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Friday 2004-07-09 - Beijing, China
Broke in Beijing
I wake up before five; I slept well but not long enough. An hour later the train attendant comes by to wake us up (if necessary) and swap our little cards for our train tickets. We arrive in Beijing at 6:40.
I’m so tired after my too-short night, the first thing I do when we get our room in the Dong Fang hotel is go to bed for a nap — while Carla goes out with Thom to the Forbidden City. We were told that to view the Forbidden City you’d need to walk around some four or five hours, something I’m sure I can’t manage anyway with my still-hurting foot. When I wake up again it’s 12:30. I’d like to go out for a short walk, but first I’ll need some cash: I’m nearly broke. But before that — and before I can go out at all — I’ll need to have my passport (left at the check-in desk for registration), and I can’t get cash without a passport either.
When I arrive in the lobby and ask for my passport, explaining why I need it, a small opera results: our passports are locked away, it seems, and the lady who has the only key (really?) has gone to the bank to get cash, I’m told; she’ll be back in an hour. I insist they just cannot ‘lock up’ their guests by holding on to their passports: the lady with the key should have left that key behind so guests can have access to their passports. Obviously, things don’t quite work like they try to make me believe: apparently no one present has sufficient authority to open the (locked?) drawer with the passports. When I propose the assistant manager (“#0059” says his name tag, he doesn’t seem to have a name) call the lady with the key that seems to give him an opening; he suggests I sit at the lounge bar to wait … and less than 10 minutes later a bell boy appears to tell me my passport is here. Of course the lady with the key (does she even exist?) is nowhere in sight; I suspect they just decided to open the drawer, maybe without proper authorization.
Anyway, that’s really just the short version of what happened; then actually getting cash involves one non-functional ATM (in the hotel), one broken ATM (at a bank) and a bank teller at yet another bank. But I have my passport, and cash, and now I’m ready to explore Beijing a little — at my snail’s pace.
