We were deposited at the Erlian (二连) bus station at 3:00am.  From our extensive research (about 1 hour of Googling) we figured there would be at least a cosy cafe, or Chinese restaurant open offering up breakfast and sustinance to weary travelers from the sleepr bus, but no.

Instead, we spent the next 30 minutes running around and around the bus trying to avoid people who flat out refused to understand my Chinese and who’s Enligh only consisted of “Hello, Taxi?”.

Giving these guys the slip was no mean feat.  I had to fight through a scrum of people offloading massive sacks of food, electric kettles, steam irons and tractor parts  that were destined for sale in Mongolia to get my pack, whilst using the other hand to swat away the grasp of about 3 or 4 taxi touts.

After getting out of that mess and out of the bus station, we wandered around the streets of Erlian, followed by an armada of Taxi’s.  It took around 20 minutes of the now ubiqitous “hello, Taxi?”, flashing of lights, slow following, driving around in circles on the road and horn tooting for all the taxi’s in Erlian to realise that we were quite happy walking…….not that we knew where we were going.

Road to Nowhere

It was 4am, -7 degrees, pitch black and looked like the opening scenes of An American Werewolf in London, so we decided to go for a walk to keep warm and to find somewhere warm to wait until the border opened at 8am.  We actually walked almost to the border before the cold, and boredom sent us back to the only hotel we had seen, near the bus station, the Xin Tian Hotel.

Not so clean......or secure........but warm

Happily the salubrious Xin Tian hotel’s doors were unlocked, the heat on, and all of the staff fast asleep.  After consulting the room rates, we decided the O’Clock room would be far to noisy and expensive, so took the tight arse option of the common room.

Right price for a Tight Arse visa run.....zip!

We were able to get a wee bit of kip on this very regal-esque lounge suite, all for a price that kept us within our tight arse budget.

$0....a happy tightarse!!

After taking our morning ablutions in the ultra clean facilities, we were pretty glad we had opted for the common room, as it was only slightly cleaner than the common toilet.

Hmmm.......yummy

At around 7am, we breakfasted on leftover, partially frozen baguette with a still frozen Snickers chaser for desert.

Incidentally the staff did wake up, looked us up and down, decided it was all to hard and went back to bed.  It was obviously way to early, to figure out how and why two foreigners are sleeping in your hotel lobby.

After this we left and walked to the border

So with new warm duds procured, we go home to pack our food, sleeping bags and towels to drape over what we anticipate will be the fairly manky/crusty/filthy/smelly beds in the sleeper bus and take a taxi to the Beijiao Beijing Bus Terminal, located in the north of the city somewhere near the fourth ring.  We planned ahead and purchased our bus ticket earlier in the week.

Intrepid Travellers Set off!

After arriving at the bus station with plenty of time to spare, we waited…….and waited and decided to amuse ourselves by watching the only TV in the place, it was too dark to read, as the bus station doesn’t turn on it’s lights.  TV watching only lasted 5 minutes, they were showing drivers safety videos.  These are basically Chinese versions of the extremely graphic RTA / TAC ads showcasing what might happen if your bus should happen to impact objects at high speed, however no one in the bus station is driving, but after living here for a while I’m sure it makes total sense to someone.

If you drink and drive your bloody bu hao

We watched our bus pull in and it looked surprisingly modern.  We were fully psyched up and ready for lots of pushing, shoving, smoking and spitting on the floor, all at the same time, but surprisingly there wasn’t much of that, people boarded the bus in a relatively orderly fashion.  We  promptly got settled into the wrong seats, moved, got settled again and strapped in for the long 12 hour ride.

The beds on the sleeper bus look like an elongated Z in reverse, like a long lazy recliner.  except they dont recline and aren’t that long.  There is a  sort of box, that your feet go inside (or would, if they are below size 6), presumably this minimises the stink, some have a built in pillow, mine didn’t, Tanya’s did.

Foo!

She gets a Pillow - I didn't

Surprisingly the bus was no smoking, which I am happy to say “most” of my bus-mates adhered to, the driver had a few sneaky fags, but it was way better than sleeping with Chinese migrant workers chaining packets of the cheapest Chinese “darts” continuously for the next 12 hours.  There was also a distinct lack of Mongolian Techno, in fact at each rest stop, they played Celine Dion esque Chinese music to wake us up, which was quite pleasant.  In fact if the bed had been a bit longer and a little wider, it would have been an awesome way to travel.

However, for visa run number 3 the time had come to put my hand in my pocket and being a total tight arse, there was no way I was paying RMB 2000 to fly Tanya to Hong Kong and back in a day, it’s a Capricorn thing.

So, I needed an alternative.  Sure you can fly to Hong Kong, or South Korea, many do, but these destinations didn’t fit my tight arse criteria.  A quick Google search yielded option 3, Zamyn-Uud.

