First sights of Teochew

Arriving and transit in Bejing

With one sleeping pill, I slept soundly for about 4h30.  With about 3h remaining till the breakfast service, I reluctantly popped another half a pill which gave me another 2h.  Magic!

We landed in Beijing Capital about 1h before the scheduled arrival time of 0530.  It was quite cool as we disembarked and also in the terminal.

Arrival cards hadn’t been given out on board, so we did them in the airport before proceeding through immigration.

The layout of Terminal 3 necessitated a train ride to the baggage hall where we went through security to the domestic departure area.  We got through around 0615, perhaps around 1h15 after disembarkation.

Kim and Dennis had lounge access at Beijing Capital courtesy of my Trip.com membership.  Because I had booked through another site (which had a lower price), I wasn’t able to add the lounge access.

The 6h transit went pretty quickly with the company of Swee and Chen and we met up with Kim and Dennis at our boarding gate for our flight to Chaoshan airport, which serves the cities of Jieyang, Swatow (Shantou) and Teochew (Chaozhou).

Flying to Chaoshan

The Air China A321 departed on time at 1040.  Dennis and I shared a row of three seats, with the middle left vacant while Kim was across the aisle.  Swee and Chen were just in front of us.

The A321 in two-class configuration and toilets overwing, didn’t have the super-long feel of a monoclass aircraft with no toilets midship.  A hot meal was served  inflight.  We landed about 20 mins early at around 1330.

Time with our host

Once outside the terminal, Dennis ordered two cars, one for Swee and Chen to their hotel and another one for us to his home.

The ride took about an hour to Xinjing Gardens which comprised of a number of 8 storey blocks.  It was a shock to learn that that was the limit for buildings without elevators (as I’m used to 4 storeys being the limit).  Fortunately, we were located on the 5^th floor and not the 8^th!

After an hour’s rest, we headed off to his aunt’s place around 1600.  Swee and Chen came separately to join us.  We had nice chats with both the aunt and grandmother whom we had met in Auckland before.

They treated us to afternoon tea before walking to a nearby restaurant for a delicious 10 course meal in a private room.

Guangji Bridge lightshow

From there, we walked to Teochew’s old town area to make our way to the Guangji Bridge for its nightly 10-minute light show.  It was a stunning display and despite our tired state, it was totally worth it.  More about the Guangji Bridge in a couple of days when we visit it properly.

Once the show was over, we promptly found a place where we could get a couple of cars to take us back home.  I slept soundly at around 2130.