The report for 16 May 2024! (Two days left until the start!)
My misadventure, starting from arriving in Peking the day before, continues from the previous report —
Today it all hit at once: getting a license to drive in China, the entrants' meeting, and finally picking up the car that had been shipped from England by sea three months earlier — full-on challenge mode.
First! Receiving the road book for the full 37-day route. Here's what's actually inside the bag!
Well, of course, given we're crossing eight countries' borders, both the size and the weight of it made the excitement build all at once.
But you know! Just like the entrants' meeting report from yesterday mentioned, plenty of participants couldn't get a Chinese visa and never even made it to the start here in Peking, so just taking this one step
left me both moved and newly focused. I can only imagine how bitterly disappointing that must have been for them.
Back in my room, I opened it up right away… and — oh no! Right, of course… all of it in English…
Including the competition rules, from page one of the very first book, a massive job of translating and checking everything has begun.
To get a driving license from China's public security bureau, we had to split into groups and travel by bus,
and I couldn't even keep up with the explanations for that… double- and triple-checking everything using a translation app.
This, first of all, becomes the number plate for the car we'll drive in China. This flimsy, laminated
plate ends up needed everywhere later — tollbooths, gas stations, all sorts of situations.
I really felt, all over again, just how high the hurdle is to actually drive a car across China… the national logistics turned out to be one of the genuinely huge, difficult parts of this whole challenge…
At the Chinese public security office, I don't even know how many hours we waited… submitting our passports and all sorts of documents one by one, waiting to receive our driving licenses.
All the support was in English, so missing what was said here too meant genuinely risking getting left behind.
But! I did know a little Chinese, so I could manage things like “I need the bathroom” or “let's take a photo together” —
and I already felt, deeply, just how much it matters to actually share a language.
There I was, some Japanese woman, taking photos with all sorts of people in a place like this…
The other entrants gave me a wry laugh (laughs)… nobody knew what kind of person I actually was yet, after all (laughs).
I put together a video covering all the license paperwork needed just to start this rally from Peking, China.
Wow — getting the Chinese visa alone had my heart racing with nerves, and it really drove home, all over again, how much careful, detailed preparation sits behind
this huge project of crossing eight countries, Peking to Paris!
Hmm — I've really done well to get this far! Let me give myself some credit!
Does a license need passion behind it too?
Back at the hotel, no time to relax… back to studying the road book again.
I found a shop near the hotel selling my favorite bubble-tea-style drinks! My one and only source of comfort?
Before long… it was time to pick up the car!
Was our precious entry car, shipped by sea three months ago, actually in
fully prepared condition? Picking it up without having had the chance to properly test-drive it left me nervous, my chest tight,
with a knot of anxiety — but there it was, and we met at last!
That wave of relief when the engine actually started, that's on video too (laughs).
Please enjoy the excitement and giddiness — genuinely hard to put into words.
At last! A reunion! With the partner for the adventure that starts from here! Engine on 🔥
We safely picked up the car, and by the time we got back to the hotel parking lot the sun had already set —
with so many firsts crammed into one day, we were completely worn out by the time two days before the start rolled around.
No test driving is allowed until the actual start date, and on top of that, we haven't been able to do our own Peking-to-Paris test run since the Sahara Challenge back in 2022, so all we can do is trust the workshop in England —
and honestly, my heart is full of nothing but nerves.
Tomorrow, finally! The pre-start vehicle inspection.