Lost in translation – and busy Beijing

I HAVE finally arrived in hazy Beijing.
It was touch-and-go whether I would get here at all as I was frantically waiting for the right paperwork to arrive to get me into China.
But just hours before I was due to fly out I managed to get my hands on the all-important accreditation and visa documents I needed to board my plane.
However, it did mean a mad dash across London to pick it up.
My journey actually started at 3am on Tuesday with a taxi from home to a dark and wet Bretonside Bus Station to catch the 3.35am National Express shuttle to Heathrow.
Four-and-a-half-hours later I was at Heathrow, where I dropped my suitcase off at left luggage and got on two tubes and a bus to Wandsworth to collect my accreditation from the British Olympic Association.
Back at Heathrow I boarded a flight to Amsterdam, where I picked up a connection to Beijing.
On the plane to Beijing there were a number of athletes, officials and supporters from a host of countries. I think I ended up next to a Kazakhstan boxer, definitely a heavyweight, who did not speak much English.
It was an uncomfortable journey to China. The flight was nearly 10 hours and I struggled to get any sleep.
The food was not too impressive either, although there was plenty of it.
I did get confused when at 6.30am Beijing time and 12.30am Holland time they came around to offer a choice of either noodles or ice-cream. At the time I could not work out whether it was breakfast or supper, but it seemed like two strange items to choose from. Anyway, if you are interested, I went for the ice-cream.
The plane eventually touched down in Beijing at 10am local time on Wednesday – a full 24 hours, taking into account the time zones, after I had left Plymouth.
As soon as the plane landed in Beijing the famous haze was obvious, although it doesn’t cause any breathing problems. It is the heat and humidity that’s the killer.
But what I was pleasantly surprised about was how easy and organised it was getting through immigration and customs. Everyone at the airport was extremely welcoming.
However, I did have an hour to wait for my bus to take me down to Beijing and then on to my hotel. I thought I would use the time to get something to eat.
I noticed a KFC and headed off in search of some chips to keep me going. The menu was in both Chinese and English, but the items on sale were not quite the same as we are used to – they didn’t seem to have any chips for one.
Yet, one of the items on the menu was a cold fish finger, which I decided to pass on. The image of an uncooked Captain Birdseye special did nothing for me. In the end I settled for a coffee and a muffin at the coffee shop next door.
I finally got to my hotel at about 2pm.
The hotel is pretty basic but clean and okay. None of the staff, though, appear to speak English, which is proving a bit difficult.
I managed, with a lot of hand signals, to get the receptionists to give me a map of Beijing and circle the hotel on it, which did prove valuable when I decided to take a ‘little’ walk looking for the main media centre later on. My next task is to try to ask the receptionists how to get the shower to work properly.

I did find the media centre and the famous Bird’s Nest Stadium, after what seemed like miles, but the problem was finding my way back to my hotel. As it took me longer than I thought it had become dark and I am still wondering how on earth I managed to get back.
I don’t speak Chinese and nobody I met on the street spoke English, but they were all very helpful and after showing my map to about 20 people I finally located where I was staying. It was totally pitch black by then.
Today my plan is try and get to a press conference the Great Britain diving team are holding and to try and not get myself run over crossing any of the roads.
Cars don’t seem to stop at zebra crossings in Beijing. They have employed people for the Olympics to stand at the edge of crossings with flags, which they wave when people can cross. But even though they are waving and the green light says cross, cars are still coming.
You do take your life in your hands crossing roads in Beijing – and they are big roads.