Day fifteen
My flight from Seoul to Beijing was from Gimpo, the “Domestic” airport of Seoul. The trip there was easy as I picked a hotel that was close to the airport.
![](https://cdn.matsimitsu.dev/trips/asia-2024/day-fourteen/PXL_20240401_035641910-720.jpg)
In Beijing, immigration was super smooth, as this year people from 5 countries, including The Netherlands can visit China for up to 15 days without a visa. I wasn’t sure about the process, but upon showing my passport, the friendly airport official waved me passed the queue saying loudly, “Oh, You’re Dutch, you can go straight through”.
A photo, a set of fingerprints and a passport stamp at the immigration booth later, I was in China.
![](https://cdn.matsimitsu.dev/trips/asia-2024/day-fourteen/PXL_20240401_113600945-720.jpg)
![](https://cdn.matsimitsu.dev/trips/asia-2024/day-fourteen/PXL_20240401_114107831.MP-720.jpg)
Both Seoul and Beijing are huge cities, and on the map it looks like you’re close to the airport, but in reality it still takes about an hour-hour and a half to take the metro anywhere. Annoyingly Beijing is one of two cities where Alipay doesn’t work with a foreign phone number attached, so I had to go to a ticket booth for every metro trip.
![](https://cdn.matsimitsu.dev/trips/asia-2024/day-fourteen/R0001807-720.jpg)
Two hours after landing I was at my hotel, where it was already evening. My short flight took almost the entire day. Luckily there was a shopping mall nearby with a "Din Tai Fung”, a super famous restaurant with some of the best dumplings in the world.
![](https://cdn.matsimitsu.dev/trips/asia-2024/day-fourteen/PXL_20240401_124049413-720.jpg)
![](https://cdn.matsimitsu.dev/trips/asia-2024/day-fourteen/PXL_20240401_130525976-720.jpg)