Writes of Passage

It’s only May but the hot spots – the tourist traps are already crowded to a point as too gaudy and tiring, reducing the enjoyment. Which makes the off beaten track so much more appealing. But the hot-spots are no brainers and the off beaten tracks need a little digging to find and to plan: they even out in the end?

23kg in one pc of luggage is the limit for Lufthansa at Frankfurt airport, but 24kg is tolerable. I have exactly 23kg but after shopping at the supermarket with 2 bottle of wines and sausage it’s bit over weight. I’d to take the green shoes and the Coach bag out.

Carry on bag checkers are really work hard at looking at our belongings. The macarons are problematic and already broken up in small pieces. Really dumb of me to even bought this.

The passengers on the flight are predominately Chinese. They quietly lined up at Gate 54 which is next to 52 – our indicated gate. The Lufthansa females agents were laughing at it. But in the end we indeed gone through Gate 54 instead 52. Not sure it’s for the ease or they intended that way.

The airplane is noisy, the Chinese tourists are all speaking at the same time. Obviously they all knew each other. Few are talking about drinking together. The overhead cabinets are loaded up to the max. A few costumers came bit late had trouble to fit theirs in.

It’s cute to see Chinese pickled veggies on the airplane that is heading back to China. They’ve loaded up their favored snakes for the trip and have those many leftovers. Don’t they want to try the local cuisines?!

The massive Chinese seems to buy buy buy and buy, everywhere. A boy in his late 20s or early 30s sitiing next to me, offered me a small bag of pickled veggie 榨菜.
“Where did you get those?” I wondered. Hoping he did not bring those from China.
“From China.”
Gosh, he carried those snakes and local delicacies around the globe.
“Are you a tourist?” I asked him.
“Yes.”
“How long was your trip?”
“Ten days.”
“Where did you go?”
“I don’t remember.” He looked vacant.
“What did you do?”
“Buy .. watches and (hand?) bags ..”

When we landed in Beijing, he called his parents to report safe return, and went on to say, he’d catch a train to Tianjin and that his sister would pick him up.