It all sounded so easy, cruise up to Inner Mongolia on a sleeper bus (卧铺客车, yes, you read it right, sleeper bus) , arrive in Erlian (二连), slip over to Zamyn-Uud in Mongolia, pop back over the border to China with the trusty Chinese exit stamp in your passport and your all done, a snip at RMB 400 return!!  Way cheaper than RMB 2,000.

More posts to come……..stay tuned.

To China’s credit, they are pretty thorough, much more thorough than Hong Kong, which you astute (smartass) readers will also point out is also China, but it’s different.

In China, you land at a special “Swine Flu” gate, you have to fill in a form which I am sad to say no longer lists one of the possible symptoms as “Snivel”.  You are not let off the plane until a medical team in grubby white coats board the plane and take everyone’s temperature.

If you are at the pointy end, you may be thinking “this is why I paid that extra $$$ for”, given that the thermometer would have a decidedly awful taste by the time it gets to the back row in economy.  However they use a very cool infrared gun.

Once in the airport you go through another temperature check.  I notice most people are walking way more slowly than normal to keep their temperatures down.

The measures at the border are the most thorough they could be short of a rectal exam.  However this is not good enough for my customer here.

I turned up at work and was promptly sent home!  I have to undergo a 5 day Quarantine.  However it’s a Claytons kind of Quarantine, i.e. the quarantine you have, when you’re not really having a quarantine.  You see I can meet with all of the team, I can roam Beijing at will, I can expose my foreign and deadly germs to all and sundry, I just can’t go onsite.

Below, we have this stellar example from a very very exclusive apartment compound in Chaoyang

hmmm....tug your pet

Next up, direct from Shanghai’s River Promenade and from loyal reader EP.  This next one goes a long way to explain why everyone walks so bloody slowly over here.

Walk..don't Stride

If anyone knows what the Chinese says, I’d be interested to hear how they got from that to No Striding.

My trusty Beijing Makansutra said it offered an RMB 100 buffet, with FREE FLOW BEER.  Unfortunately when I arrived, the Buffet is no more, the free flow beer is gone, the veritable dream, is over.  However all is not lost, they have taken a great concept and instead, gone on hiatus for re-tooling, to re-emrge as a “Magical Teppanyaki Restaurant”, oh my!  Already seated and too far from the front door to make a run for it I was locked in.  So I just had some Surf Clam Sashimi (my new favorite) and teppanyaki steak.

As I was the only customer, and speaking mostly in Chinese (>70%), I was a bit of excitement on a slow Sunday evening to a lot of curious and bored staff.

So much so, the manager befriended me and after negotiating one free large bottle of Tsing Tao (RMB 6 from the supermarket) had me convert the following “Chinglish”……

There are 11 teppanyaki tables included 6 luxurious private rooms for you to dine with friends or hold a group party in there.  Whatever the lunch business set / dinner set menu or a la carte we all choose the best material after our chef carefully selection.

Our high value lunch business set include unlimited Japanese style appetizers/salads/Sushi/fruits and teppanyaki fried rice.  Then you go on with one of your choice for the main course like cod-fish/befffillet/sirloin steak/prawn with scallops…..Our beautiful female teppanyaki cooks will prepare your main course on teppanyaki tables.  Besides the professional cooking skills they also offer magic face to face.  This beautiful lunch will be offered for a price between RMB 58 – 68.  We also have dinner sets starting from RMB 298.  So what are you waiting for.  Hurry up and Try.  Take time for a super memorable dining experience.

To this rather elegantly put together piece of prose (if I don’t say so myself)……..

We have 11 teppanyaki tables, 5 in the main dining room and 6 luxurious private rooms where you can dine with friends or hold small private parties.  Whether you visit us for lunch or dinner, we offer both a set menu and a la carte, where the freshest seafood and best seasonal ingredients are chosen by our expert chefs.

Our set business lunch includes unlimited Japanese style entrees, salads, sushi and teppanyaki fried rice.  For main course, select either, cod fish, beef fillet, sirloin steak or prawns with scallops.  All dishes are expertly prepared by our highly trained teppanyaki chef’s.

Our Chef’s will demonstrate their skilled maneuvers on the teppanyaki grill and also perform an amazing magic show during your stay with us.

Our set lunch price represents great value ranging from RMB 58, to RMB 60.  Our set dinner is excellent value starting at RMB 298.

What are you waiting for!  Call us now to reserve a memorable and magical Japanese dining experience.

I’m hoping I can parlay this into free food all over Beijing!

Chinese restauranteurs, contact me at this blog for Chinglish eradication paid in kind by food and beers!

I know most of you reading this are technical luddites, and I mean no disrespect, but when I talk to most of you about RSS, most of you think I’ve made a typo spelling ass or something, anyhow lets see if this appears on my facebook status.

zip -F “filename.zip”

I have been on the download marathon, I’ve currently pulled down around 20GB of VMWare images for work, so that I can do some prep / study in the few weeks that I am home, and surprise surprise one of the 5gb zip files is corrupt!

