China — Beijing Olympic Park and leaving Beijing
My first time in China
October 2015
In October 2015, I flew to China for a two-week visit, and it was an exciting experience.
I started the trip in Beijing before travelling on to Dalian, Chengdu and Shanghai.
I arrived in China at Beijing Capital International Airport 北京首都国际机场 (PEK) — Foursquare — with no issues and made my way to my hotel — Hotel InterContinental Beijing Beichen 北京北辰洲际酒店 — Foursquare — again, without any problems.
The InterContinental Beijing Beichen 北京北辰洲际酒店 overlooked the Olympic Park. And it surprised me how small the park was — I was expecting something much bigger. It was not just the park area, I thought was small, but also the stadia.
When I visited, the hotel was celebrating Hallowe’en, which struck me as a little odd. They were doing it the right time of year, it was just odd the way they were doing it.
On the trip, I only had one evening to explore the Olympic Park, and it was a surreal experience.
Beijing held the Summer Olympics in 2008, and it felt odd to wander around the park with a surprising number of people, looking at the stadia and venues I had seen on telly a few years before.
As I said above, I found the park surprisingly small, and the stadia that loomed so large on TV seemed to have shrunk.
The “bird’s nest” stadium, which was huge and spectacular on the telly, now looked small. But, the architecture was still very impressive and a great-looking building.
The swimming pool complex also looked small.
The next Olympic event in China was advertised — the Winter Olympics 2022.
On my way back to the hotel, I came across this curious setup and at the time, I couldn’t work out what it was — I found out the next day as I left the hotel. It was a racetrack for the E-Prix (Electric Grand Prix).
As I left the hotel the following day, I heard this incredible high-pitched whine coming from where I had seen the track set up the evening before. I went over for a brief look, and the cars’ speed and acceleration rates were terrific.
As I left Beijing, I encountered a problem getting to the airport.
They had shut the motorway!
Why? A “party official” needed to travel on the motorway, so they closed it to all other vehicles.
I sat in traffic for two hours, not moving.
When I got to the airport, I had missed my flight. And, as I was looking at the departure board, ticket in hand, a man appeared at my shoulder and said he could ‘fix my problem’ and get me on the next flight. It seemed odd, but as the people at the check-in weren’t concerned about my problem and refused to help, I had no choice but to accept his offer.
For the next hour, I followed the man around the airport to various offices and counters, and at the end of it all, I had a ticket for the next flight. The only problem was that he charged the price of the ticket price for his services. In fairness, he had spent much of his ‘fee’ ‘helping’ my ticket request through the process with several local officials. Palms had to be, and were, greased.
I got on my flight and landed in Dalian.