This is Olivia and I waiting at the Chengdu airport. You might think Mike is taking the picture....he is not.
When we got to the airport the plane let us off somewhere in the middle of the tarmac where we transferred to a bus to the terminal....so far so good. As we crossed the threshold of the terminal Mike thought of something which made him think of something else....yeah, the passports are in the camera bag, yeah, the camera bag is on the floor of the plane under the seat in front of mine......Not a good thought!! I gathered our luggage while Mike and Olivia went to find help in getting back his bag....Not so easy here where there is very little English spoken by the majority of the populace. Mike ended up calling his Admin, Iris, and having her speak to the people behind the counter who told her that when the cleaning crew found it it would be turned in to lost and found and then we could claim it......who knew how long that might be.....Well, Iris is very tenacious and told them that would not do and apparently it worked. One of the people behind the counter went off and was back within just a few minutes with the bag.......Nightmares avoided!!!!! The biggest nightmare being you cannot check into a hotel without a passport in China.
Meanwhile, after I got the bags Mike sent me and Olivia out to find our tour guide......He/she is nowhere to be found! It turns out he has the sign he is supposed to be holding UP rolled into a tube in his hand. Not sure who told him that would make it easy for us to spot him.......While we are searching for him every taxi driver in the place is coming up to us saying....taxi?, taxi?. How many times have you got to say "bu yao"? Also, the ones who come up to you like that are the ones who are not registered or legal taxis. You will most likely get charged an astronomical fee if you get in one of those cars. We have them right here in Beijing too.
All was settled and we headed out into Chengdu to have some dinner.......Chinese food.
Bedtime the first day.
Love, fondly, sincerely,
Zaijian,
Ramona
oh my word. that could be counted as a miracle that your passports weren't lost. Nightmare avoided indeed!
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