Beijing '10 Day 15 - Going Home

July 19, 2010 (Monday)

Even though my dad’s friend advised against it, I took a HeiChe 黑车 (black car) to go straight to the airport for 100RMB. They are called such because they usually drive scary black cars. It is really useful to get a taxi driver’s calling card in case of emergency need for a car. In my case, everybody was worried that I could not get a cab because it was a very busy Monday morning. True enough, I could not get hold of one and I was referred to this HeiChe driver. Besides, I was unsure how far I could go on looking for one to take me to the Airport Bus with all my luggage that became 2 (plus backpack and laptop) and was much heavier than when I came here. There was no traffic as predicted and I eventually got there a little past 9 a.m. for my 12:55 p.m. flight. I really thought the check-in counters would be open but I had to wait. I went out again and went 1 floor down to eat a Zinger at KFC. The counters were opened at a little past 10 a.m. I bought a little can of Yunnan Pu’er Tea for my dad at Duty Free and I was set to go. I snoozed comfortably during the whole flight because the seats beside me were empty. PAL flights usually arrive earlier than estimates and I had no doubt about it. I was home in no time.