Arriving in Beijing

Today I arrived at the PEK airport! Getting through customs was a bit stressful because the staff definitely did not speak much English. It was a totally different vibe from the courteous and polite staff in Japan. It just felt a bit more cold and distant overall. I was the only one on the flight who utilized the “visa-free transit” to enter the country so I needed to go into a line all by myself separate from all the other foreigners on the flight.

The “visa-free transit” which allows people to stay in the country for up to 240 hours, or 10 days, without needing to get an official visa before arriving. To utilize this, you must be arriving and departing to separate countries. For my trip, I was going from America to China to Japan. However, if I had booked a flight from America to China and back to America, then it would not be classified as a “pass through” travel and I’d need to get some sort of visa. I believe they do this to deter people from pseudo living in China and leaving and reentering every 10 days. I’ve watched some Youtube videos where people live in countries like Vietnam but have to leave and come back every 90 days in order to extend their visa due to no official extension process. So, my assumption is that China truly only wants people to visit and not overstay their welcome.

When I arrived at the airport I was a bit confused on where my bags would be located. The app on my phone was telling me that the bags were in two separate terminals but the staff was telling me that they would all be at the final carousel. The staff ended up being correct, however I was very worried that there was a miscommunication between myself and the staff.

Buboli had traveled over an hour from his home to the airport to pick me up as I arrived. Confused about my luggage, I sent him a picture telling him I think I might have made a mistake getting on my current tram. He responds with something along the lines of “Oh no, I’ve made a mistake”. Buboli had gone to the other airport in Beijing (PKX) that was over an hour away and only realized after he had seen the frantic picture I sent him. I often make similar mistakes in my personal life so it was somewhat comforting seeing someone else have a similar mix-up. I thought, “wow maybe me and Buboli have similar personalities, or at least personalities that will understand each other”.

I spent the next hour at the airport testing out my payment applications, WeChat Pay and Alipay, which are the applications used for all monetary transactions in China. Apparently, using any sort of cash is seen as a nuisance in China and the staff do not want to deal with it. I also had a woman come up to me and ask me about the bag I use to hold my fursuit head. She said that she had tried to reverse image search the bag (apparently this is common in China?) but couldn’t find any results. I doubt she knew that the bag was actually for a fursuit head and thought it was just a creative shoulder bag. I let her know it was more of a custom item and asked if I could take a picture of her taking a picture of it. This was a friendly introduction to my time in China.

Once Buboli finally arrived, we took a mandatory selfie in front of the "Welcome to Beijing" sign before heading out. It was great to finally get to meet in person for the first time and I was pleasantly surprised by how well Buboli could speak English. Before this moment, I had not talked to him in a setting where only English was an option. I was a bit worried there would be a communication barrier, but at no point during the trip did I feel like Buboli was misunderstanding what I said or miscommunicating. This was comforting and I was excited to see what lies outside of the Airport.Read more