“Oh dear lord.”

My best friend sighed as she looked at what I thought was my immaculate packing. She had lent me her tramping pack plus I had a small backpack. This would be my life for the next four months. She was a waaaaay more seasoned traveller than me having travelled most of her adult life and just newly-returned from seven years in Australia.

“What’s this?”

“My leather jacket.”

“Why have you packed a leather jacket?”

“I’m going to an opera in Rome in two months’ time” I protested.

“Not in this you’re not.” She threw it aside.

“How many of these do you have?” she said, holding up four dresses.

“Five.” She fished through the pack, found the fifth one and tossed it and two others in the corner of the room.

“Now you have two.”

This went on for some time, re-arranging everything, throwing things that apparently weren’t needed like my sneakers (I have tramping boots instead), berets (come on, I’m going to France!) and my Gucci shoes (I’m going to a ballet in at the Bolshoi in Moscow! “Buy a cheap pair over there, then toss them.”)

Finally she finished off by unfolding all my carefully-folded, stacked clothes and rolled them up one by one.

“See how much more space you have? See how much lighter this now is? You’ll thank me when you’re walking around for hours lost and trying to find a train station.”

Then off to the airport. She burst into tears. “Just be careful! The world out there is not New Zealand, just be careful!” “You need eyes in the back of your head! You need to walk like this” She demonstrated what I assume was meant to be power-walking, looking confident with a “Don’t mess with me” look on her face.

I gave her a hug. “It’ll be ok.”

I was off.

My first stop was Shanghai then Beijing. I survive the flight thanks to a lot of meditation, relaxation exercises and positive visualisations. Plus the little helpers from the doctor did the trick and I was soon asleep. The downside was that I didn’t wake up for food. So I had four hours to kill in Shanghai before the train to Beijing. But first I needed a loo, a change of clothes and some snacks for the journey.

First stop: A loo. I found one in the train station. Oh sweet Mary what is that? I officially regretted not using the airport loos. The door I opened showed something that did not resemble a loo in any way shape or form. I thought maybe I was in the wrong place and this was some kind of butt-washing chinese bidet. I opened all the other doors. They were all the same. Zero space to put my pack in let alone get changed in.

I looked around in despair. Where were the loos? Then a woman came in and went through one of the doors. I pretended to straighten my hair in the mirror. Judging by the sounds emanating from behind the door, these were clearly the loos.

I opened the door again and looked at this hole in the floor. There was some kind of protrusion at the front. I decided this must be to hold on to for safety so you don’t fall backwards into the hole. I couldn’t wait any longer so after managing to slide my backpack in and praying no one would steal the tramping pack sitting out side the door, I took off my bottom half and squatted. When in Rome. No chance of changing clothes.

Next: snacks. Strangely no one spoke a lot of english here and all the packages were in mandarin. Despite the language barrier, I was fairly certain that the chicken claw-shaped things were not, in fact, chocolate or chips but were indeed preserved chicken claws. I was not able to identify the other snacks so thought it best to leave it and see what else I could find.

Finally found a place that served some sort of safer-looking soup. The place was crowded but two men motioned for me to sit at the spare seat at their table.

“You England?’ one asked

“New Zealand,” and showed them my stuffed toy kiwi that would accompany everywhere. Big smile on their faces.

“Ahhhh All Blacks!”

I finished my soup and with a lot of charades and pointing at the piece of paper that the tour group had helpfully given me with phrases such as “I need to get this train” “I need to go to this hotel” I found the right train platform.

I began berating myself for not having downloaded Google Translate. Of course this wouldn’t have worked anyway as Google is banned. I finally got to Beijing and was asleep on my feet. Decided that I would just get a taxi to the hotel.

This was the precise moment I chose to get absolutely fleeced. I asked the train station attendant where the taxi stand was and another man came and said “Me taxi” pointed to some badge on his t-shirt and offered to take my backpack. The train station attendant didn’t say anything so I assumed it was legit.

Before too long I realised that we weren’t going to a taxi stand but to a carparking building. His car didn’t have any markings on it. But the guy had my backpack. He explained that all the taxis were busy today because I’d arrived on a public holiday and there would be a two hour wait. His badge turned out to be an Army badge and he said he would just drop me at the hotel.

All through my head I thought about how I’d promised my friend I would be careful and here I was in a strange country jumping into a car with a guy who’d already put my bags in. He spoke a little english and managed to get a translation app going so we could have a conversation. “It’ll be 200 yuan.” I have no idea what that translates to and of course had no internet to check.

On the long drive, he gave me lots of tips about Beijing. What a nice Army man, I thought. Couldn’t work out why he kept giggling every now and then. After about half an hour he telephoned the hotel to find out where to drop me off. We finally arrived and I breathed huge sigh of relief. “300 yuan” he said. He still had my bags in the car and had stood in front of the boot. “Ahhh you said 200.” “No no no, it 300”. I was too tired to argue and just wanted my stuff back so I paid it and got safely into the hotel. He drove away giggling still.

Turns out it was a $75 taxi ride. Also turned out the hotel was a one-stop metro ride from Beijing Station (approximately $1.50 ticket) or alternatively, a 10 minute walk.

I downloaded every translation app I was legally allowed to including offline translations, the scan function, plus Siri.