RTW: p40 - Enter the Dragon

Running off 5hrs sleep from the PREVIOUS night, and the plane detouring via Hong Kong made the 10hr journey painful.
Arriving at customs I was so out of it I spent 5min in the CHINESE NATIONALS line!! You’d think I’d notice being the only westerner in the line, but it was the same when I joined the FOREIGNERS cue.
Then being sent back to fill out another form with the same information I had entered on the first, I eventually got through customs and was bombarded by ‘TAXI TAXI’ from scammers ready to charge a fortune. Mate I don’t need your F’ing taxi I have a ride. I made a call to my pickup people just to shake him and found them happily greeting me.

Enter Beijing Traffic. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it alive to the hostel. The theory seems to be watch your front and who ever is behind should be looking out for you. And “merge at will” is common thinking, whether there is a space or not. Eventually I made it in one piece.

THIS is china.

RTW: p39 - Sayonara

I finally joined the clean up crew and began setting up for the party, planning to fit 25 people in our kitchen!
Of course the Japanese start showing up on time, bringing food and sweets galore.
We had the music going but tried to avoid another old man incident (strange neighbour that joined the last party). People came and went and some ventured to the roof.
Around 2am we thought it was a good idea to hit the batting cages. Starting at 70km pitching we worked up to the 120kmhr zone! Masayuki of course reigned king, but I wasn’t that far behind as everyone else was drunk. Me Hitting 3 of 23 was good at this speed!

After long goodbyes some of us we went home and at 6.30am I walked up get the bus.

Goodbye Tokyo!

みんな　ありがとうございました！