I write this blog post for the first time from China, more exactly from Beijing. We will be in China for almost 3 weeks. I planned this trip more than a year ago, but due to personal reasons, we postponed it until now. One of the main reasons I decided to come here was because Romania, during Ceaușescu’s time, had very close relationships with China, helped China a lot, and both were sharing socialist and communist values. Maica, my great-grandmother, said when I was younger: „Listen Sorin, Nicolae Ceaușescu was the best president Romania ever had, a great political man who had an illegal trial done by traitors and was killed together with his wife Elena in December 1989 (I was only 3 years old at that time), because Romania was becoming too powerful, and that the so-called revolution is a lie perpetuated by foreign powers jealous of Romania’s glory and the golden path it was on. One day, you have to visit China and Russia to know what Romania was and what it could have become.“ I saw a video of Diana Șoșoacă a few months ago even mentioning that the president of China, Xi Jinping, did his ASE studies in Romania when he was young, so one more reason to see and share the same city with him, even if for a few days. After Beijing we will be travelling to Shanghai and Lijiang. Maybe one day I will be lucky enough to visit also Russia, Iran, and other countries like Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, Bhutan, etc.
We booked all the tickets (e.g., airplanes, hotels, trains, etc.) using trip.com, which is appreciated by many travelers.
We took the train from Chemnitz to Frankfurt Airport. Because we bought the airplane tickets using trip.com and not using the Air China website directly, we could not do the check-in online via trip.com, so we did it at the airport in Frankfurt, which went super smoothly, receiving the printed tickets in hand (which was very practical because Air China required before boarding that all passengers have their tickets printed, the digital ones not being accepted). What I found out when going through security is that, since around 2 years, people are allowed to carry a maximum of 2 L of water in their personal bag. Nice.
The airplane was not full, seeing many empty seats, even in business class. After the boarding was complete, I asked if it was possible to have an upgrade to business class, maybe at a cheaper price than usual, considering that the boarding was complete and there were a few empty seats there. The flight attendant said, „Tell me your seat number and I will check now.“ After a few seconds, she said, „Yes, there are, but you must pay 16,000 Chinese yuan,“ to which I replied, „How much is that in euros?“ She said, „2,000 euros.“ I asked again, „You mean 200 euros or 2,000 euros?“ She smiled, saying, „2,000 euros.“ I replied, „I could have paid 400-500 euros maximum, but 2,000 for just one person as an upgrade in business class is too much as of now; I cannot justify it. I will rather use this money inside mainland China for food, travel, etc., but thank you for checking.“
Interesting policy some, if not all, of these international flight companies have: they prefer to fly such a long distance by keeping those business class seats empty instead of offering a cheaper upgrade to existing passengers who specifically ask for it. They play hard to get, like girls play with boys who want them as a backgammon game partner. Indirectly saying: „You must earn me, baby; go do the hard work required and come when you can afford me. There are levels to this game, and you are not on my level yet. :))“
Good to know that at least you are available in case I want you next time, dear baby business class seat. 😛
However, I cannot complain, because even in the „economy“ class, the space and comfort were very good. What impressed me a lot was that all flight attendants were young, well dressed, and very polite. Their Chinese parents raised them well, and the company trained them well as well, I whispered to Dipty. You know what impressed me a lot? The fact that they did many rounds over the 9-hour flight from Frankfurt am Main to Beijing by just coming and asking people if they want to drink some water. To serve drinks and food two times during an international flight I knew about, but to see them coming several times in between just to ask if we are thirsty and would like to have some water in our cups? This I never experienced before in any airline company.
Also, another thing I liked is that despite not selecting in advance the type of food we wanted to eat on the airplane, mainly because we did the booking via trip.com and not on the Air China website, when we told them that we would like to eat vegetarian, despite not having it right away, they told us to wait a few minutes, and then they brought us food that contained no meat, e.g., rice porridge, croissant, jam, butter, fruit. And the jasmine tea… maaaaaaan, that was so delicious.
When we landed in Beijing, everything looked so big and modern. I took a picture of Dipty, and then wanted to take one picture in the direction of the immigration line, but I was told not to take any pictures because it is not allowed (I did not see any sign saying that photos are not allowed, but I might have omitted it, so who knows), with one security guy coming to check my phone to make sure the photo was not there.
The China entry declaration was done by us a few days before online already, so after showing the passports and giving our fingerprints, we went to take our luggage, which came quite fast (around 3 minutes after we reached there). There we also exchanged 100 euros, which I had in cash (good that we took out a few hundred in cash while in Germany), and received in exchange around 700 Chinese yuan (30 Chinese yuan being the tax for this service, which is applied only one time, so if we were to change more hundreds of euros, we would not have paid any more tax on that). I did not exchange more, thinking that we would use Alipay and WeChat services, therefore everything online. Who gives a damn about cash when you live in the future? Having the 700 Chinese yuan now in cash, and our iPhones with full battery, we were ready to rock and roll. Or so we thought. Why, you ask?
Well, we activated our HolaFly eSIMs, which we bought online a few days before, due to many YouTubers and people on the internet recommending it, telling that it has unlimited internet data and good signal. Then the reality on the field, and not the class theories, hit us: HolaFly sucked big time. No signal at all most of the time, only sometimes for a few, and when I say few I mean 1-2, minutes. We were sitting there in the Beijing airport thinking: we have Alipay and WeChat apps already set up, but there is no signal to use them, so what is the point? How will we book a taxi online to go to our hotel from here? After seeing a group of young people in green military uniforms marching in perfect rhythm, we got inspired by their spirit and went outside with a heart full of courage that came suddenly. Outside, we saw a lot of taxis where a guy guided people on which taxi to take. It was our turn, so we asked if it is possible to pay with cash, to which he said yes. Besides courageous, we were now also happy again.
