My first day in China

In February the 1st 2010 I landed in Beijing, my adventure in China began. I had five weeks ahead of me before starting my studied at Guangzhou University and I was going to spend those days by traveling alone across China!

I first flew to Paris, where I had to change a plane. I was a bit nervous because I was five years old when I was in a plane the last time! But it wasn’t scary at all and navigating the airports was much easier than I thought. I flew with Air France and their food was really good as was the service.

When I arrived to the Beijing airport a friend of a friend was there to greet me, my friend was maybe a bit worried about me and had arranged someone to help me buy a prepaid phone card and give me directions how to get to my hostel. First I took the airport train and then changed to the metro. Metro in Beijing is really cheap, 2RMB no matter where you go. I ended up buying two tickets because I didn’t know I can even change the line with the same ticket!

I took the metro to Tian An Men Dong station started walking with a backpack on my back and map on my hands. At that time I knew some Chinese and could ask directions, but my communication was still very limited. It took some time but finally I found my hostel.

I had a single room for the first two nights to give me a soft landing to China. Well, not that soft when I realised that mattresses are hard like rocks in China! My hostel was between the Forbidden City and Wangfujing shopping street. On my first night there I went to the night market and gor ripped off when buying something for snack!

This was my very first day in China. I had just made the biggest dream of my life come true and I was all alone in a hostel in Beijing. During the first hours I already got laughed at by school kids and paid way too much for my noodles. Excellent start so to speak!

Do you want to know what happened the next day?