A very long goodbye (Part 2)

It was supposed to be a short four-day trip, and it was, really… but the last day proved to be a very long goodbye.

As I had written last week, I had flown to Beijing as part of the media team invited to witness the first delivery of Cebu Pacific’s Airbus A320 Neo assembled at Airbus’ new facility in Tianjin, China.

We were to spend two days in Beijing and then ride a high speed train to Tianjin to witness the delivery ceremony and then fly out on the fourth day back to the Philippines on the ferry flight.

What we did not realize was that a seemingly innocent, unscheduled and unplanned sightseeing tourist trip to Tiananmen Square would, or could have triggered, a small incident that led to a tense three-and-a-half-hour scenario of trying to find an alternative way to fly back home to Manila.

Tiananmen Square We had arrived uneventfully in Beijing and pretty much just rested on our first day, as our schedule for the second day was a highly anticipated trip to the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City where the movie “The Last Emperor” was filmed.

We were up bright and early to have breakfast at 6:30 a.m. before our pick-up at 7:30 a.m. Breakfast was delicious, especially the famous Beijing beef noodles, the fish congee with various toppings, and the freshly made “siopao” bread and assorted dimsum.

I really wanted to enjoy the breakfast offerings much longer and was really more inclined to ditch the sightseeing tour as I had already been to those sights in my previous visit to Beijing. (In my previous column I had mistakenly written that my previous visit was in 2016 when it was actually in 2006) However, the lure of a delicious lunch and dinner easily convinced me to join the sightseeing tour arranged for us, even though I had misgivings about the hot weather that greeted us upon arrival in Beijing.

We had all been given sunblock and a bucket hat to protect us from the burning hot sun.

A member of the Cebu Pacific team opted to bring along an umbrella provided by the hotel because of a rain forecast for that day, and luckily we decided to request for two more umbrellas just in case.

Per the schedule given to us, we expected to visit the Forbidden City first and then the Great Wall, and would be back at the hotel by 3 p.m. However, upon boarding the bus, we were informed by the tour agency that we would also pass by the famous Tiananmen Square.

I wasn’t particularly interested in it, as I had previously been there long after the famous 1989 incident, and it was -- back in 2006, just a humongous square where guards were posted to monitor and ensure that no large gatherings form.

My younger colleagues were likewise not particularly interested either, as the events that made Tiananmen Square “famous” was past history that did not really resonate with them, so we were just like “follow the guide.”

We did not really much care when our guide told us that portions of the square had been closed for visiting dignitaries and that we would instead just go to a portion still open to the public.

I had been telling my colleagues that there really was not much to see except that it was a humongous public square.

I did not even bother to enlighten them as to why Tiananmen Square became “famous.” We had to walk quite a bit from where we were originally dropped off by our tour bus to get to the area that was still open to the public, but our guide had already warned us about the strict security measures that had been put in place to protect visitors.

I had already noticed that a lot of new structures and fences had been built that virtually made the square unrecognizable to me.

It didn’t help that it had started to rain, and if given the option to abort, we would have willingly agreed to just proceed to the Forbidden City or eat an early lunch. So, we were glad that we finally got to the security check entrance and could hopefully breeze through with the tour….but it did not turn out as expected and, in fact, gave us something else to think about. We had been told at the hotel to bring our passports as the security check would need to verify our foreign nationality… fine, so we thought.

An eagle eyed security personnel noticed that four of our nine-man group held journalist or J2 visas…and this is where it got interesting…the police was summoned and we were all asked to leave the entrance queue and stand to the side while the police representative looked at our passports.

Our minders were asked to explain the reason for our visit and the guide was apparently reprimanded that the current policy is not to allow any foreign journalist into the square. And so, we were all asked to leave, but not before the police took a photo of our passports.

Even at the first security post, which had not flagged us, we were again requested to present our passports to ensure that we were finally leaving the area.

It was an unexpected unpleasantness that we tried to dismiss so as not to ruin the rest of our tour and get back on track with our schedule, which had by then been delayed by an hour already. We again had a long walk back to where our tour bus could safely pick us up so that we could proceed to the Forbidden City.

At the entrance to the Forbidden City, the rain really started to pour… and while it did not seem like it, it was apparently a portent of the adventure to unfold. A Cebu Pacific team member was informed that the incident had been reported to the police.

So, a report was made, that’s that. Again we thought that was it and went on to do a quick tour of the Forbidden City and then hopped back on the bus to happily spend an hour and a half resting and napping while on our way to the Great Wall, where we had another delicious lunch at a restaurant just below the entrance to the Mutianyu Great Wall section.

For us, the Great Wall easily wiped away the unpleasantness of the Tiananmen “incident.” It is truly a marvel to see the Great Wall of China and acknowledge the huge stride that China has made as it works to restore portions and preserve what is truly one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Day 2 of our Beijing trip happily ended with a delicious Peking duck dinner and we got back to the hotel at around 10 p.m to pack up, go to sleep, and prepare for a 5:30 a.m wake up call, a foregone delicious hotel breakfast buffet, and a high speed train ride to Tianjin.

To be continued