Happily it looks like the above command has saved the day and my download quota.

QANTAS and I have been married for almost 10 years now.  We started out with short trips over to New Zealand, a few domestic runs between SYD, CBR and MEL and the odd weekend sojourn to Asia.  Like any relationship it was great at the start, QANTAS couldn’t do enough for me, extra legroom, no problem, upgrades not a drama, points bonuses…absolutely and special meals, every single flight.  We decided to take it to the next level and throw in a few trips to SIN, HKG, PEK, BKK and even LAX, LHR and BOS.

As the years flew by, I think QANTAS and I become complacent, we stopped working on our relationship and it just sort of stalled.  We settled down to the day to day drudgery of CBR, MEL, SYD, BNE and back again.

We took some time out in 2004, and I tried a relationship with V-Line, I realised I was a fool and that QANTAS had more to offer, so we soon got back to our international routes and for a while, life was good again, a new honeymoon phase if you will.  The break reinvigorated us both, it gave me hope for a bright future together again.

But, lately I’ve been getting frustrated, I am working hard in the relationship, showing commitment above and beyond what should be expected, but I get nothing in return, I fear that the thrill has gone, QANTAS has become cold, somewhat distant, we are in a rut, but once you are both comfortable, it seems too hard to find someone new, familiarity breeds complacency, but there must be more to life than this?

I’ve been traveling in Asia, I’ve been lonely.  One day, at the airport, Cathay Pacific caught my eye, it’s younger, hotter, available and Asian…….and therefore unexplored, exotic and mysterious.  Since I was away from QANTAS, I decided what the hell and I hooked up with Cathay.  A holiday fling if you please.

With Cathay, it’s like it was with QANTAS in the early days, extra legroom no problem, meals from business class in economy, absolutely, Cathay even lets me sneak on extra luggage AND calls me by name, QANTAS just doesn’t do that anymore.  Cathay can’t get enough of me, Cathay makes me feel young and important again.

Now I am torn.  Can I throw away what I have built with QANTAS over the last 10 years, I have spent years building points and status, but it just seems so fresh and great again with Cathay, that I am prepared to walk away from all those years of marriage with QANTAS, throw caution to the wind and chase Cathay to the far east.

There just seems to be so much more action for me in Asia, if it doesn’t work out with Cathay, I can always try JAL, Thai or Singapore.  All these airlines can’t seem to get enough of me, I’m getting more attention than an overweight old balding man in a Bangkok bar, it’s unbelievable how popular with all the airlines I am up here, QANTAS I want to love you, but how can you compete with all of these exotic beauties that give me nothing but attention and flattering comments, surely they love me for me and are not simply after my money.

If I am lucky and play my cards right, I may get to have a crack at Virgin!!!

Sir Richard, if you read this, can I have a job doing something or other?  I can work with Oliver Beale.

This morning, in Beijing we had a good dusting of snow, 20 – 30 cm’s in fact.  Being from Australia, it was only the third time that I had seen it actually snowing.  You see, in Australia, we have mountains, some would even call them alps, but our “alps” are usually covered in 50 cm of hard white slush that every wannabee with a Volvo, a ski rack and some snow chains seems to get mildly excited about each winter.  I say bugger that and fly to New Zealand, where they have REAL snow…….but I digress.

Snow sucks, because it made me fall over.  I was walking into work, stopped to take a photo and down I went, I fell on my laptop, which now has a bent chassis, however as a testament to IBM engineering, that was sold to Lenovo, the old T60p, takes a licking and keeps on ticking, even after being crushed under the hip of a Large Lumbering Western Giant.

Snow, is apparently a rare event in Beijing due to the dry climate, so you can imagine how “great” it made traffic and getting around.  Drivers here just dont seem to comprehend how to modify their driving technique, speed, or distance to other cars, be it snowing, torrential rain or sandstorms.  For example leaving work at around 11:30pm, we turn onto a secondary road, only to hit a patch of black ice and perform a slow and graceful full 180.  Much hilarity ensued, however I think mine was more nervous laughter.  This same peanut, whilst driving slowly, did manage to overtake a truck with no lights, on a blind corner, under a darkened bridge, whilst it was snowing, at midnight and none of us were wearing seatbelts, because they were not installed in the back!

No one owns snow tires, chains or the ability to drive properly in icy conditions.  I had one driver still thinking he could drive at 110 KMPH in snow!  You’ll be happy to know that when I thought I was telling him to slow down in Mandarin……I find out later It actually means speed up!  For any Chinese or non Chinese Mandarin speaking smartarses I was saying “Ni Kai Che Hun Mun”, can’t be arsed putting in the tones, figure it out for yourselves!

Here are some photo’s of snow that all look the same.  Enjoy!

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