To China!

So I had to make it over to China to meet up with my beloved Ange as she had a convenient little ticket to Beijing and I didn’t have the money to buy a ticket directly to Beijing. Hence my entire South Korea plan, the basic plan was to get a ferry to South Korea and then another ferry from South Korea to China. Well it worked, I was at the port in Incheon and I paid around 90 dollars for a ticket to Tianjin which just happens to be an hour or so away from Beijing I had heard. So I went through Immigration at the port and I found myself getting on some dodgy bus and then an even dodgier looking ferry (if that was possible) and before long I was sitting in my little bunk sleeper thing with an old lady staring at me with her toothless grin. Yet again I was the only foreigner on the ferry ride and to my dismay there wasn’t much entertainment or alot of hospital service on this ferry ride, but I suppose that can be reflected with the price. But what did I care? my only aim was to get to China without killing my wallet and that’s what I did! I don’t want to talk much about the ferry ride, it wasn’t as great as the first one and it actually made me feel a little terrible! I felt truly alone, no one to talk to or anything like that. My iPod did wonders to cheer me up and I finished one of my books but it seemed like the ferry ride just went on and on! to make matters  worst I had limited won left and there were no English announcements to indicate what times breakfast, lunch or dinner were at!

The neon lights say it all!

I found myself often wandering up to the ships deck and watching the mist surround the boat during the early hours of morning or at night. Either that or just sleeping constantly. ^^ When we were finally due to arrive we stumbled across the biggest port I had ever seen. The port of Tianjin could be said to be the port of Beijing for all intensive purposes, but once we arrived I was in for a rude awakening. There was no ATM of any sort at the Immigration port area! meaning of course that I couldn’t withdraw any of the local currency and was left wondering how the hell I was supposed to get anywhere and do anything at such a late time during the night. To top things off the people were telling me that I couldn’t catch a train to Beijing that night and I would have to stay the night in Tianjin. Well thank god for foreigner stubbornness, I insisted on the immigration official that they write me a note explaining to a taxi driver that they were to take me to a ATM and then to a train station. Success! I was able to withdraw money after meeting a taxi driver that could say the basic hello etc etc and knew very little English but enough for me to work with.

This little boat literally pushed the ferry sideways into it's little docking port. Twas awesome.

After talking to the taxi driver I decided to take the risk and try and get to Beijing despite what the immigration official said to me. Telling the taxi driver train station and Beijing and repeating it a few times making sure that he knew I was to take a train to get to Beijing I was satisfied that I was getting somewhere, until of course 20 minutes passed by in the taxi and it looked as if there was nothing in the  surrounding area. I began to worry that this guy was going to actually take me all the way to Beijing by taxi! lucky for me he eventually stopped at Tianjin station which turned out to be over 50kms away from the ferry port and cost me almost 30 dollars. Buuuut thankfully this was the right train station as I was able to catch an express, a short bullet like train that took only 30 minutes and went over 300kms an hour to get to Beijing! It was actually at Tianjin station as I was trying to work out how to buy a ticket off a Chinese person that in fact a Japanese traveler came upon me, to my annoyance it was the very same person I thought had that look of loniness on the same ferry I came to China on! if only we had talked a bit we could of had a better time. All the same, we talked at Tianjin station and on the bullet train and eventually because he didn’t have a hotel reservation or anything (neither did I) he asked if I would show him to where I was staying at. Lucky for us, Kazu as his name was, Kazu and I were able to check into the hostel that I was supposed to be staying at with Ange when she arrived the very next day. Kazu and I shared a twin bed room and he left early the next morning to go to a Japanese hostel.

He woke me up just for this photo! and I'm glad. ^^

Little did I know that this wasn’t the last time I’d see Kazu. But yes, I went to bed that night knowing that I was where I was supposed to be and that I would be picking up Ange from the airport the next morning.