Just Another Millenial Travel Blog

Which is one of my favorite movies btw. After arriving, not in Tokyo, but in Beijing, that pretty much describes the state of the art. Beforehand I had the best flight experience so far with Singapore airlines (dad, we do not only share love for Singapore but also strong affection for this airline). Keyword hot towel – loved everything about it.

My sleeping habits are so confused at the moment that I slept for a couple of hours and not it is 1:30 am and I am very much awake and able to write the latest post. First of all, landing in Beijing, I had two great moments of success at the airport: mobile data including VPN is working so I will continuously be able to communicate with the Western hemisphere – a great sense of relieve. Than I could make a payment via Alipay for my first bottle of water in PCR. As I had the clear plan of not leaving the airport before these two things were working I had finished another double degree within 60 minutes.

The first relieve faded away pretty quickly I have to admit. As planned I took a taxi from the airport to my hotel – taking a western chain according to the motto my home is my castle, I was sure to find there an English speaking island in the middle of a confusing Mandarin world. Unfortunately not. After some discussion including using various translation apps I was abled to pay the taxi in cash and was dropped of at the hotel. During the check in I realised that I officially left the English speaking world and even at the reception they were not able to answer basic questions in English.

As someone like me, who loves language, and especially precision in language technically being an illiterate and unable to speak or understand anything at all is hard. The proficiency of English, even though in my hotel that is a western chain, is minimal to overall basically zero. Coming from Singapore where I had yesterday elaborated discussions about Colonialism and just fun in my mother tongue of choice this is shocking to me, who lives for conversation and discussion.

Even at 7 Eleven and in generell in supermarkets I clearly understand nothing – taking photos with the translation app is my new best friend as well as sign language. Extremely frustrating. I was so happy after walking around for 30 minutes (and I am really not a picky eater), finding something (with the support of favorite London girl) and ending the starvation.

So the level of frustration was already high and as the first taxi payment didn’t work, I had to unpack my courageous side ordering another DiDi. The target was Sanlitun, which is an extremely modern neighbourhood of Beijing, where I had a big restaurant recommendation of my favorite German-Chinese couple. After the drop of from my taxi, and I am deeply thankful for that and do not consider it as normal at all, I had the best live support from London helping me finding the restaurant, ordering and payment. Thanks N&W – very much appreciated! This great dinner and walking around in the evening in Sanlitun was a conciliatory ending of a wild day.

What I don’t understand in China/Beijing so far: how is the traffic organised? I am really glad I didn’t had an accident so far. You don’t get street smart growing up in Igensdorf. Beijing is organised in rings, I have understood. Besides that I always hope not to unconsciously offend anyone through my behaviour.

A random collection of observations: Chinese work on Sunday (in construction for example). Google maps in China is dysfunctional. I do have the impression Chinese are pragmatic (which reminds me of Deng Xiapings saying that it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice). You still see a lot of German/Swiss products (cars, Schindler escalator) but due to the quick evolvement of the Chinese economy in the next cycle these might be already replaced by domestic products (dear reader: if you know more about that feel free to share!; just a hypothesis from my side). In general there seems to be a huge dynamic and a spirit of rise in the society and self-organisation.

I am sorry that this is truely not an essay, and what I wanted to share here on the blog, but just a glimpse into my experience. Hopefully I can deliver a better analysis in the next days but currently I had to switch in the survival mode. Hopefully I can insert some pictures later on as well, doesn’t work at the moment either.

Edit: pictures inserted now