Osaka-Qingdao-Beijing

We had a bit of an adventure finally getting to our hotel in Beijing last night. We had a bit of a stop over in Qingdao, and then on to the capital. Immediately, taxi drivers from all over started trying to hustle a ride. One driver asked where we were going (the Fangyuan Hotel, of course) and wrote out the characters in Kanji.

Of course, when we showed them to our taxi driver (from the official taxi queue) she drove off to the middle of nowhere, randomly asking other taxi drivers of the location of the hotel.

She called dispatch.

She harrassed pedestrians.

She did several near-crash inducing u-turns.

Finally, when we were in middle of nowhere street, Beijing, I took out the map, showed her where it was and showed her the proper Kanjis from the Lonely Planet.
The driver who we had rejected for a ride, but had written out the Kanjis for us, had written down a ficticious hotel- leading us on a wild goose chase. Not exactly a positive first impression of Beijing. We were on a long taxi drive and got stiffed with the bill.

I'm going to try to forget yesterday, and move on: today is the Forbidden City.