The taxi drive from the airport to our hotel was around 60 km and cost us around 550 Chinese yuan, which is around 68 euros. The driver did not speak English. The taxi was okay-ish in terms of cleanliness, but despite having all windows open, the car still smelled a little like cigarette smoke, a clear sign that the driver is a smoker. In fact, later we also observed a lot of people smoking in Beijing.
The hotel we first booked in Beijing is called A.C. Art Museum Embassy Hotel, where we received a room on the 7th floor out of 9 (the 9th floor has an open garden full of flowers, free gym, free washing and drying machines, a lot of cool tables and chairs where people can go and have a chat and fresh air), and it cost us 405 Euros for 6 nights including breakfast, which had plenty of options. This hotel is nicely decorated with pieces of art and also includes an art museum free to visit for its clients. In this area, there are a lot of embassies.
After that, because we were low on cash and the HolaFly signal was almost non-existent, we went to a Beijing bank to withdraw some yuan cash, but the card did not work. After a search on the internet, we found out that it is possible to take out cash only from ATMs belonging to Bank of China. The next day we went to Bank of China, which was a 20-minute walk away from our hotel, and withdrew a few thousand yuan in cash, just to make sure.
Near our hotel, my favorite place to eat was a small restaurant where prices were very good and portions very big. We paid around 120 Chinese yuan (like 12 euros) for a two-person meal, which included soup, rice, a tofu dish, vegetables with egg dish, soy milk drink, etc. It was super delicious and freshly cooked, like homemade.
The next day we wanted to go to Tiananmen Square, but when we reached there we found out that we needed to do a reservation one day prior. However, we had a nice walk on the shopping streets nearby that day. Also, later, we went to a local market from where we bought fresh fruits, especially lychees, which are in season now here in China and are very, very delicious. After that, I went to cut my hair and paid 128 yuan (around 13 euros). What I like here is that I did not need any appointment in advance, just needed to wait like 3 minutes, and also that my hair was washed not only before the haircut, but also after, which I never experienced before in Europe, or even in India. Later that day, we walked past a massage clinic which also had an ear cleaning service, so I decided to clean my ears professionally there, and Dipty to do a small massage. Guess how much we paid for it? Around 1,900 Chinese yuan, which is about 230 euros. Luckily, I could pay with Alipay, but only because they gave us access to their WiFi, because HolaFly still did not work.
The next day, Dipty had some lower back pain, maybe due to the massage a day earlier, hehe. So I walked to a pharmacy in the area and bought some medicine. It was 6 am, but it was a 24-hour pharmacy. Going so early, I also experienced how people in Beijing behave at this early time of the day. I saw workers going to work, cars delivering goods, garbage cleaners, and even a fast food place open so that workers can eat their morning food before going to work. For some medicine and warm plasters, I paid around 100 yuan (13 euros). I wanted to buy a hot water bottle as well, but they did not have it. So later that day, I searched on the Alipay app for a hot water bottle, but when I tried to order it did not work due to not having a Chinese SIM card. At that point, because HolaFly still did not work and it was already the third day here, we decided to go on trip.com and buy a China mainland 5G eSIM, which had very good reviews, and guess what? It worked, and since then we had very good internet (100 GB per day plan). All the „pain“ could have been resolved by just buying it from day one. Well, now we know from experience. When I tried to order the hot water bottle online, I saw that the store selling it is less than 1 km away from our hotel, so I went there to buy it in person. When I arrived there, I saw many young people moving very fast, loading baskets with products that people ordered online and putting them in bags, which delivery guys quickly picked up to deliver to customers. From what I heard, people here in China can often order something online and receive it within half an hour, like a mini Amazon directly in your city. How cool is that? I asked one guy there in English if it was possible to buy a hot water bottle. He took out his phone and, with a translation app, told me that it is not possible to order offline because this is a place where orders are received only online and then packed quickly. I said that I did not have a Chinese SIM card, so I could not order. He called his supervisor, a lady, who also said that I can only order online. I explained again that I could not do it due to the reason mentioned above, and asked her if she could order it on her app for me and I would give her cash directly. After seeing my real need and not wanting to give up easily after a refusal, she accepted, went back, searched for the hot water bottle, and came up saying that it costs 20 yuan (around 3 euros; the same bottle would cost in Germany 12 euros on Amazon). In fact, when I checked online, that bottle was like 17 yuan, but maybe she asked for 20 yuan due to her effort and willingness to go above the rules to help me out. I thanked her very much and said that I appreciated her help, and excused myself for the trouble, but I really needed it because my girlfriend was in the hotel having lower back pain. When she heard this, she gave me three small ginger powder energizers. How nice she was.
Then I came back to the hotel happy, with the mission accomplished. What a nice day: the internet was working very well with the new China mainland 5G eSIM which I ordered on trip.com, and I also acquired the hot water bottle from a store where it should not have been possible to do it offline. Lucky me, lucky her, because in the next days she already felt much, much better, and we could plan our next attractions to visit in Beijing.
Another interesting thing I want to mention is that since we are in Beijing, I have not seen a single cat. Where are all the cats? Did they all fly to Istanbul? I only saw a lady carrying a dog, or people walking their dogs. But not a single cat, not a single purr as of now in Beijing.
Neueste Kommentare