while not null: Europe Trip 2026

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Europe Trip 2026 - China

I had a long stopover in Xi'an, China, but since it was in the evening/night time, I had no plans to leave the airport. When exiting the plane, a group of young people had a stand with a sign in English saying something like 'free hotel' if I remember correctly. I started chatting with them. They offered a free bed in a hotel/dormitory to people who had a connecting flight later. Very unusual and very welcoming. I wish more airports did that. In the end, I got to sleep a few hours in a capsule at the airport. It was quite comfy.

This could have been the end of the story, but the plane I got on broke down, and after sitting for an hour on the tarmac (I actually fell asleep, so it went like a flash) and then a couple more hours at the airport, we were taken by buses to a hotel where I was able to take a shower and get some more sleep.

A few observations:

Lots of staff used a language translation app, either talking to it or writing in Chinese and then showing me the text in English.

My passport got stamped incorrectly at one of the numerous check points (I left China before arriving, or something like that), and it made the last checkpoint border guards have a chuckle, but before they sorted it out, my group left, and I had a hard time finding the bus.

The vending machines at the airport did not accept credit card payments. I could have paid with my face, if I had AliPay.

When going to the hotel it was still dark, and I observed something strange: the horizontal traffic lights in front of us where sometimes flashing bright white, like a camera flash. I wonder if it was happening when a car was going too fast. First time I saw something like that.

The hotel had wifi, but almost no app on my phone worked: no Google Search, no Maps, no Signal. I was able to send a message about the trip delay using WhatsApp.

China looks unique from the airplane: the tall apartment blocks in rows, and the blue roofs of rectangular villages.