April 20, Goodbye China, Hello Japan

I have to admit a slight sense of relief at having left China. It was certainly an interesting place, and we are both glad that we saw it, but there were many drawbacks. The air pollution, which I've mentioned a few times, was increasingly difficult to cope with and by the end my chest felt a little sore. What a difference here in the middle of Tokyo, where the air feels cool, fresh and clear! Secondly, we found prices in China to be verging on the ridiculous. Even in a scuzzy little cafe down by Hou Hai Lake in Beijing, where we walked around on our last day, they were charging £5 for a bottle of local beer. Our guide in Beijing, Jack, told us that the national sport in China is Ping Pong. He was wrong. I think the national sport is ripping off tourists. At the very end, when we reached Beijing Capital Airport, I went to the Travelex desk because I had about £45 left in yuan. The lady behind the counter announced that there would be a commission of 55 yuan. That's about £5.50 - more than 12% - and I don 't even want to think about what the exchange rate was! She wouldn't even give me a receipt showing the calulations. I don't know why she didn't just point a gun at me and take the bloody lot.

Thirdly, the standard of service that we experienced, even in the top hotels where we were staying, was uniformly poor. As an example, on the last morning in the breakfast room at the Peninsula in Beijing I only wanted two or three fruit danish with my coffee. There was a selection of these pastries on the buffet, each variety in a separate tray and the trays laid out in a line. I collected my plate at the beginning of the line and took a danish from the first tray. A young lady on the staff was standing in front of the second tray, where she was busying herself by using a fork to put the pastries in straight lines in the tray. She knew I was standing in line with my plate, but persisted in what she was doing, rather than standing back to let me at the pastries. When she had finished straightening the pastries in that tray, she calmy moved on to the next one. I had no choice but to say "Excuse me", at which she muttered something in Chinese and simply carried on with what she was doing! I had to go round her to trays further down the line, and then come back to the one she was blocking later on! I did consider complaining to the restaurant manager, but I thought it would be difficult to make myself understood, and in any case where dreadful service is concerned this is only one example of many. I didn't fancy my chances of changing Chinese service culture single-handed!

Jenny has already mentioned the spitting. It really is disgusting and very widespread. I challenge anyone to walk down any street in Beijing without having to listen to a constant chorus of hawking up and gobbing. You really do have to be careful where you step. It's a wonder that the entire Chinese population hasn't been wiped out by TB!

My final gripe, unsurprisingly, is about the Chinese authorities and the internet. I realised on the first evening in Xi'an that blogging was not allowed, and soon discovered that access to the web is very limited. Even on the BBC website, which I could usually get, there were some stories which could not be accessed. If you clicked on a headline about the Bo Xilai scandal, for example, all you got was "Unable to display the requested page". As an adult, I deeply resent being told what I can or cannot read, and I did suggest to one Chinese person that perhaps another revolution was called for. The reply was that this might be popular, but was considered impossible because the government had full control of the military! Of course, I was aware before travelling to China that there were restrictions on the internet, but as a Chinese person who shall remain anonymous explained to me, you can use proxy software to overcome the blogging restrictions if you know what you're doing, and I could just as easily have e-mailed my daily blog to someone in the UK who had the password for my website, and they could have posted the comments from there. Preposterous!

But what a contrast here in Japan! It's like being back in Vietnam in the sense that whoever serves you does so with a broad smile and good grace, and in Japan you have the added benefit of a bow! We didn't get to our hotel until after 10pm, so haven't had much time to explore yet. As expected, the hotel is stylish, but the rooms are really very small, so we are literally living out of our suitcases (no wardrobe). We are located in the Remm Hotel next to Akihabara station, and that means that we are in the heart of "Electric Town" where the streets are ablaze with neon and almost every shop sells electronic stuff of every description, plus DVDs and games. I think I'll go and look around.....

Jenny's bit: Well, I loved China, probably going to live there (only joking). Jx