China Day One - 6, December 2008

During the my flight from KL – Beijing, I was informed from the captain’s announcement prior to landing that the temperature at Beijing was … -11 Celsius. That really freaked me out. It was then that I doubted if I would even be able to survive the weather, let alone enjoy this trip.

Before the trip, I was thrilled, expecting that my first stop would be the new Terminal 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport, completed and officially commenced operations just before the Beijing Olympics. The US$3.5 billion expansion to the Beijing Airport made it the largest in the world. Terminal 3 itself is larger than Heathrow’s 5 terminals combined with 17% to spare. I was blown away by the pictures of the airport when I saw them on the internet in Melbourne. The roof is bright red, Chinese colour for good luck, and according to Wikipedia, it has an indoor garden is constructed in the style of imperial gardens such as the Summer Palace and has also a tunnel landscape of an underground garden that has been finished with plants on each side so that passengers can appreciate them inside the mini-train. The terminal was massive. What a way to start my visit to China with the first stop already being a tourist destination.

But to my very, very great disappointment, as the plane landed, it… drove past Terminal 3. I would not be using it. Even as the plane drove past after it touched the ground, the sight of Terminal 3 was nothing less than impressive. The red roof and the lights of the terminal glared in darkness of Beijing’s early morning. It looked like a dragon or a phoenix. I think my heart was on the floor, shattered. Beijing broke my heart at the very moment I arrived. I had only Malaysian Airlines lousy reputation and Malaysia’s less than significant status in the world to blame for the airline to be using the old Terminal 2. I’m sure only passengers of Qantas, Emirates, Singapore Airlines etc would have the privilege of using Terminal 3.

On the way to the baggage claim, not long after I exited the aerobridge, there was a mobile service company representative selling China Unicom prepaid sim cards. I cannot imagine what would happen if this was allowed in Malaysia, or even Australia. My eye would hurt so much if I were to be greeted by shocking and in-your-face-colours and annoying ads of Hotlink, U mobile, Celcom, Digi the very moment I landed at an airport after an tiring 8-12hr flight without much sleep, though I must admit that that would be very convenient.

Arriving at Customs Clearance, I was greeted by a sign ‘the Inspectors send their best regards to the passengers’. How sweet. A nearby sign boasts their friendliness, the efficiency target, individual clearance time, and average time the customs take to process the passenger’s passports. Unlike Melbourne where the line in front of customs is painfully long, the hall was empty. Welcome to China.  

As I proceeded to let the custom officer ‘chop’ my passport, I was greeted with a little panel at eye-level with cute buttons – a happy face, and a sad face – with the officer’s ID, where you can press to indicate how satisfactory the particular custom officer’s service is. How cute. I pressed the happy face. The custom officer did not reply my greeting, did not say a single word, and never smiled. Best regards my ass.

We were met by our private tour guide for the first two days, Duncan , at the arrival hall. To my surprise he spoke really good English, even with a slight American accent. I thought he must have went to some English course, which is increasingly popular in China, but he denied this. I was told that he picked up his English from school (elementary and secondary) and self-study, which is quite amazing – even in Melbourne, majority of the Chinese students do not speak English with the same level of proficiency as this man, which made me wondered what they had been learning in schools.

As we made our way out of the underground parking area of the airport in the tour van, I wanted to see something really badly –one of the things in my ‘must see/do’ list: The Beijing Smog. Saw so many pictures of it in the lead up to the Olympics, with the whole world and the Australian media being very concerned with the event being held in such a polluted country. Lonely Planet even stated that breathing the Beijing’s air in a day, would be equivalent to SMOKING 70 CIGARETTES in ONE DAY! That is equivalent to 3.5 PACKS PER DAY! Which even to the most hardcore smoker in the world, I would think is a near impossible feat. As the van exited the underground parking, much to my surprise, the air was surprisingly not as bad as what I thought it was. I expected to be greeted by visibility like what I experienced in Malaysia during the haze periods, where even spotting something 100 metres away would be difficult, but it was surprisingly okay.

The next thing I noticed is the highways. I expected China’s traffic to be absolute chaos, lousy roads and terrible driving (which I later figured out applied to the rest of China but not Beijing). But for a country so new, and geographically huge, the highways, tollways, freeways and its system were quite decent and efficient, in fact, even better than Malaysia. China has invested heavily in its infrastructure, one of the main reasons for its rapid economic growth, and I was very impressed with what I saw. Later parts of the trips where I was required to travel further away from the main cities, further confirmed this. With highways linking rural areas, provinces, small towns etc to be of similar quality.

As we entered the city, I was told by Duncan that the Beijing city is equivalent to 16 Hong Kongs!! I saw many highrises and apartments being built. The apartment projects or developments, unlike Malaysia or Australia, is not restricted to one building per development, but 4-10 buildings in a single development! Noticed in the city that there are many shops selling solely tobacco and alcohol, with most of them stating 名烟名酒 (premium tobacco, premium alcohol) at the signboards, with at least 3 at every 100 metres. The Chinese take their smoking very seriously. No wonder most of the 7-11 and convenience stores in Melbourne are operated by Chinese migrants. Also noticed that there weren’t as many bicycles as I thought there were, from the pictures and photographs of Beijing (formerly known as a bicycle city). I knew that most of them had been replaced by cars, but I didn’t know it the numbers had decreased to such an extent. Many of the bicycles are ‘bicycles-cum-electric scooters’, with the high-tech bicycles being partly run by the electricity created by peddling it. Most of the cars on the roads were Audis, BMWs, Volkswagens, Buicks and Chryslers, which I sort of expected before I came.

 Our first stop would be the Tiananmen Square. What a way to start off my travel. It was so cold, my balls were freezing literally as we got off the van. My nose was so runny, and my face was numb from the cold, that I couldn’t feel it. I wore a t-shirt, a collared business short, a woollen pullover, a jacket, a beanie and leather gloves, and yet that wasn’t enough to keep me warm…….

… to be continued.