It all started one Saturday afternoon with Kerry going through the specials for overseas travel. What about China she says. No been there and done that says me. Yeah but I haven’t – listen to this….
So here we are at Brisbane International Airport flying China Southern Airways to Guangzhou and then Beijing. The flight was a little under 9 hours to Guangzhou and was quite pleasant with comfortable seats and almost everything going like clockwork – the flight was delayed.
Arriving in Guangzhou we taxied for about 1 hour to get to the terminal where we caught a bus to the entrance and then traipsed through to the Domestic terminal which took almost as long. However happy ending we arrived just before the boarding call for Beijing came over the public address. After boarding the plane there was clearly a problem as take-off time came and went and we were still there. Then the Hosties started serving dinner and we were then told our take off would be delayed an hour. Hmmmm!
Well we finally took off fearing our connection in Beijing would be home in bed – ETA 11.45pm Beijing time. Arriving in the Arrival hall we were gripped with fearful thoughts of finding our way to our hotel unassisted but as we left the Arrival hall here was Eddie with his Yellow Nexus Tours sign – relief. We joined Taylor a young Australian social worker and retirees Leonie and Peter alongside Eddie but we were missing one more couple – the Jones es who ultimately turned up missing Geoff’s luggage.
We boarded the minivan just in time – it was below freezing and we were not exactly dressed for it. The trip to the Loong Palace Hotel was long and lumpy but we finally got there and into bed by 2.00 am Beijing time. Bed was very welcome and sleep irresistible.
We woke to the alarm on the phone showered and changed ready to start the day. I took the opportunity to take some photos of the Loong Palace Hotel, our breakfast buffet, and the view from our room.
glendon1954 