An amazing person on our way - couchsurfing in Beijing

Wayne and Lilia (a friend of Wayne) showing us around in old Beijing

Beijing is a huge city with around 40 MILLION inhabitans! And to not get completly lost in this city you need somebody who can help you out with all your questions which will pop up. Wayne - our couchsurfer in Beijing- was amazing. He took the time to answers all of our questions starting from which subways we need to take, to where we should go to see the great wall over which food is vegetarian- quite a challenge in China- till what are his plans and visions for his future. He made us try a Beijing drink made of the water which is left by cooking beans and to his big suprise we liked the bitter taste of it! One night we were cyling together through Beijing on free for rent citybikes and laughed together about Julie and Hannah's (dis-)ability to eat with chopsticks :-). 

After we told him that we like really spicy food he took us to a place to eat Hot Pot. A pot on a gas stove with a chilli based soup in which you continuously put meat, veggies or whatever to boil - a little bit like fondue. Over this spicy food - which was nothing compared to some south Indian dishes- and maybe due to the Chinese rice wine we started to talk about work, studies, relationships, how it is to grow up in a single-child-family generation - as till last year every family in China was only allowed to have one child. He told us that it was quite lonely and as the parents only have one child to focus on you were all the time watched and corrected. So it was normal when you and your two cousins would meet up that there would be three children and six adults. Always double us much. So there wasn't really an opportunity to fool around too much. Chinese society is apparently also pretty strict, you are kind of stuck in it and it is really hard to get out of it. For example to quit your job and start something new or travel for an unknown periode of time or in some cases even leaving the country seems to be unimaginable for some Chinese people. So meeting and talking to us reinsured him that a different lifestyle than the "normal Chinese" one is possible and worth it. Sharing our plans, visions and ideas - of course being aware that they are impermanent and changeable - made us one more time realize that we are the master of our lifes and we can make the decision what we want to do with it!

Dear Wayne - we hope we could inspire you to go forward with your ideas and we hope to see you soon in Germany and France - playing on your guitar :-).