Beijing acrobats

Arriving in Beijing

I woke after two 3 hour dozes, assisted by two half sleeping pills.  They crew served an excellent frittata for breakfast but I chose the alternative of congee which looked identical to the one from about a year ago.

Landing at 0405, I thought we were much earlier than the scheduled arrival of 0440 but with a 25 min taxi, we were only 10 mins early at the gate.

Immigration was swift but after the train ride to the carousel, things slowed down.  After a 15 min wait there, our bags arrived. Had it not been for the baggage delay, there was no waiting or queueing.

We exited the arrival hall at 0525, an hour after pulling into the gate.

We headed to the transport centre to order a ride to the hotel.  The pick-up area was located in a multi-storey car park and the driver had trouble locating us.  For some reason, he was one storey up but managed to park and walk down to get us, despite some language barrier.

Resting up

Setting off in the car at 0550, there was no traffic and we arrived at the Piao Home Inn (Guomau Donghua Trade Store Branch) at 0615.

I had booked one room for the previous night for all three of us to share as early check-in.  After a brief rest, we had breakfast at 0800 in the hotel’s basement.

Dentist

I had noticed a dentist at the nearby shops and decided that it would be a good chance to get my chipped lower right canine checked out.  After a wait, I saw a lovely young male dentist who showed me the problem tooth with a camera and screen.

Despite the partial language barrier, I gathered that:

• The tooth I had concerns with isn’t a problem. The chip is miniscule and can be patched up it wasn’t necessary.
• However, there is wear on the grinding surfaces of the adjacent premolars which he recommended be patched up (perhaps a composite coating).
• Further, he recommended that I replace all my historic amalgam fillings. I’ve had advice never to do that as amalgam is more durable.

With incomplete understanding, a short stay and doubts of whether his recommendation was over-selling, I told him that I would attend to all the above once I return to my home country.

He said that the work in China would be cheaper than in Malaysia.  However, I stood firm and got away with the free reassurance of that that the problem canine wasn’t indeed a problem.  There was no charge for the consultation whereas in Hyderabad, it cost me NZD5.

Room change

Back at the hotel, we rested till about 1100 when I asked if Jo’s room was available.  Indeed, it was ready.  But the bad news is that we had to change rooms as they had let us into a different room type earlier this morning.

After a wash, I checked the availability of an acrobatic concert at the Red Theatre.  We felt confident about making it to the 1530 session if we continued to rest till 1400.

Red Theatre Acrobatics

I received a message that the show would start at 1610, so we postponed our departure from the hotel to about 1430.

We got to the theatre a little too early and took a short walk around the area, which had only a couple of dinner options but one stood out particularly well.

Back at the theatre, I was surprised at how old and worn the premises were.  It is so unlike China nowadays to not have the glitziest building for something quite well-known.

The performance started with contortionists then jumping and tumbling acrobats.  We were then wow’ed by a young man that balanced himself on a stack of about 12 chairs.

Ride-sharing was taken to the next level when 8 cyclists appeared on stage, initially on their own bike, then sharing 3 bikes and finally sharing one bike.  For me this is a particular iconic act in Chinese acrobatics and for that reason, I expected it to be the finale.

However, we finished with a motorcycle act where one motorcyclist rode inside a globe-shaped caged.  One by one, another bike and rider entered the cage until there was a total of four going round and round inside with no mishaps.

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The show finished about 1h05 after commencement.  We were all so glad that we made the effort and spent the money to come do this today, as time and energy will probably be limited on other days as well.

We finished dinner at the Xinjiang restaurant nearby before heading back to the hotel to finish the day early.

The show had made our first day in Beijing memorable as it would have been a complete non-event in bed otherwise.