Leaving Jack Behind

After a last lingering day in Beijing, in which we bought everything we thought would be cheaper there than New Zealand (other than sunscreen, which the Chinese don’t seem to have), it was time for us to say goodbye to the largest of continents. It was a short but exciting ride to Beijing Capital International Airport. We were starting to feel the itch, and the itch was called New Zealand.

We welcomed the semi-familiar airport with open arms. Luckily, my obviously better half had checked the day before which terminal we needed, since terminal 3 was quite a ride away from the other two. Hail Cindy.
We arrived well ahead of time, and headed straight to the bank window, which was yours truly’s last chance of finding the old 1 Yuan and 2 Yuan notes. I’m collecting notes from each of the countries I travel, you see. An expensive hobby, adds the Cindy. She’s always been the practical one. However, imagine my joy when the bank clerk actually (1) spoke English and (2) supplied me with the two desired notes, all glorious and old and beautiful, as collection notes should be. Now my trip in China was complete. So what if we only saw 0.3% of the country. I have all their notes and coins (Yes, coins too. Heavy stuff).

The airport was impressive, as a capital airport should be. We walked the whole terminal, as our habit is to explore airports to the fullest . It was fun, had some pretty corners and some inside pagodas (very cool, see photos), and before long it was time for us to board our plane.

The flight itself was uneventful. The personal television was even better on the Air New Zealand aircraft than on the Virgin Atlantic one, and we had some beautiful scenery views of mountains, clouds and sunset.

The next morning we landed at about 05:00 at Auckland Airport, and were out just in time for sunrise. The sky here seemed somewhat of a deeper blue, and the light breeze was welcoming and pleasant. Almost immediately we understood that we’d simply have to extend our stay here to the maximum 3 months allowed.

It smelled good. This is going to be a wonderful stay.