Saturday 23 April.
We got up in time to have breakfast, but discovered with a shock that the price we had been working on for the hotel breakfast was Y30, not Y10 as I had been told. While it was still a bargain, Heather said that we should not take breakfast there, so off I went to the local store to get a couple of pastries, quite enough to keep us going until the meal on the plane.
We then had to check out. Heather, meticulous as always, spotted a couple of charges that were not ours, so it took a little while before the account was finally settled and we were able to set off for the airport by taxi.
We got in line at the Air Canada counter 3 ½ hours ahead of time, but were, unfortunately, caught up in a school group from Calgary. Nether children nor most of the adults were well-behaved, so their antics made the wait even less bearable. The counter staff seemed incapable of dealing with a group booking where the individuals were listed on a sheet (as opposed to having individual tickets), nor with the regulations for luggage (the staff wanted to charge for the difference between international and domestic regulations. We waited over an hour before the problems were resolved and more counter staff brought in.
The formalities with the Chinese authorities were easily negotiated, although in the security check a 200ml tube of sun-screen was detected (it had been missed in Perth!) and we were obliged to surrender it.
The ten-day visit was far too short. And we have seen nothing outside Beijing. We plan on taking a similar route when next we are returning from Australia, but with more time spent in other cities, perhaps even a trip on the new train to Tibet.
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