Instead of blogging on Monday, I went to the Temple of Heaven in Beijing and then caught a flight home. My last half-day in Beijing was very pleasant indeed. I went to an oily bread place for breakfast and managed to order a congee/oily bread combo and a hot, sweet soy milk all by myself, then caught the subway to the Temple of Heaven and found it the most enjoyable of the landmarks I visited there, probably because the weather was perfect and the park is so big that the tourists weren't swarming like at the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.
At one point I was trying to eavesdrop on some of the tours going around because I tend to get impatient if I hire an audio guide. I was listening to this Chinese guide thinking 'man, his English is terrible! I can't understand a word!' when I realised he was speaking fluent German.
Got to the airport with plenty of time to spare and bought two tubs of chewing gum because I had to offload a wad of RMB1 notes (the chewing gum cost RMB22 and I think I had RMB17 in RMB1 notes). Paid way too much for lunch at the airport cafe and was feeling a bit ripped off, then I saw the swine flu rap that Kristen had told me about, so I felt better. It's a 'rap' about preventing the spread of swine flu done in a traditional form with a Chinese percussive instrument that keeps a beat. No illness!
Long story short, the flight was delayed by an hour leaving Beijing and about 20 minutes coming into Sydney due to air traffic control at both ends. When I got out of immigration, I knew this meant that I was going to be late for work because the baggage took ages to arrive and the line through customs wrapped almost the whole way around the area. I got all my tea and chess set and candy through, though.
My dad called and said he and my mum were at the airport and had just checked in to their flight to Canada so came at met me in arrivals, which wouldn't have been possible if my flight had been on time. So I had a coffee with them and found out that when they were in China they totally cheated because they had an English-speaking guide everywhere they went.
Went home. Dumped stuff. Had a shower. Went to work.
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