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Aug. 14th, 2007
The perils of travel
Aug. 14th, 2007 10:08 pmMy flights went, if not smoothly, at least not too far outside of my expectations.
I will say that changing from an international to a domestic flight in Beijing in an hour and 20 minutes is the pits. I had to go through customs & immigration and pick up my luggage (25 min) and try to find where to turn it back in. Massive crowds of people milled around what might be useful entrances, but the people to ask were blocked by bodies and the signs were in Chinese. I took some pretty severe wrong turns before being ushured through a First Class back entrance and having my checked bag officially taken away. Still had to find security and my gate. Security was typical and I discovered that I was at gate 24 and I wanted gate 25. Wonderful! I had 20 minutes for perhaps a bathroom break... Nah, I should find my gate. Two long hallways later, it was down an escalator. It looked like a gate tube but had pedestrian traffic going both ways. I went down. Another large room, another set of stairs... Evidently it was gate 25A-25J. A monitor said my flight was boarding, So I approached a stewardess-looking person... And was put on the VIP shuttle. We were taken out to the tarmac and left beside a staircase leading up to a 737 with a massive pushy crowd boarding. I stood in the sun jockeying for position for twenty minutes. It was miserable. I lost my water bottle and completely sweated through my clothes.
On board I discovered I had a window seat. But my aisle companion wanted to fall asleep and spoke no English. I had been keeping hydrated, so at one point I had to go to the bathroom and he was not responding... Ok, I freaked. Claustrophobia, remember? I tried to climb over him via the first class armrests. Let me not recommend this while the plane is in motion and wearing dubious slippers. I fell, managing to slam into four seats (yay, me), and not just the padded bits. I was bruised and horribly embarrassed. I dusted myself off, went to the bathroom and wished desperately to never have to come out. When I returned, my seatmate was standing in the aisle waiting for me. I must have scared the poor man to death. He was always ready to let me out after that. He never went back to sleep.
And yes, this is usual. Ordinary. *grimace*
I will say that changing from an international to a domestic flight in Beijing in an hour and 20 minutes is the pits. I had to go through customs & immigration and pick up my luggage (25 min) and try to find where to turn it back in. Massive crowds of people milled around what might be useful entrances, but the people to ask were blocked by bodies and the signs were in Chinese. I took some pretty severe wrong turns before being ushured through a First Class back entrance and having my checked bag officially taken away. Still had to find security and my gate. Security was typical and I discovered that I was at gate 24 and I wanted gate 25. Wonderful! I had 20 minutes for perhaps a bathroom break... Nah, I should find my gate. Two long hallways later, it was down an escalator. It looked like a gate tube but had pedestrian traffic going both ways. I went down. Another large room, another set of stairs... Evidently it was gate 25A-25J. A monitor said my flight was boarding, So I approached a stewardess-looking person... And was put on the VIP shuttle. We were taken out to the tarmac and left beside a staircase leading up to a 737 with a massive pushy crowd boarding. I stood in the sun jockeying for position for twenty minutes. It was miserable. I lost my water bottle and completely sweated through my clothes.
On board I discovered I had a window seat. But my aisle companion wanted to fall asleep and spoke no English. I had been keeping hydrated, so at one point I had to go to the bathroom and he was not responding... Ok, I freaked. Claustrophobia, remember? I tried to climb over him via the first class armrests. Let me not recommend this while the plane is in motion and wearing dubious slippers. I fell, managing to slam into four seats (yay, me), and not just the padded bits. I was bruised and horribly embarrassed. I dusted myself off, went to the bathroom and wished desperately to never have to come out. When I returned, my seatmate was standing in the aisle waiting for me. I must have scared the poor man to death. He was always ready to let me out after that. He never went back to sleep.
And yes, this is usual. Ordinary. *grimace*