Bittersweet Last Day in China

Sometimes it feels like we just arrived in China and other times it feels like we have been here forever. Whichever the case, we both begin our journies home tomorrow. My daughter's flight is at 7:30am so she must be at the airport by about 4:30am, while mine doesn't leave until 6:30pm, so I don't need to be there until 3:30pm, but I have decided to head to the airport with her and just hang out at the terminal for the day. I have plenty to read, and there are lots of places to eat and shop. I'll have a luggage trolley so won't have to drag my backpack all over on my back. I will be so very sad to say goodbye to my daughter as I won't see her again for nearly a year when I move back to Canada next year, but I am glad to be heading back to my own space - bed, couch, no one pushing and shoving me, or shouting in Chinese. We have enjoyed much of China, and have seen some breathtaking scenery while here. Our two standouts are the Summer Palace grounds and of course, the Great Wall at Mutianyu. The passport issue was probably the worst, along with trying to find our current hotel - nightmares we would sooner forget. We can laugh about it now, and they make good travel stories, but at the time, we were very stressed out and wishing we were home again. 

Lessons learned - never get in a rickshaw of any sort, or an unlicenced taxi - they will both try to cheat you and charge you 5 times what the licenced taxis charge. 

- always haggle the price - they often quote you a price 10 times what you can bargain down to. If you don't like haggling - don't bother going to the silk market - they are very aggressive and downright annoying.

- always get the address of where you want to go written in Chinese script as most taxi drivers do not speak or read English. 

- if you don't like the squat toilets, look for the handicap toilets and always bring your own toilet paper as there is rarely any there.

- if you need to get through a crowd, don't wait for someone else to move out of your way - push and shove like the rest or you will be trampled.

- the subway is super easy to maneuver. The lines are all marked in English and Chinese, and all of the trains have speaking voice that announces all stations in Chinese and in English. The transfer lines are also very clearly marked. It is also super cheap - only 2Yuan, which is about 30 cents. The bus is also super cheap, and you can get a card to use subway and bus so you just tap the card as you go through. 

- any directions given by Chinese people who claim to understand where you want to go are very subjective and often incorrect - double and triple check and you might find your way there.

- many of the people who helped us were very nice and some really did know what they were talking about. Some went out of their way to help which was really lovely. 

- most hotel/hostel beds are as hard as rocks. Prepare to drug up or put up. 

- you can buy cold bottled water just about anywhere and it was usually quite cheap, often 2Yuan for a small bottle, which is about 30 cents. I paid 4Yuan for a large 1.5 litre bottle at the hostel. 

- most staff at tourist attractions have no English so you have to figure out what you want to do before you get to the ticket counter. Stopping young people with mobile phones in their hand is often a good bet as many of them will have basic English and seem to enjoy having someone to speak English with. 

- iPhones take awesome photos if you don't feel like lugging your camera with you or your battery dies. Or like me = left my battery charger at home and battery died after one day. 

- nearly all restaurants and cafes have free wifi - if you use a VPN like we did, you can suf the net easily and use banned Facebook and Google. The VPN we used was free. The speed is slow at any place we have been so tough to watch any videos or upload any videos. You can get booted off quite frequently. 

- don't accept invitations to Tea Houses as they are almost always scams to get you to buy them things such as meals or clothes. 

- don't expect the locals to know where things are, even if they are just down the street. 

- if you are going to use a translator app - make sure it does not rely on live internet connection to use it as you might not always have access when you need something translated

- people love to stare at foreigners, particularly caucasian ones. We had to accept that it was just how it was. Some even want to take photos of you with them. 

- maps are almost never to scale - something that looks just down the block can be 3kms away...

That's about it for now. I'm just waiting for my daughter to come back from the shop and then we head to the airport to check in at our airport hotel. They had really soft beds so we are looking forward to being comfy again. I may post again from the airport tomorrow as it will be a long day and I now know how to access the free wifi there.