1 When our CEO (Chief Experience Officer) Lee said that "there'd be buses & taxis at the North Gate of the Forbidden City", she was spot on. Only trouble was that all the bus signs were in Chinese and none of the taxis would stop for any non-Chinese people.
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4 Rather than getting all worked up or bent out of shape, Rob and I managed to talk a local fella into giving us ride back to the hotel on his tuk-tuk. When I say "talked" him into it, waving a ¥100 ($20AUD/$16USD) banknote with a smiling Mao on it in his general direction was probably the contributing factor in his decision making.
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6 As rides go, it was a hell of a theme park ride. Ol' mate took us through back alleys, hotel & office car parks, up footpaths, against traffic on one-way streets and through seemingly gridlocked intersections and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. Just goes to show that if you don't dwell too long on the negatives - the positives will pop up in the most unlikely of places.
