Taxi Driver Tantrums

5am wake up to set off to Hangzhou was miserable. The weather was glorious but I felt grim. The journey to the coach station seemed to take forever. I was happy to finally get my seat on the coach and I pretty much napped all the way. Tong Tong had phoned when we were nearly there to tell us that she had spoken to Miss Guo, (the manager of the company, and the lady whose home we stay in) and she had said we had to get a taxi to the company. What??? I was not happy about this, as we had no idea where the company was or how to even ask for the taxi to take us there. Tong Tong sent us a message with the address and phoned to say the reason why the company driver could not pick us up was because he was picking up their VIP client who had come from Paris. Hmmmm…

Getting a taxi was horrific; we had millions of people running over to us trying to get us into their illegal cabs we just hurried along to the taxi rank. We showed the first taxi man the message and he then signed for us to call someone so we put Tong Tong on the phone and gave it to the Taxi man. Next minute he was screaming down the phone and utter chaos broke out. He refused to take us and so did the next 20 taxi men. By this point we were trapped in a circle of about 15 people screaming and pointing us, my blood was at boiling point. I managed to get through to Vivienne at the company who speaks English and although she wasn’t working today she managed to help us get a taxi. She didn’t understand why the company had refused to pick us up and even when she tried speaking to the taxi men over the phone they were really rude and put the phone down several times.

Finally the security guard started screaming and literally snatched our bags and shoved us in a cab. Horror and panic was written all over my face and luckily the man listened to Vivienne over the phone where he took us to Jasmine who had met us on the main road where the company is situated. Once leaving he shouted at her too…what is wrong with this country? This was the first time I’ve actually experience people being hateful towards us and I found this quite shocking.

Upon entering our office the boss, Mr Chen asked if we were ok, and he too was very angry as to why his manager had not sent the company car. I think some wires were crossed along the way and after settling in to our work and making a cup of tea, we soon felt better. Today was quite a productive day and I worked on the print ideas for my theme of Russian Dolls. 

Tea Time in Hangzhou we somehow found ourselves in Pizza Hut again…the food situation is starting to kick in now and I just couldn’t face any more rice. 

Also we had good news about the bed situation, Tong Tong had told Miss Guo the beds were too hard so she had got some extra quilts out for us to lie on. Hallelujah, I had such a good sleep. In the office now starting designing the Summer Collection incorporating these prints and colours.