This is my first written report from a business trip I took with my boss back in July 2007 (www.identify.co.uk)...
I thought I'd post them here as they weren't actually too bad, and also
it means there is at least something here until I get a chance to add
my first report from my trip in 2008...
Ok,
decided I should waffle on a bit about China, it'll save me texting
people who might be interested, they can just read it on here init!
(These were originally posted on my facebook page Lol)
We left
from Bristol to Amsterdam on Saturday morning, business class I up
landlord, which on this flight only meant sitting near the front
(standard seats) and a posh nosh! Raw salmon and tilapia fish with a
carrot and anise sauce! Sounds like pretentious crap, but was pretty
damn good I'll have thee know...
Got into the 'Dam after a short
flight and an even longer taxi along the runway, quickly found our new
gate and only had minutes to wait until we boarded for Beijing. I did
treat the lucky Amsterdam sewers to a rather splendid Bristolian drop
off first...ahem... ;-)
Climbed aboard the beast which was to
carry us to China, first in the queue, business class I up. I've never
flown business class before, but my next long haul is going to *have*
to be the same after this... mazin! There is so much leg room, you
don't actually know what to do with yourself! I felt like sitting on
the floor there was so much of it! You actually had to get out of your
chair to reach the seat back of the seat in front. We were greeted with
a cold glass of bubbly, although SJ and I took the orange juice on
board which made the eyes pop out a bit, tangy as you like!
Once
this flight was under way (after all the scum class lot were crammed
in) we received some rather nice salted mixed nuts and a lovely glass
of red. Splendid. After several more of these and a bit of a waffle we
were fed with a mixed bag of peking duck starter and a weird chicken
and bean thing due to part of the menu being missing from the kitchen
stock... t'was very nice though, and got washed down with a few more
glasses of the tasty red.
I then watched '300', which is a
pretty shite, testosterone filled blood bath and SJ did some work (no
surprises there then!). After that it was getting late in body-clock
terms and decided to try and sleep... me and sleeping on planes do not
have a good history, but I was hopeful being in business class that the
record was about to be improved upon, what with the fully reclining
seats, elbow room and comfy foot rest... I stuck the ear plugs in,
threw the blind fold thingy away (why do these always stink of plastic
so much on planes!) closed the eyes. Alas it was not to be... as I have
accustomed myself to sleeping on my front, plus with my insomniac
tendencies of late, I only managed a broken few hours at best... booo.
Breakfast
came, which was a nice potato, scrambled egg and asparagus meal, with
the same lary orange juice thrown in just to keep me awake. Brushed my
teeth and had a wash with the complimentary goods and we were soon
touching down in Beijing.
This airport was fun... not. We had 3
hours to burn before we could check in for the flight on to Jinan, not
really enough to go far outside the airport, and we were both
shattered, so we sat and chatted about nothing in particular in the
warm airport and drank warm diet coke in the 'Irish pub' the lucky
shamrock. The only thing actually Irish about it was the name and the
Irish coffee on the menu, it was distinctly Chinese in decor and feel,
the staff all wore Chinese style clothing and someone had left their
tubular bells does any random British hit from the 50's to the 70's cd
in the machine!
These were three long hours... SJ doing nodding dog impressions while I bored him with tales of yore...
When
we finally got through to check in, we got fleeced by a nice young lady
who decided to help us. Before we could even think to check her badge
and see who she was, she'd asked SJ where we were going, grabbed his
ticket when he produced it to show her and shouted to follow her and
stormed off across the airport with his ticket! She took us to the
right place, and we got through fairly quickly, well, I say fairly
quickly... they x-rayed the suitcases as they were checked in, and mine
set the alarms off! So they ushered me through to the checking in area
and opened the bag, taking my two new tins of deodorant out of the
suitcase and asking what they were... with my brilliant acted depiction
of spraying my now stinky pits, they were put back in (thank god else
I'd have been wearing Eau de Chinese Bloke smelly's this week!) and the
bag run threw the scanner again. She then called someone, presumably
security, and had a fast Chinese conversation with them before ushering
me out and back to the other side... phew! This is when we learned that
the 'service' provided by the young Chinese girls of showing us to the
checking desks, which we would have found by ourselves thank you very
much, was gonna cost us... 'money, money, for help you' bah fucking
humbug. So we paid her the princely sum of about 15 quid for her 'help'
and went on to security.
This was my next small adventure... put
my laptop bag through and the guy the other side calls me over, as is
typical here, he cannot speak more than 3 words of Engrish... 'you.
stop. wires?' Points at the x-ray screen. Yup wires, I say, so we open
up the bag. He is happy with the wires (network cable and power
supply), but finds the small (and crap) dutch china house ornament that
was courteously given to me on the Amsterdam flight, is causing him
some concern... take it says I, glad to see the back of the unwanted
trinket. He shakes it by his ear, sniffs it(!) and puts it to one side.
He then puts my bag through again and waves me on... Meanwhile SJ has
gone through unhindered with the exact same stupid ornament in his bag
(ha ha, he has to keep his!).
So, we're through at last and the
rest goes smoothly. This flight being a little hop to Jinan is packed
with pretty much exclusively Chinese peeps, and delightfully for me,
one female one who chewed gum loudly in my ear all the way... lush. SJ
slept all the way on this flight, lucky git. Our bags managed to find
us again, which was nice, and we proceeded to find a cash point to get
cash for the long taxi ride to our hotel... the cash point wasn't
playing though, it would not except Mastercard, and that is all we have
on us! The guy still seems happy enough to take us to the hotel, even
though we don't have the full price and when we get there we have a
funny five minutes with the taxi driver and hotel staff (pretty much
everyone that was in the lobby joined in!) where we tried to pay the
guy. No one spoke English and luckily SJ had some Euro's in his wallet
which the driver was more than happy to take... phew!
So finally
got a room and a shower about 5pm local time, about 28 hours after
leaving Bristol! Mmmmm, shower and a vigorous tooth brushing... lush!
We
met an hour or so later to eat and tried the buffet in the hotel which
was AMAZING. We didn't eat huge amount, but had plenty of different
things, some of which we were unable to identify, but tasted good, and
some which were obvious. It was all very nice, even the snails, squid
and deep fried whole chillis! Yummy.
My first impressions of
China are not good by the way, both in Beijing and Jinan there is a
thick smog hanging low in the air all around, and it smells... The
roads through Jinan were flanked by horrible looking side roads and
buildings, I would not have liked to stop here! The hotel in Jinan is
cloaked in the smog, as is the rest of the city, I've taken some pics
which I'll upload soon, not sure if they'll truly relay that! This
place is nuts by the way, busy as hell, and its a Sunday! There is a
side walk for walking and a sidewalk for two and three wheeled
vehicles, most of which have three people on! Every driver seems to
feel the need to beep their horn every 30 seconds, regardless of what
is happening on the road... and I thought LA was bad when I drove
there! Sod driving here!
Anyhoo, need sleep now, got the
noisiest bloke in China in the room next to me, joy of joys, but I
think I will drop off tonight...
Tomorrow we meet with the first
company of our trip which should be interesting. No idea what to
expect! As far as we know they have only one Engrish speaking person in
the company, so I hope they are good and have had plenty of shredded
wheat for breakfast!
Ciao for now...
Sloggs :-)
Pictures from my trip are over on my Facebook page...
