Flight to Beijing - Monday 30 April

We left home for the airport around 7am, but on reaching
the airport unfortunately Dom realised she'd forgotten
her day pack which was holding her passport, air
tickets etc. 1 1/2 hours round trip later and she was
back at the airport. The rest of us had so much
trouble checking in due to an employee with apparently
no brains, but after 20 minutes of simple explanations
she finally issued our tickets and we were on our way.

The 11.5 hour trip to Beijing was mundane and included
movie after movie and not enough food. It didn't
matter how much I ate, I remained hungry the entire
trip and even got yelled at by a mean flight attendant
when I tried to take a second apple. Dom and Kt were unfortunately seated about 7 aisles away from Rani and I but we met up for lots of chats. Dom and Kt unfortunately had to witness the couple seated in front of them - a blonde 50 year old get progressively drunk and throw herself at the old guy seated next to her so coming and talking to us was there escape from the situation.

At one stage an old guy decided to join our conversation and was asking us all what we did for a living. I thought I'd return the question, only I asked him what he 'used' to do, thinking he was at least 100 years old! Oops...he laughed and said he was 'still' a doctor...you can imagine my embarrassment. Note to one's self: never assume age.

Our flight circled Beijing for about half an hour before we landed due to a storm which we were lucky enough to watch above the clouds. The lightning was amazing.
We finally landed in Beijing around 8.30pm and got through customs, then managed to throw ourselves into a cab with a non-english speaking driver. I tried my chinese 'hello' out on him and he laughed and corrected me. I wasn't far off though. For the half an hour trip in the pouring rain, on the wrong side of the road and amongst the most manick traffic i've ever been in, he taught us a few chinese words and we taught him a couple of english ones. It was a laugh. We found our hostel and went straight to bed, all completely buggered after a huge day.