Overnight Flight to Beijing, China
China, with a population of around 1.6 billion is a country in East Asia that is known as ‘The People’s Republic of China’. It is the second most populated country after India, spans five geographical time zones, and borders 14 countries. This historical and cultural wonder has been on my travel list for a few years now, so I decided that 2025 was the year to make those dreams come true and get a photo, or a few, of me on the Great Wall!
I was unsure how easy China would be to navigate as an independent traveller, due to all the restrictions in the country, as I am a person who heavily relies on my phone for virtually everything. So, I thought that a tour may be a better way to see the country. I had never
done a tour before and, to be honest, had a few reservations about the idea, but I needn’t have worried because I reckon this was one of my best travel experiences. I then went ahead and booked a tour that was only a small group of 13 of us – and what a great group they were!
I flew out to Beijing, via Hong Kong on an overnight flight and arrived, with the time difference of plus seven hours, later the following day. I was met at the airport by a representative from the tour company, Lee, who became our in-destination tour guide for Beijing. He was a great guy, and we all missed him when we moved on to the next destination. Two other people, Tim and Debbie, who had spent a few days in Hong Kong first, were also collected from the same flight as me. We were then whisked off to our hotel – I say whisked, but the traffic in Beijing is horrendous, worse than London and maybe even Tokyo, and once you hit peak-hour travel times you can literally sit in traffic forever more! Anyway, the hotel was great when we got there, and we were taken immediately out to a local restaurant where we had a wonderful Chinese meal that consisted of numerous dishes for us to try as well as a large bowl of sticky rice. It was nice not to have to peruse a menu and struggle to decide what to order, so it made for a lovely relaxing meal with good company. There was even some birthday cake left for us, as apparently it was someone’s birthday in the group – the rest of the group had all arrived earlier than us and had already eaten.
We were all pretty tired after travelling and were eventually taken back to the hotel which was within walking distance. I was looking forward to being able to get in the shower and hopefully get some sleep before our first day of touring the following day, and I would of course get the chance then to meet the rest of the group.
