The Flight

Catching my flight to China was very exciting. Part of the problem was that I only got to the airport an hour and a half before departure. I know I am supposed to get there two hours ahead of time, but I thought that since I was flying to San Francisco first, maybe I didn’t the full two hours. Turns out I was wrong.

At the check in counter, initially I stood in the regular economy class line, and tried to use one of the consoles to check in and get a boarding pass. Unfortunately, even though I typed in all my passport info twice, the little machine wouldn’t read my visa. So I ended up having to stand in the Special Persons Line, for those who need extra special help checking in. I was behind a group of 5 servicemen, each of whom had an extra bag to pay for and weapons to register, and a family with two small children. The family looked like they were going to be easy for the desk to deal with, until they got up to the front and I realized that one of the men with them was an interpreter, and that none of them spoke English. (Except, obviously, the interpreter.) So, if the machine had been able to read my visa, I would have been in plenty of time for my flight. Since it couldn’t, I had to wait in line for 45 minutes watching all likelihood of catching my plane tick away. But I guess that’s why they tell you to get there two hours early, to prepare for such contingencies. Still, it took an hour when it should have taken 5 minutes.

I finally got to the front, and the guy behind the counter typed in my visa stuff, checked me in, and called ahead to see if the plane could get my bags on. I took off running through security and through the terminals as fast as I could. I ran all the way to the gate, and squeaked onto the plane right before they closed the doors. I was completely winded and have decided that I need to work out more.

Then I collapsed into my seat, and sat thinking about how great I was for making it to the plane on time. Then I sat on the plane for an hour before they took off due to technical difficulties. As an added bonus, during my hour on the tarmac I got to stare at my boarding pass for my next flight, my connection to China, and watch the hour window that I had had between flights trickle slowly away.

Once we landed in San Francisco, I grabbed my bags and zipped off the plane. On the plane they had told us to go to for getting our connecting flights. Our plane had brought us to gate 90, and I just had to get to gate 97, so I figured I might be ok. I stood in the hall for a few minutes, trying to figure out which direction to go, but the corridor I was on ended at gate 90. Gate 97 was in the international terminal. Damn damn damn, Five lengths of hallway away. So I put my backpack on my back and grabbed my carry on suitcase around the middle (the handle had broken that morning) and started running. At the mouth of the international gate corridor there was an airline employee shouting “BEIJING!! BEIJING!!” and swinging her arms like a bystander in a race. I shouted my name at her and she radioed ahead for them to keep the door open. I made it with about 3 minutes to spare, gasping like a fish.

Once I was on the plane though, it was super awesome. Because I was actually traveling on New Years, the plane was only half full, since it is sort of like traveling Christmas Eve in the US- most people are already with their families. So I got to stretch out over two seats. Not as nice as what Kenneth had in first class, but Microsoft wasn’t paying for my seat. Still, it was like pseudo-first class.

Anyway, I finally got to Beijing. The Beijing airport is all it was advertised to be, definitely one of the most beautiful airports I have ever been in. Lots of majestic, sweeping glass ceilings, interesting and invigorating spaces, and light feeling, airy rooms. It felt sort of like a docking port for space ships, or a dealership for really fantastic cars. It is the kind of place you would want to film a Windex commercial in, but as a Windex executive, you probably don’t have the kind of pull needed to make that happen.

Totally cute: in immigration, the police officer who reviewed my passport had a little machine in front of her with her number and some buttons on it, and I could rate her on her speediness and customer service. There were 4 buttons: excellent, satisfactory, took too long, and did a bad job, with little smiley to little frowny faces on them. When she was done looking at my visa, the little buttons lit up to remind me to press one. She was fast, so I gave her an “excellent” and a little thumbs up as I passed by. Going through immigration here was a hell of a lot more efficient than it is at Sea-Tac, that’s for sure.

After I picked up my luggage (Which, incidentally, must have been carried to my plane in San Francisco as fast as I ran though the airport, so I was very impressed to see it arriving on my flight with me. Not that I ran very fast, more that the San Francisco airport people must be really on their game.) I had to pass through customs. In India they x-rayed everything, in Chile they x-rayed everything and then went through it with gloved hands. I don’t remember Thailand, but in China, like in Taiwan, apparently you just have to walk through a doorway that says “Nothing to Declare” to enter the country with your bags. So I walked through that doorway.

And luckily Kenneth was there to meet me, and we went to the apartment.

There is an Ikea here, we saw it on the way in.