Beijing Airport and the Firewall...

An 8 hour stopover in Beijing, not the first time, so I was aware that using things like Google, Facebook could be tricky. I installed NordVPN on my phone as well. In 2019 it allowed me to avoid the firewall and at least I could send some messages. But not so this time at the end of 2023...

By now, also NordVPN was blocked and I couldn't connect to any country. Didn't really think of a Plan B, thought it's just 8 hours, no problem. But then I saw my flight is getting delayed by an hour. Also no big deal, but would be nice to inform my sister who was going to pick me up. 

As Google and Facebook things don't work... I remembered that I still got a Yahoo mail address... But I need a SMS verification code to login - which I couldn't receive there...

Creating a new email address with some German providers ... No, even though these websites generally worked, the providers blocked China from creating new accounts.

Interestingly, despite the firewall I could still receive push messages like from WhatsApp, but of course answering them didn't work.

Then I thought that probably TikTok would work... Well, of course PlayStore doesn't work either.

Since I'm ironically still using a Huawei phone, I could use its specific app store. And then I saw Snapchat.. And I know that my sister uses it.

Installed it, luckily no email verification needed and as the app searched through my phone contacts, I could easily find her. 

Problem solved, but my sister was quite surprised to see me on Snapchat...^^

Why I cannot download Japanese apps?

If you go to Japan and open the Google PlayStore you'll find out that you are unable to install some local apps. But is there a solution to work around that problem?

Let's take the example of 'Dragon Ball Legends' which was released this summer. And in the Google Play Store there is a 'western' version and a Japanese version.

However, if you search for the Japanese version using katakana the game doesn't appear in result list. Just English suggestions.
But why?

The reason is that your Google Play Store account needs to be associated to the country Japan instead of your local one.

If you currently live in Japan it makes to be able to see all the apps.

Therefore, what's the next step?

Change to the country! I would suggest the following way (via browser):

• Login in Google PlayStore website 
• Go to "Google Account" in the upper right
• Select "Payments and Subscriptions"
• "Manage Payment methods"
• Go to setting to see your "payments profile"
• Change it to the "Japan" and add necessary information
• Confirm and wait (can take maybe a few days)

Once it's completed, check on your phone if your are connect to the correct payment profile associated with the country you are living. Now go to PlayStore and see if you can find local apps.

And that's an example an how it should look.

Google knows flight delay earlier than airline!

An interesting scenario: You booked a flight, just checked the last email and you find out through Google that your flight is delayed! What the...?

It was too risky not to go to the airport since I haven't received a confirmation from the airline yet. Also: At the website of the airline
the flight was still listed as usual. 

So I went to the airport and... Google was right. The Google Mail entry was accurate. But why? I tried to research it a bit and it seems that Google probably has access to various databases and may gathered the information through other channels.

Another interesting point I read was that some internal emails from the airline may could have forwarded through Gmail causing Google could have get the information through there.

Anyway, it's an interesting scenario. So if you see this information on your account you can assume that there's some truth behind it, but it should be more safe to look for the confirmed delay...