling a little apprehensive as I left home. My first overseas trip without my little security blanket(i.e.. DB).

We had a seamless trip to the boarding lounge. Needless to say this meant an over 2 hour wait to board the plane, which was then about 20mins late boarding. The plane trip was long but ok. We were fed a couple of times, did some reading and watched a movie (Hidden Figures). On arrival at Beijing we went through Immigration and Customs also with ease, The English signs were very helpful. We then managed the trip to the taxi rank and catching the taxi 40mins to our hotel. The App Maps.me DB installed I my phone worked great and I could see the whole trip in the taxi. On arrival at the hotel the driver indicated it was an extra 10CNY and I didn’t understand what for. In the end just paid it as total cost was only 141CNY which is under $30. I was worried about $2. Nutty.

Benny met us at the taxi and we met a couple of his friends, Molly, Natalia and Alessandro. They were very friendly again. After checking in at the hotel which was a little challenging, thank goodness for Translate App. Communication is a lot easier. They tried to charge extra for our hotel but I just pointed to the price on my booking form and they went back to that amount.

Once in our room we sat up talking for a couple of hours with Benny. He looks well even with his white blond hair.

All in all, a good day.