Eric's Beijing Diary

School starts next week, so I decided to head up to Inner Mongolia for a few days. I was not able to get a sleeper ticket on the train, so I decided to check on a plane ticket. As I was going through the list of flights, I noticed that there was one ticket that was quite a bit cheaper than the others. I was curious about this, until I looked at the initials for the departure location: "NAY." Took me by surprise, because the initials for Beijing have always been "PEK."

Nanyuan. I've heard of this place, but I had never been here before today. It's an old military airfield that is starting to be used for civilian flights. I think I read somewhere that part of its purpose is to accommodate China's move toward general aviation, but I may have misunderstood that. I have never seen a private plane in China. The last time I saw a light plane of any kind was last spring, when I was in Hong Kong during the Spring Festival break, and it blew me away, because I couldn't figure out what anyone would want with a small plane in Hong Kong. Where would you fly to? Just get up in the air and fly around in circles, I suppose. I don't know...flying back and forth between Hong Kong and Macau might be kinda handy, I guess. Anyway, I have never seen anything like that in China. I don't know the future of this airfield. Right now there is only one civilian airline flying out of here (China United), but I heard that ANA is going to start flying charters in here from Japan, which would make it an international airport.

When I landed at Hohhot, I came out to the taxi line and got into a taxi. I couldn't see a meter, so I asked the guy about it, because I didn't want to take a "black" taxi. He showed me the meter over by the driver side door. Curious. I called the Guest house and they gave the guy directions. As we started out, I looked over to make sure the meter was working. Seemed to be OK, but as we got close to our destination, I saw the driver reach over to the meter. I couldn't prove it, but I am quite sure he was punching up the meter to increase the fare. No wonder he had it mounted way over there by the driver side window. I have seen a lot of hustles in this country, but that is the first time I have seen that one.

After the driver dropped me off, I made a phone call, and Jane and Dragon came from the Guest house to pick me up.