CHINA EXPERIENCE #2 - ARRIVING IN CHENGDU | First Impression
Dear friends,
the last few weeks went by like crazy, all the preparation for coming to China really kept me busy. I arrived in Chengdu!
My first impression of China? The airport is f*ucking huge, I haven´t seen anything comparable in Europe. One gigantic seeling as far as you can see. No, honestly guys, the airports here are really extremely huge. I mean, I thought for myself that they have to be quite big to handle this huge amount of people which is traveling in China but that exceeded all my expectations.
And the style of it, crazy cool. I was lucky enough to be thrown out of the plane at the very end of one of these "wings" and I am telling you, it took me ages to get to the other side.
Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport
Fun facts based on 2016 statistics
Length approx. 3600m
Passengers 46,039,037
Cargo (tons) 611,590
Aircraft movements 319,382
Yes, I got them from Wikipedia, I am just human after all.
I mean, it´s not hard to tell why it took me ages to get from one side to the other when looking at the length of this butterfly-shaped giant, right?
Anyway, after getting through all the security checks and passport control, I finally made it out of the airport where my next challenge was waiting for me - taxi drivers. No English. Not even a "Hello". And the trunk was too small for my luggage so I had to put some on the back seat - which made me face a screaming driver after 1 min I met him - Sorry man, I was not intended to make your white seat cover blanket dirty...
But yeah, we both made it out alive and I was instantly forced to use my bare Chinese skills (by just saying “你好,我要去。。。and then showed him a screenshot of the address hoping he will get us to the right place - Chinese pro)
After about 30 minutes of not saying anything and keep quiet, we arrived at my Airbnb. If there is a chance you read this, my lovely friend, I am, again, sorry for the dirty blanket.
Arrival day complete.
Good night with that lovely view from my even lovelier Airbnb.
Cheers,
Daniel
丹奕