Saturday 2010-08-28
Today's post is going to be broken up
in two sections. This is the Guangzhou to Taipei section.
Well, today started out as a normal
day. We were up at 7:00 and finished our packing. We grabbed some
breakfast at 7-11 (including the famous Chinese moon cakes – very
rich!). Then we headed down to the lobby with all of our luggage and
Jonathan in the stroller. It's a good thing he's so used to being in
it. We were getting a little concerned because our guide was about
15 minutes late. It wasn't Helen because she was busy, but she sent
a fellow that turned out to be very nice. We rode in a mini-van to
the train station (very near the consulate). Boy the streets are a
maze in Guangzhou. And after being in several taxis it's pretty
clear that they must go through a lot of transmissions with the way
the start and stop so quickly!
The train station reminded us a lot of
an airport about the same size as the Fuzhou airport and almost as
tight security. They didn't confiscate our water, but we did have to
lay everything on the conveyor belt and walk through the metal
detector.
Our guide helped us buy tickets
(which took awhile because we didn't have enough cash and had to run
back downstairs to an ATM). We got to the train terminal (again, set
up very much like an airline, except they charge you by pounded to
check baggage – luckily they don't make
you check it). We stood in line about 20 minutes before boarding the
train. It was pretty nice, though our seats were facing backwards
:-/. The seats were kind of like “first class” on an airplane
(in fact, they were the first class seats on the train for only a
little more per ticket). We got Jonathan his own seat – he sure
was happy about that! The seats were big enough for Charles and had
lots of leg room. Jonathan was a little difficult to manage during
the 2 hour train ride – but it could have been worse! The train
was REALLY smooth – it was quite relaxing to ride. What came after
wasn't relaxing though! We ended up, trying to wait for elevators,
at the end of the line of people (hundreds) that were on our train.
We didn't think this was a problem until we found that we ALL were
going through customs at the same time!!! Ugh. That took a LONG
time to get through. Jonathan fell asleep half way through and
didn't wake up until about 20 minutes after we were through.
When we finally got through customs it
was a bit of a maze trying to figure out how to first exchange our
currency for Hong Kong dollars, then find the ticketing machine and
then finally find the right train to head us in the direction of the
airport. We are SOOOOO thankful we spent a couple of days in Hong
Kong before coming – otherwise we never would have been able to
figure out the MTR in time to make our flight. Our previous
experience with it was invaluable. We changed trains three times
after the main train from Guanghzhou. The last was confusing (it's
tripped us up every time we've gone through that interchange station
– though we finally figured it out this time!).
We got the airport just over an hour
before our flight was to leave! We hurried to the counter, but it
took us over 40 minutes to check in/check baggage because we were
trying to combine this flight we were about to get on, with the
trans-pacific flight (so our luggage would go the right direction).
Since we had to change just the first leg of the trip it was
confusing. Then we ran into delays because Jonathan's ticket was
issued in his American name, not his Chinese name, but his passport
only had his Chinese name. So they had to go through a lot effort to
“fix” that. Then, just having a Chinese passport took extra time
too.
We finally got through security (10
minutes) and then immigration (5 minutes) we were dashing! We
litterally RAN through the rest of the airport. They were boarding
when we got there. Since we had Jonathan and the stroller they had
us go through the “special” line where we got ahead of everyone
else. They let us use the stroller all the way to the airplane.
Then they bagged it.
The air flight itself was uneventful.
Jonathan had a few times of screaming with frustration over something
(like not getting to keep the tray down during take-off and not
getting to have the window closed during landing – not sure why the
last one was a rule, but they made us keep it open).
They even served a real rice and
chicken meal, even though the flight was only an hour and 20 minutes.
Chinese airlines offer much better service when it comes to food on
board than American airline companies do.
We ended up with a three hour layover
in the Taipei airport. That actually worked well because (even
though we had to go through security yet *again*) Jonathan was able
to get down and run around. The end of our concourse was deserted
and had moving sidewalks. What a great toddler exercise tool! He
liked using them the “normal” way of course. But he also got
quite a kick out of going backwards down them! He could run just a
little faster than they were moving in the opposite direction, so he
didn't go very far but expended a lot of energy :-).
That section had also been converted
into kind of a visitor information area all about Taiwan. Room after
room (the size of the waiting areas for airlines) had theme and had
beautiful displays all about different aspects of Taiwan (history,
ecology etc...).
They had a great baby changing room
too – decorated very prettily (obviously by a woman – it was all
pink) where they not only provided a place to change diapers but
provided diaper wipes, hot water for bottles etc...
Stay tuned for our next installment of
“Will We Make It Home???”