Will Travel: My Beijing

By William James Rahal

This is a story about a boy who was told if he kept digging he would end up in China. Because of his sister's fearlessness and some fantastic friends, he finds himself in Beijing. In this comical retelling, the group meets in Beijing to support the boys sister, who is running The Great Wall Marathon. The run is a great excuse to extend the trip into an experience of a lifetime: enjoying local cuisine, checking out shopping hot spots, dispelling myths and pre-conceived notions, and putting the T back into tea--all the while laughing at themselves along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 27, 2008
• ISBN: 9781477166598

William James Rahal

William was born in a small town on Lake Erie, Pennsylvania. As a child he spent countless hours immersed in his father’s library, rumored to have been purchased from Alexander Graham Bell's granddaughter's estate. It was here that he found his passion: to live a life worthy of writing his own stories. For the past few years William spent his time traveling the world, including recent trips to Australia, Cuba, Germany, Italy, London, Scotland and Beijing, and making quality California wines. His hope is that others will enjoy his writing and wine as much as he enjoyed creating them.

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Copyright © 2008 by William James Rahal.

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4363-3815-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4363-3814-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4771-6659-8

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Contents

Leaving the U.S.

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Day Eight

Day Nine

Day Ten

End Notes

This book is dedicated to D. Traveler, my sister, for her courage, hard work and zest for life—you are fearless. Because of you, this project became a reality and all of us involved are richer for it; Summer, for her constant support and walking me through a lot of the preparation; She-fly-low, for all her help in planning and for guiding us daily; Him-so-lost, my best bud, personal hero and inspiration; and to the people of Beijing with whom we came into contact and for whom I have the utmost respect.

Hello, my name is Winter Rain and this is my story about my trip to Beijing, China with my girlfriend, Summer Snow, and three others. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Oh hell, who am I kidding? Amongst the group I went with, there is very little innocence—I just like the names. The purpose of this trip was to support my sister, D. Traveler, in a huge challenge: to run the Great Wall marathon, a 26.2 mile race where all participants are very special (code for: mental, insane, out of whack, not all there).

Leaving the U.S.

I got up around 8:30am with plans to workout. Hell, I plan to workout every day of my trip. OK, the truth is I plan to workout every day of my life; yet most of the time life works me out. Oh, by the way, did I mention this is the first day in the rest of my life? Probably not!

I usually like to get up anywhere between 7:00am and 8:00am unless, of course, life makes me stay up the night before watching TV, drinking wine, or doing any one of a number of things I can come up with for staying up too late. The day started out a bit late but that was okay since I had only a few things to accomplish before my departure. As it turned out, someone had forgotten one of the things on his pre-trip list—to get all the pictures taken on numerous other trips off of the digital camera and onto a disk for storage. So, now on the way to the gym, I had to make a stop to take care of that oversight. Albertson’s, the super market near our house, has one of those stand alone, do-it-yourself jobs that talks too loudly and gives way too many simple choices, but would serve such a need. Oh, did I mention that my lovely girlfriend now wanted coffee since Starbucks is in proximity to Albertson’s? Yep, by now my simple solo task of going to the gym before leaving for China had turned into a list of its own.

It’s not that I couldn’t remember these few items; it’s just when it comes to the whole coffee thing there’s a lot of information to understand. When the barrage of nonfat, latte, mocha, peppermint, Frappuccino, and whipped cream with sprinkles is launched at me and must be remembered in detail, followed by the look of suspicion and the words, Will you remember that?, all come into play, oh yeah, I need a list. Oh hell, to tell ya the truth, she made the list for me. Did I mention that the single task (now multiplied into a new list) and the gym were in two different directions?

Ready to rock with list in hand and dressed in workout attire, I headed off to the gym via Albertson’s and Starbucks. Did I mention it was raining? (Not that it matters, but we have received a lot of rain this winter and I wanted to keep you in the loop.) We only live a half-mile from Albertson’s but, realizing that I had only an hour to accomplish my goals and that my skill level for working the photo machine so early in the morning is, at best, suspect, I started to brainstorm. I remembered there was a Wolf Camera at the entrance of the shopping center. Scrap the do-it-yourself and let the pros do it! My plan was brilliant, oh hell, I was brilliant.

While locking my truck with one hand and patting myself on my back with the other, I proceeded into the camera shop. Although knowing this plan was going to cost me an extra dollar or two, I wasn’t too worried (code for: my ideas usually cost someone money). Thinking I could drop off the camera, have someone else transfer my photos onto a disk, pop into the Starbucks, order my coffee, head back, pick up my photos all in about 10 minutes, had the sweet ring of speed and efficiency. Once inside the camera shop, I explained to the lady behind the counter what I would like to accomplish and she assured me that it would take only minutes. As I found myself doing for the last month, I worked into the conversation that I was heading to China on vacation, and with renewed enthusiasm I headed over to Starbucks. I soon found myself in one of two lines with a lot of worker bees and, looking around, noted the many other worker bees seated and staring into laptops—all not going to China. The liberating fact that I had just quit my own job just the day prior was not lost on me.

The lines and time went quickly and before I knew it I was back over at Wolf Camera, money in hand and ready to rock to the gym. Here’s where things slowed down a bit. Thinking I could just pop in, pay and go, I found a gentleman had replaced the lady at the counter. However, spotting her hovering nearby, and thinking myself unforgettable, I shrugged off his offer to help and nodded in her direction, saying something like, No, thanks, she is helping me. Strangely, she acted like she’d never had seen me before, let alone waited on me. Hell, I was her first customer of the day. Whatever.

