Good morning! Breakfast is being served, my LFML comes as one of the first. This time potato with quinoa, orange juice, zero fat yoghourt, gluten free cookies, and to compensate a bit a butter croissant. All this, served with something called coffee, a grey-brown mixture of probably instant coffee with milk, which I kindly returned and exchanged for a black coke. We landed on schedule at Beijing international airport. The advantage of being with only a few foreigners on the flight turned into an advantage at immigration. The queues for foreigner were short, combined with a swift immigration check a nice experience. Luggage pickup is no difference to other airports ... wait, wait, wait ... seems a generic logistical problem of getting luggage faster from the plane to the luggage belt. Got my luggage, rechecked it for my connection flight to Xiamen. Let's hope it will arrive. Security at the airport is a bit messy and made me nervous, I was happy having this behind me.

The domestic flight from Beijing to Xiamen was delayed and was full, me being the only non-Chinese! Again, right after boarding the stewardess came big a big smile to check with me in her best English my food preferences. It turned out a bit later that a low fat request resulted in scrambled eggs with scampi, a zero sugar cookie and two pieces of melon. I am learning quickly, seems low fat, gluten free, or no-sugar is all the same.

#ibmcsc china

Frank

Finally, arrived with a delay in Xiamen! Normally I should have landed before two colleagues, Amit coming from India and Ryan coming from Dubai. They were faster and arrived before me. Two of our interns, Cecily and Christy, who will do the interpreting were awaiting for me at arrivals. I tried to pull out some cash from ATM, which did not work until I noticed that the keypad to enter your pin code has a difference sequence then I’m used to. Instead of 1-2-3 on the top row and 7-8-9 on the bottom row they had it the other way round. Indeed, I should have RTFM. A shuttle bus brought us to the hotel, were Lesley and Frank from DOT.org were waiting for us. After check-in I received my Chinese mobile phone and a pile of cash. Ready to go and hang around in town, going to bed is not an option, I have to fight the two next days against the jetlag. Ryan, Cecily, Christy, and myself walked around downtown. A little chock … people preparing food on the ground on the street …

Late afternoon we returned to the hotel. Meanwhile four other colleagues arrived. Together we went out for dinner and walked a bit around, until I was exhausted enough to fall asleep.

Lesley

Cecily and Christy

Fishmarket (with a smell): left side dead fish - right side alive

Fishmarket: think a kind of stingray

Returning to the hotel and received fresh fruit

Crowded shopping street

Local food market