After 2 days in Austria’s imperial capital Vienna, arrived yesterday after a yummy flight with Austrian Airlines in Beijing. Yummy flight, because Austrian Airlines entertains a real cook in its Business Class who fully played out his culinary art in 35,000 feet altitude.
The contrast couldn’t be any starker between the impressions from Austria and China. The capital of the former discounting a lot from its past, whereas the capital of the latter has fully embarking on its future.Without repeating stuff which everyone knows anyway about the political system in China, just interesting to note that in spite of staying in a hotel with many guests from the West, The Peninsula, internet-access to Facebook and Twitter are blocked (as are Wikipedia and XING). So please bear with me if I am not as flexible and in responding as I usually try to be. The only access I get is via my mobile phone – including the terrible roaming charges for my German number …
Just one last word from Vienna where I went into a very touching exhibition of Elisabeth of Austria, famously called “Sissy”, wife to the last emperor Franz Joseph. Sissy, who wasn’t any like a royal dumb-ass at all, was a sportive woman and also an avid writer, where I stumbled upon a line of her poems which resonated with me
Destinations are only desirable because a journey lies in between. If I arrived somewhere and knew I would never leave again, even a sojourn in paradise would turn into hell for me.
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