The bottom line was that my disk (yeah, the disk that was supposed to take only minutes to produce) wasn’t yet ready. Apparently, my camera card was having a problem talking to my future disk (code for: photo-matic discourse) as gathered by my impeccable translation of their sophisticated Wolf Camera speak. The Wolf Camera lady showed me a printout of how many photographs should be on a card of my size. Well, not going into too much detail, I think my card has the capability of holding 40 to 50 photos. Evidently my card was trying to prove itself to me for it held in the ballpark of 195 photos. This amazing fact had something to do with the reason I now needed two disks and had something to do with the questionable quality of my photographs and had something to do with why I should really buy another card and… blah, blah, blah. I was leaving for China in less than one hour and I had to make a quick decision. I said something to the effect that no, thank-you-very-much, I don’t need to buy a new card. I’m going to China where everything is made anyway and can be purchased cheaply. I left them with the data from my card and my name and phone number to be contacted when the disk was ready. With cooling coffee in hand, it occurred to me that since I had to drive back by our house to get to the gym anyway I should really just drop it off rather than let it sit in the car during my workout. I took the coffee home and, you guessed it, I never did get that workout.

Transportation to the local airport is always a fun prospect. We live in the Bay Area, the part also known as Silicon Valley. We are fortunate in that regard as there are three major airports within a 50-mile radius of our house. The big challenge is the dreaded airport transportation. The road systems are abundant, but so are the cars and traffic. The choices are plentiful but problematic: the San Jose airport is the closest to our house—about fifteen minutes away in non-rush hour traffic, but our flight was out of San Francisco—forty-five minutes to an hour away. To get there, the two obvious choices were to drive and park outside in long term parking at fifteen dollars per day (not my fave) or take the super shuttle for about seventy dollars each way. For some reason, I always feel like I am being kidnapped and taken to a foreign country when I ride in one of those shuttles. Once in the shiny metal trap, I feel as if I have been thrown into a steel cage and have lost all control. The accommodations are dingy and although I am aware that I am driving through the scenery of my own fair city, it never quite seems familiar from the back of this iron clad chariot; not to mention the challenging language barriers that always seem to be prevalent. And the smell, what’s up with that? Boy, I could go on forever.

Did I mention I am cheap and always think I can find a way to do something cheaper and that this endeavor was no different? I started thinking alternatives: the train (a two hour, three change-over ordeal) or the light rail (same deal) or a half-drive, half-taxi combo. This consists of us driving up three quarters of the way and parking the car out on the street at a friend’s house and securing a taxi ride from there. Did I mention that all but the shuttle idea made Summer way too edgy? Last but not least, the cheapest way, a reliable friend or family member. Did I say reliable? Well how many people do you know that are available at 8:00am on a weekday and reliable? This question does not need answering. You know… the airport run that you love to having done for you, but dread doing for others?

Lo and behold! One of our friends was up for the task. This satisfied Summer, and when Summer is happy, so am I. Did I mention the ride was free? Yahoo! The plan was to get to the airport two hours early, as recommended by the travel people (you know the travel people) and as our flight was at 2:00pm with an hour ride to the airport we wanted our dear friend to pick us up at 11:00am. This is a direct quote: "That is fine with me, Hon, but you know, if he (now my friend) is not here on time I’m going to freak out." This, I knew, but hell, the cheap guy in me was still aglow over the seventy dollar savings each way and a possible trifecta (whatever means twice or both ways, you know what I mean, with a return ride home).

Summer is a consummate planner. I on the other hand, not so much. Bless her heart for putting up with me. (Okay, for those of you who are keeping score: he is cheap and a poor planner; she isn’t.) Anyway, Summer and I live in a menagerie. Summer is a mini-zookeeper with two cats, one full-figured dog (code for: But she’s not even a hundred pounds!) and a rat. To me, this is screaming something but I can’t say what—and you know why. Anyhow, back to the story. Summer had been planning out this trip ever since we committed to it and, by commit to it, let’s just say that China was not on Summer’s top ten list of places to go. I also had to swear to travel to Spain and Portugal in September as well as numerous other promises that I have forgotten but, you can bet, she has written down and memorized to bring up any time she needs to. This is why I will be writing to you yet again about some undisclosed place and time. Where? I don’t yet know, but you can bet it will not be on my top 1000 list (code for: This pâté is delicious!). Ok, where was I? The animals, well this means that we must hire a sitter whenever we travel. So…

Summer’s Sitter Saga:

To an animal lover, the notion of leaving the animals alone is nearly incomprehensible (code for: you’ll pay, buddy). It’s one thing to be out of town overnight, even a long weekend, but to have your best friend, your neighbor or, heaven forbid, a relative like your mother come over and watch your beloved disciples . . . I don’t think so! I’m still not sure if these animal lovers miss giving benevolent regard and attention to their loyal subjects or if it is the unbridled enthusiasm, constant attention and blind devotion these animals pour out upon these maniacal attention getters… oops, I’m rambling. So, Summer set out to find herself an animal sitter. This person needed to meet with the highest standards and have a long list of recommendations before she, and I do mean she (code for: men don’t have the heart for it), even gets consideration from her highness. This lofty individual has to be a saint and a scoop-per (code for: well, you know) as well as SBCA animal control certified, with a minor in