Arriving to Tianjin

After over 24 hours of travel time I finally made it to Beijing.

My plane left Friday at 9:30 pm and I got to Beijing Saturday at 11:50 pm. I had a lay over in Chicago of 10 hours so I was able to visit a little bit of Chicago and some relatives that live there. Due to time differences coming here I have technically lost a day! When I return in August I will have my day back haha. It was interesting how as we traveled the sky got lighter and lighter. So we were moving from night to day and then night again. There were some interesting sights throughout the flight.

 

Since I arrived around midnight I had to spend the night at a nearby hotel until the next morning when a Tianjin University volunteer came to escort me to the university. I had a really scary moment at the airport, it didn’t help that my Chinese is not too good or that it was already past midnight. I don’t know if I was being a bit paranoid but I felt two guys were following me. If you’ve ever seen the the movie Taken, that’s what I feared would happen. The first guy kept asking me if I needed a hotel to spend the night and I told him no. He followed me where I went and was very insistent even though I kept saying no. After the third time of me ignoring him and saying “no, no” he got mad. and I just ran away, I didn’t even want to look back. Then there was another guy who started talking to me in the elevator, he followed me to the information desk, then to another office they sent me to and also to the telephone booth. I was really nervous because both guys were behind me and I needed to call the hotel but I didn’t want them to overhear me where I was staying so I kept changing places. I eventually lost them because I went all the way to another terminal so I was finally able to call the hotel and ask for a shuttle. I waited outside for the bus. A white van parked in front of me but it didn’t have anything saying it was from the hotel I had booked but a guy got off and he had a paper with my name written on it. After my incident with the other two guys I was a bit skeptical of getting in the van maybe they had somehow gotten my name. I felt like just spending the night in the airport since it was already 2 am. However, he had my name written correctly so I went with him praying my whole time in the car that I did get to my intended hotel destination. Thank God I made it safely. Then today early in the morning a really nice Tianjin volunteer, Guannan Su, came to pick me up and now we’re on the way to the University.

Lesson learned: be on the lookout! I’m not saying to be so distrustful of everyone but you have to be cautious and plan things well especially if you have a late flight. I should have probably planed better how I was getting to the hotel, who was picking me up and where we would meet. Beijing airport is HUGE!