Beijing, China Airport

On the way to Australia, I had to go through Beijing.

My first roommate in college was Chinese and always went around greeting new people saying “Hello my friend”. Now I understand where he got that expression from.

So, I traveled halfway around the world to walk into a KFC.

Then visited my first hole-in-the-ground toilet.

And of course had to see the Chinese Pepsi vs Coca Cola battle.

After cramming my way through the security checkpoint (there is no personal space–they adhere to the “if we all push into the person in front of us, the line will move faster” mantra) I spent a good 20 minutes staring at screens trying to find out which gate to go to. They have a fun system where flights will flash and then a new group of flights will appear, so if you have slight OCD and want to make sure you read the screen correctly, you get to watch all of the flights flash for another 10-15 minutes. AKA–take a picture, quickly.

Notice the NH, ZH, NZ, etc flights

Then they all switch to CA flights in Chinese

Overall, it was confusing which line to stand in to get my passport stamped, the security checks were quite cramped, prepare yourself to ask several people how to find certain checkpoints and gates, but the shops were quite nice and workers were overall helpful (even with very limited English–just don’t try to ask for explanations for why something is a particular way).