Day 1/2 - Arrival to Ishigaki

Starting already on Friday, the first two days were mainly dedicated to get to Ishigaki. In order to get to Ishigaki there were in total three flights. First with Air China via Beijing to Okinawa and from there to Ishigaki. Of course I was very excited to visit this totally different country. But I was also a bit nervous because in Zürich I could only check in the first two flights and only get the boarding pass for the first flight. „Check in at the departing airport...“ Great.

So the journay began during lunch time in Zürich with the first flight to Beijing. Having all documents ready I could allow myself beeing a little late - quick security check and passport control and almost no people at the gate. When the plan departed the big Airbus 330 was suprisingly almost empty. So I could claim a middle row with four seat all for myself! Shortly after the start lunch came - some Chinese chicken with rice and I also got a Chinese beer, which was quite good! At least better than Swiss beers^^ After lunch they closed all windows and switched off all lights in ghe aircraft so that it was almost completely dark. So after working a little bit on my presentation I lay down early to adjust for the 8 hours time shift just waking up in time for dinner: Some odd combination out of a Chinese main dish - shredded beef in gluey rice^^ and swiss goodies^^. Afterwards I tried to sleep more but the plane already arrived one hour early at the airport in Beijing at 4 am local time... And good that I had that hour...

Luckily all the signs were in English and suprisingly well understandable! But beeing that early the transfer desk for getting my boarding pass was completely deserted. So I decided to wait a little and to call Iuliia. Unfortunately I had to reconnect to the WiFi every five minutes which is why the call didn‘t last so long. But after the call I checked my belonging and noticed something horrible... I couldn‘t locate my passport! First I was in total shock since beeing in China without passport is certainly not the best idea. But then I thought that I could only have lost it in the plain due to my stupidity of just putting it into the open pocket of my jacket... So I went to a security officer and asked if someone could retrieve my passport. He made some calls and told me to wait. In the beginning I was very confident that could quickly find it and also had plenty of time. But when after 30 minutes aanother officer came and told I had to go back if they wouldn‘t find it I started to get incredibly nervous... After waiting 30 more minutes I was almost paniccing. But then I was incredibly lucky that a stewardess found it and gave it back to me without any trouble.

After surving that shock there was still noone at the transfer desk counter so I lined up in the loooong queue for the international transfers. Just to get notified at the end that I‘ll need a boarding pass which I can get at the other side -.-. Gerting the barding pass was then relatively easy and then I just skipped the whole transfer line because time started to get scarce... After another security check which also took forever - they really dismantle you completely - I reached my gate exactly on time for boarding.

In the plane I got a real Chinese breakfast which was again this rice gruel with some other packed stuff which I didn’t even know how to eat^^ After cutting itx I at least figured out that one of the thing was a fermented egg^^
Arriving in Okinawa I had to pass quarantine, passport/immagration and customs quecks. For every thing you need to fill out a stupid form and everywhere soo many people. After what felt like an eternity I finally reached the airport main hall or what I thought it was the main hall... I couldn‘t see my flight anywhere nor the airline where I had to check in and noone whom I could ask... Finally I figured put that there is another building and the check in and another security control went quite smooth so that I could board the final flight. After more than 20 hours of travelling I could finally meet with René!Read more