China Travel 2.0

After another errand I walked back toward the ferry, my route taking me past the consulate once again.  I decided I’d try to find out what the controversy was between the Fa*lu*n Gong and the Chinese government so I tried to speak to one of the pickets.  Unfortunately none of them spoke English so all I got was “Fa*lu*n Gong good!  China bad!”  I had figured out that much of their position already.  They did, however, give me a DVD which I watched later.  I won’t go into the controversy here.  If you’re curious the Fa*lu*n Gong has a website and last I knew the Chinese Consulate addressed the controversy on their website.

Four days later I went back, paid fifty bucks (yes, they take Visa for visas) and picked up my passport with the visa fused into it.

In August Cindy applied for her visa.  She had a similar experience except that the application clerk questioned her because she worked for a publication.  On finding out that the publication in question was American Cheerleader he rolled his eyes and accepted her application without further question.

I also visited my bank and ordered both Chinese Yuan and Korean Won for the trip.  This turned out to be a good idea with respect to China which turned out to be more of a cash economy than I expected.  Although my Visa card was fine for the hotel, even the Beijing Opera wanted cash for our tickets.  In Korea credit cards are fine, you need cash only where you would expect to need cash in America.

Friday, the first of September finally rolled around and my brother-in-law Frank drove Cindy and me to Newark Airport.  We dutifully got there 3 hours ahead of time, as the airlines request for international flights, and were sitting in the waiting area ready to board our flight 20 minutes later.  Finally we boarded, took off, and to my surprise flew over the north pole, down over Siberia, over Mongolia and landed at Beijing Capital Airport Saturday afternoon.  Our flight to Korea in 2002 had stopped in Alaska and gone over the northern Pacific Ocean.  Beijing and Seoul aren’t far enough apart that I was expecting that much of a change in route.

I have been asked by a couple of people whether I felt like I was being watched, feared arrest or otherwise felt like I was in a totalitarian state.  With one exception generated by my own carelessness and not anything done by the Chinese people or their government, the answer is no.  I’ll detail that one incident later.  Otherwise I was perfectly comfortable in China.  Well, except for the weather that evening and the first day.  The weather was kind of hot, muggy and gray.

to be continued….very much

Tags: Beijing Opera, China travel, China trip, Chinese Yuan