July 23 2017, this day goes into history as the day when we moved to China.

We left Lausanne on Saturday, on 22 of July, right after breakfast. We had a mini van picking us up at 8:30 am, together with our 7 check in luggages and 4 carry on board items. EVERYTHING WAS SUPER SMOOTH.

The driver was nice and helped us manage the luggages till the check in point at Geneva airport, had a pleasant small talk with some Swiss guys who like China and were standing in the queue right behind us. The man recommended me to visit Ritan park in Beijing, apparently that’s his favourite. Added it on to do list. We paid our excess luggage and chatted with one of Pierrick’s colleagues who happened to be taking the same connecting flight to Amsterdam and then going to Japan. The security gate went fast and smooth. Yes, my hand luggage was checked 2ice, but even that went fast. Then we went to the business lounge before the flight (my first time in the business lounge!). We continued to chat with P’s colleague over our second breakfast.

Amsterdam. EU line automatic security gates were not working first, got to stand in a bit of a queue, but then we were let go through as our flight was already boarding. Then we got onto our 9.5 hours flight with KLM to Beijing. All smooth too. A small glass of champagne, some food, 3 movies, and 3 hours nap later – we landed in Beijing.

The air was humid and heavy. We filled our arrival forms for the customs. Stood in a 1 hour queue for foreigners to pass the security.

In the queue we chatted with another P’s colleague, also French, who flew in here for a few days for a workshop, we agreed to have dinner together. We also met a scotish guy from Edinburgh who was standing in front of us in the queue and flying in for his engineering joint-venture business in Dalian, a city that is less than 2 hours flight away from Beijing  by the sea, that he has highly recommended for us to visit for holidays. We filled the baggage form for another point of customs, got the needed stamps, made a stop in currency exchange point and went out to find our 2 drivers waiting for us with a big sign with our names on it. Nice and comforting feeling visited all corners of my body. It is nice to be ‘waited’. It was early morning. The sky was grey and the air was dense. Rain was forecasted.

Around 8 o’clock we arrived to our temporary residence Oakwood where we will stay for the first 2 months.

They asked us to leave the passports in the reception, as tomorrow morning they will go to register us in the police. Yes, being a foreigner in Beijing is something special.

Finally in the flat, in bed, and going for some well deserved sleep before the dinner in the Duck de Chine, with Pierick’s colleague who is here for the 4 days…