I woke up in the early morning hours while everyone else was still sleeping, which allowed me to see what most of the others didn’t see: the amazing landscape of Mongolia, as seen from 12,000 meters above.

As we left Mongolia and had passed over most of China, however, the view became worse and worse – and it wasn’t a normal cloud cover, haze or fog that blocked the view – it was one of eastern China’s distinctive features: smog. The smog was so thick that after we had left our travel altitude and saw the layer of smog from closer, we could see the peaks of mountains coming out the top. During the landing it was difficult to see anything on the ground because of the bad air quality.

Finally we touched down and it became clear to every one of us – we are now in China. Of course my friends and me couldn’t stop ourselves from making political jokes right after the landing – but other than in Germany, we were whispering now. We were all well aware of how sensitive the Chinese government can react to “provocations”. The view that we had right after landing, well, was stunning in it’s own way.

While we were waiting for our baggage, I took a quick look at some of the flight that arrived before and after us – and I think it’s quite sad to say I wasn’t very surprised to see that it was Pyongyang and Teheran – both of which are capitals of countries against which there are, in part, quite heavy sanctions. Especially North Korea – Beijing and Vladivostok being the only two cities which “Air Koryo”, North Korea’s airline, fly to regularly and following a schedule, with Beijing being flown to much more frequently. I think this alone says quite a lot about the Chinese politics.

The baggage claim went quite quickly, especially considering how big the airport and the aircraft are and how many flight movements take place every hour – Beijing is a very busy airport. We then went on to the visa control, where I was, unfortunately, not allowed to take photos. It was quite funny that while the officer was checking your permit to enter the country you could select from three buttons in front of you – a happy, a neutral and a sad face, how much you liked their service. I had recently gotten a haircut and so it was not all too surprising when the woman behind the desk asked me “is this you?” But other the control went without problems and I was allowed to officially enter China.

After we left the airport and had boarded the bus that would take us to our hotel, I had one of the closest encounters so far with North Korea – we drove right past their airplane, which gave me the chance for a rare glimpse at something from this so secretive country. Unfortunately we were driving quite fast, so the photos turned out quite blurry.

The highway, even though it had four lanes and sometimes even more in each direction, was very full and the traffic was quite slow. Even though it was only March, the temperatures had already started rising and it was quickly getting very warm in the bus – in combination with the masks we were wearing, it was very uncomfortable. I tried taking off the mask, but as soon as you took a breath of the unfiltered air you would realize how bad the pollution was again – the air smelled like burned fossil fuels, and it felt like it was attacking the inside of your nose and throat. Speaking of environmental impacts: the trees throughout Beijing were brown and seemed to be more or less dead, and if you shook them, dust would fall from them. It was quite a depressing sight.

When we arrived, we were pleased to find that our hotel was actually quite nice. My friends and me were also thrilled to see that there was a huge propaganda poster praising the “values of our socialism” right in front of the exit of our hotel.

But right after we had dropped off our luggage we were taken by our tour guide again – who (which he didn’t tell us, but we found out nonetheless) spoke German fluently and was most likely a member of the party – and went to get some nice dinner. On the way, I spent most of my time trying to take photos of the smog, and of flags and party symbols – all of which are omnipresent in Beijing.

The dinner was very tasty, and even I, as a fairly picky eater, ate quite a lot. After dinner, we went back to our hotel for good and went to sleep. By the evening of this very long day we had started to get used to our new surrounding: Beijing, the capital of the People’s Republic of China.