Good Morning China!

[Original Blog Entry Monday December 30 by Letizia. Translated by Brendan. ]

It's four in the morning and we finally concede to the jetlag and surrender to Greenwich Mean Time: The girls are playing on their Nintendos in the other room, Brendan is studying the guide, and I'm writing my first post on the road. China has welcomed us with open arms. After 10 hours of half-light on the airplane, we landed in Beijing to the kind of beautiful sunlight that we haven't seen in Ireland since September. At the passport check we were waved through with wide smiles. We noticed a button on the policeman's kiosk that we could press in the event that we weren't satisfied with our treatment. Our suitcases arrived even before we did, and soon afterwards we were already in a taxi called by an airport official whose job seemed to entail helping passengers in whatever way necessary.

Brendan passed his first test in Chinese with flying colours, chatting with the taxi driver while the kids and I were giggling in the back. Once in the hotel, we colonized our room, opening the suitcases and taking out books, slippers, computer and the various other items that for the next months will constitute our home. They are exactly those things that differentiate between a normal holiday and what we are doing - vital for helping us at least feel as if we are not always in a hotel, but difficult to drag across four continents. I'm already thinking impatiently about the first parcel that we'll send home.

Despite the tiredness - for us it was 2 in the morning and none of us had slept on the plane - we headed out and reached Tiananmen Square by foot. Very quickly we realised that we were amongst the very few Westerners around. Locals looked at us with intense curiosity, especially at the girls, and more than once we were stopped in order to have our picture taken with complete strangers. Nina: "I feel like I'm Avril Lavigne!". When we got to the square, the souvenir vendors descended on us, and for the second time we saw the proof of Brendan's Chinese. Along with the language, he also acquired the ability to haggle, without which you can't survive here. From him we learned the magic words to free ourselves from the vendors. When nothing else works; no, no thank you, I don't want it, just say bu yao! with a certain authority, and they vanish. First they freeze, silent, and then they disappear. He assures me that we're not being rude, but I'm not convinced.

The cold at that point was too much, as was the tiredness, so we took shelter in a nearby subway station. Once inside, nobody was inclined to venture back out into the cold and so Brendan gave his final demonstration of his command of the language: with the map of the subway on the wall, in Chinese, he managed to get us back to the hotel, changing train along the way. Needless to say we were the only Westerners around. I don't know if I'll be able to compete with this when it's my turn to translate in South America.