China 2019 Day 5, 10th May. Singapore to Beijing

Damn that alarm at 4.30am this morning. Actually it was the noisy idiots next door at 3am which was worse and as most know when you have to be up in around an hour you just don’t get back to sleep. Got ready and all packed before heading downstairs to checkout and grab a cab to the airport. Mercure Singapore Bugis was a great spot to stay, small room, but great location, modern, very clean and reasonably priced.

Barely took 20 minutes to the airport through the rain (another storm during the night) with the check in and customs process very efficient. It was then up to the Singapore Airlines lounge (loving that Virgin Gold 😉 ) for a quiet wait and some breakfast.

Would have liked to see 'Jewel" but need at least 5 hours apparently so not this time.

Plane (A380) was on time, almost and it was bye Singapore and on the way to Beijing. We were in economy but on the upper deck which meant two seats next to a window by ourselves, lovely.

You’ll see some colourful sign photos at the end of this blog and these are all from the MRT subways. A great humorous social media campaign to get people to just think of others and be considerate, wonder if it work in Australia, I doubt it. Loved that each character had their own name, loved Glenda 😉.

It was an uneventful 6 hour flight and I got to finish the movie I started on the previous flight and also update my blog.
After landing at Beijing airport ( the terminal has the most amazing curved timber ceilings) it was a pretty simple process through immigration and customs and then as per usual, waited for our bags which always seem to be the last ones, but at least they arrived. We then found the Airport Express subway and bought our tickets before trying to decipher the map. This was so small ( and we still had no wifi) that I had to take a photo of it with my phone and then enlarge it so we could read the stations!! and no it was NOT my old eyes. All good, on our way and then change to line 10 after 2 stops. First problem, need another ticket. Oh well find the ticket machine as no one spoke English but thank god you could choose the English language on the machine once we found the correct machine (there were 3 different types and all obviously in Chinese.) Then a leisurely ride to our destination stop and a short 10 minute walk to the Beijing Guiz Hou Hotel Mansion. A great choice, lovely big room and would definitely recommend to anyone visiting. Only worry I had was the Chinese gas masks in each room for guests in case of fire, gas attack?? Also it is not 100m from where Alec is living so a definite plus. As he didn't finish work till 7pm we had a walk around, bought some supplies,had  a coffee and then a little relax and a beer before he and his girlfriend Helen arrived to take us to dinner.
We then set off to a Chinese hot pot restaurant for dinner which entailed a 30 minute walk through a park with no lights ( Beijing one of the safest cities in the world I'm told) and had a lovely catch up evening. Eventually we returned back to the hotel quite late and retired to a well earned rest.
Even with the flight another 20,000 step day. ;-)