The trip to China began with a 6AM wake-up call on Sunday morning. A 90-minute flight to Washington, DC from Charlotte was the precursor to a flight spanning 14 hours over portions of the polar ice cap. Rain in Syracuse kept us on the runway in DC for about 40 minutes. The delay ended when the plane was re-routed to fly directly North from Washington before arcing over Canada and the Arctic Ocean. The almost perfect parabola brought us across Russia and into Bejing, China.
The flight was fairly routine. The Flight Attendant did threaten one female passenger with calling the police if she did not sit down while the “Fasten Seatbelt” sign was on, but even that ended quickly.
The airport in Beijing is monstrous. The walk from our gate to Baggage Claim took almost 20 minutes. After finding the suitcase my wife had lovingly helped me pack while I was preparing for graduation, I walked outside into a muggy, hot day. I quickly found the EF Tour Group and soon we were on a wonderful Charter Bus for the ride across the city to our hotel. The Grand Soluxe Tian Tan Hotel. It is really nice. My roommate works in a private school near Wilmington, NC.
We had a traditional Chinese dinner with several courses all served simultaneously on the largest Lazy Susan I have seen. We served ourselves as the food cycled by. Forks went untouched in the center of the table as we each tried to master eating with Chopsticks.
We are preparing for bed. In my head, it is Sunday night because it has just turned dark a couple of hours ago. In actuality, it is late Monday night; a long day's night has come at last! For my fellow passengers and I the sun did not set as we flew around the world. (China is exactly 12 hours behind our time in North Carolina.) Tomorrow we will be visiting places I have heard about all my life, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, and Tiananmen Square. I will try to post pictures in the blog. Have a great week!
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