Published July 10, 2007
China
Tags: beijing, Travel
Sunday afternoon, Judith and I hit the road to Beijing. The plan was:
2pm: start at my apartment
2:45pm: arrive at the airport
3.30pm: boarding
4pm: take off
5:50pm: arrival in Beijing
6:20pm: get a taxi (got the address in Pinying & chinese characters)
7pm: check-in at hostel
8pm: get dinner and have a first look around
=> overall travel time: 5-6 hours
We ended up with this:
2.30pm: start at my apartment (we were just not ready with packing 
)
3:15pm: arrive at the airport; step out of the taxi; hear our names called out for last check-in; speed up a little bit
4pm: boarding still not started
4:20pm: boarding starts
4:35pm: departure is delayed because of unknown delay (oh, thank you for that information! 
)
5pm: take off (yippieh!)
6:40pm: information from the captain, that there is a thunder storm above Beijing airport, so that we will have to wait
6:55pm: information from the captain, that the thunder storm is still having fun above Beijing airport and that we will stop at some other airport which name we did not understand
7:20pm: landing; unfortunately at the wrong airport…
7:50pm: information from the board crew: they got some cups of noodles; all people who want some should come to “the kitchen”
8:20pm: after overcoming problems in the supply chain: Yeah…noodles!!
9:30pm: information from the captain: thunder storm is over in Beijing, but unfortunately there are too many aircrafts now trying to reach Beijing, so that we have to wait.
9:45pm: information from the captain: 14 airplanes are waiting in line to fly to Beijing from our airport. We are number 7.
10:30pm: we finally take off to Beijing
11:01pm: landing in Beijing
11:06pm: information from the crew: currently no parking spot for our plane available
11:15pm: airplane got finally parked; but no buses available to bring us from the maneuvering area to the airport building
11:25pm: wait for our luggage
11:35pm: wait in line for a taxi
11:50pm: show the address of our hostel in Pinying and Chinese characters to the taxi driver => he does not have a clue 
11:51pm: call our hostel warden to let her explain the way to our hostel to the taxi driver in Chinese
0:20am: we finally arrive at our hostel!
0:40am: successfully checked in
0:50am: get another cup of noodles and some chips
1:10am: go to bed
=> overall travel time: 10 hours
Yesterday (Monday), we visited the forbidden city and the temple of heaven. I will upload pictures tonight as we will now (7:30am) go on a trip to the great wall.
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