China: And miles to go before I sleep
Okay, so perhaps I did have miles to go but I was able to sleep along the way. ;-) And more importantly, I am now home. I don't know for how long this time, but I'm here at least for now. I know there are more trips in the planning.
The return trip was pretty uneventful other than being long. One of the local admins slept through our check out time but they were still able to easily make their train. We got to the Hangzhou airport still more than an hour before our plane started to board. We flew a carrier to Beijing I hadn't been on before and would rather avoid in the future. The seat was barely wider than my behind and while I realize that mine is quite large, I've also rarely had trouble getting into airline seats before. Everything else was fine, really, but that was a pretty big comfort issue.
We had two hours in Beijing and our plane was running twenty minutes late so we took some time to eat at the cafe and figure out the free wireless situation. The Hangzhou airport offers free wireless Internet with no strings attached. You connect and bam, you have an IP. The Beijing airport requires you register first by letting their machine scan your passport. They then assign you a temporary account and password with which you login and then have free Internet. It's interesting to me that the Beijing login page specifically notes that they're required by the Chinese government to record the IDs of people using their wireless while Hangzhou has no such problems. Oh well. At least now we know about the automated kiosks so it won't seem so intimidating the next time. I knew you had to register and get a free account card but I always thought you had to deal with people to do it. Dragonair, incidentally, had a great flight from Beijing to Hong Kong. The seats were wide, there was lots of leg room, they had in-seat power plugs and it was very nice. The in-flight entertainment didn't have as many options as Cathay, but it was also just a couple of hours.
Our plane from Beijing ended up leaving an hour late between being late on arriving and getting stuck in a traffic jam trying to leave. But we still managed to get into Hong Kong on time, which was good since we only had an hour layover. Hong Kong was interesting. We had to go through security again to get from our gate to the next terminal and then they had yet another security screening at the gate. For the gate screening they actually opened up our carry-on bags and rifled through them. I was concerned that would take a long time considering how many people were boarding and that they only had four security people but it seemed like we took off around the right time. The flight back to LA was just as awesome as the flight out of LA. I slept for at least four hours straight after dinner was served and then napped an hour here and there until breakfast. The immigration line took a little longer than I remember from my last trip but it was still less than an hour and we breezed through customs as well.
The only really annoying part was the shuttle drive back to the office. I swear the shocks on it were completely non-functional. I was getting bounced around like a sock in the dryer the whole way back and getting more and more pissed every time my head nearly hit the roof. I realize our freeways are in terrible shape but I've been in other shuttles on the same freeways and not been so shaken. I'm sure it didn't help that I was already cranky from being on the go for almost thirty hours.
The return trip was pretty uneventful other than being long. One of the local admins slept through our check out time but they were still able to easily make their train. We got to the Hangzhou airport still more than an hour before our plane started to board. We flew a carrier to Beijing I hadn't been on before and would rather avoid in the future. The seat was barely wider than my behind and while I realize that mine is quite large, I've also rarely had trouble getting into airline seats before. Everything else was fine, really, but that was a pretty big comfort issue.
We had two hours in Beijing and our plane was running twenty minutes late so we took some time to eat at the cafe and figure out the free wireless situation. The Hangzhou airport offers free wireless Internet with no strings attached. You connect and bam, you have an IP. The Beijing airport requires you register first by letting their machine scan your passport. They then assign you a temporary account and password with which you login and then have free Internet. It's interesting to me that the Beijing login page specifically notes that they're required by the Chinese government to record the IDs of people using their wireless while Hangzhou has no such problems. Oh well. At least now we know about the automated kiosks so it won't seem so intimidating the next time. I knew you had to register and get a free account card but I always thought you had to deal with people to do it. Dragonair, incidentally, had a great flight from Beijing to Hong Kong. The seats were wide, there was lots of leg room, they had in-seat power plugs and it was very nice. The in-flight entertainment didn't have as many options as Cathay, but it was also just a couple of hours.
Our plane from Beijing ended up leaving an hour late between being late on arriving and getting stuck in a traffic jam trying to leave. But we still managed to get into Hong Kong on time, which was good since we only had an hour layover. Hong Kong was interesting. We had to go through security again to get from our gate to the next terminal and then they had yet another security screening at the gate. For the gate screening they actually opened up our carry-on bags and rifled through them. I was concerned that would take a long time considering how many people were boarding and that they only had four security people but it seemed like we took off around the right time. The flight back to LA was just as awesome as the flight out of LA. I slept for at least four hours straight after dinner was served and then napped an hour here and there until breakfast. The immigration line took a little longer than I remember from my last trip but it was still less than an hour and we breezed through customs as well.
The only really annoying part was the shuttle drive back to the office. I swear the shocks on it were completely non-functional. I was getting bounced around like a sock in the dryer the whole way back and getting more and more pissed every time my head nearly hit the roof. I realize our freeways are in terrible shape but I've been in other shuttles on the same freeways and not been so shaken. I'm sure it didn't help that I was already cranky from being on the go for almost thirty hours.