China Day 1: reunion with Tomoko

28^th of September

And here it starts. My first day in China, in Beijing. The huge airport didn’t confuse me after landing, rather opposite; I already met a friendly Chinese guy who was actually coming back from Sudan and taking transfer flight in Cairo. He helped me to find the luggage and here I was – on my way to take a subway and meet my dear Tomoko. We had arranged to meet at 16.00, but I was late and because I didn’t have a phone I was worried if she would still be there….but when I arrived I didn’t even manage to get out of the subway exit when I heard somebody creaming “Agnijaaaaa!!!” Yes, it is possible: a Latvian who was currently living in Egypt meets a Japanese girl who had just moved to China for her studies. It is possible! And it proves again something what we all know, but what we like to face again and again: the small world we are living in. And once you have a friend waiting for you, the big China becomes smaller and it feels so nice to feel welcomed, to feel awaited, to feel that you both are on a doorstep of an Adventure.

The first thing we did was just going out of the metro station and walking not even knowing where….there was so much to talk that we forgot to focus…but I was staring around and admiring. The warm early autumn feeling, the parks, the typical Asian houses with elevated roofs! Now it was happening for real! I was in China! Our day happened to have the following agenda:

Beihai park: The park was really beautiful, like in the picture I saw before coming to China. What surprised me most was that in China they also have tuk-tuks. So far I was used to them in Egypt and now I was taking one to get to the Beihai park.












First Chinese Dinner: From Behai park we went to the subway station where I was supposed to meet my host Kevin. We went earlier to have dinner and that was the best welcome dinner I could ever had. I was eating rice with eggplant sauce and it was really delicious.

Meeting with Kevin: Kevin is a Chinese guy from Couchsurfing.org who agreed to host me for 2 nights in Beijing and I am really thankful to him.

Film Festival: After meeting with Kevin, we all 3 went to an international short film festival that was taking place there. Even though I was very tired and a bit jetlagged and fell asleep during one movie, I really enjoyed the festival. Moreover, I finally enjoyed not worrying about my work – I had time for myself, time for just relaxing, observing and taking whatever I can from this new country.

Going out with Kevin in the local area. Hmmm, here I first got surprised of their eating meat habits: it’s usually served by small pieces attached on a stick and looks like the local fast food.