I am on my way to Beijing. Again. While it may seem that I spend a lot of time in China’s capital my most recent visit is actually already 14 months ago as long as no break since my first stay in Beijing. After contemplating for a while when would be the best time for my seventh trip to China and my sixth journey to Beijing I spontaneaously booked the earliest possible flight last Thursday and applied for my Chinese visa at the consulate in Frankfurt the same day. I wanted to get to China as quickly as possible so I also skipped the 28-hours layover in Dubai which I normally make on my way to Beijing. I will spend about 40 hours there on my way back to Europe.
Like my trip to China in March 2015 and my flight to TBEX Asia in Bangkok in October 2015 this trip started again with quite a lot of extra excitment. I was at the train station ahead of schedule but the train to Cologne didn’t come nor did the one after. After a while it became more and more obvious that I would miss the high speed train from Cologne to Frankfurt and als Folge davon my flight to Dubai and the connecting flight to Beijing although I had planned more than five hours between the train arrival in Frankfurt and the departure of my flight. After more than 40 minutes of unsuccessful waiting my Dad who is one of the most patient persons I know had enough and decided to drive me the more than 200 kilometres to Frankfurt airport where we arrived on time. My flight to Dubai also departed with a 70 minutes delay but now I am at Dubai International Airport on my way to China. While I am usually an adventurous person I don’t need this sort of extra excitment. But without my Dad I wouldn’t be here now. If you read this, Dad, thanks a million. You are the best Dad of the world!
It’s the most spontaneous trip to Beijing I ever made and I hope it will be a good one again. I hope to meet my friends who live there and other people I know in the city but besides that this trip won’t be for leisure. I won’t talk much about my goals now because to me it seems that I talked to much about my plans in the past but if I achieve my goals this blog will be the first place where I’ll talk about it. Nevertheless I hope to conquer another part of the Great Wall, attend another cooking class or explore some hidden sights in the city or nearby which I don’t know yet. So fingers crossed for an amazing and successful trip to Beijing and many more journeys which are hopefully yet to come.
