The airport was achieved in good order, and what's the last thing any red-blooded Rhode Islander has to have before leaving? Dunkin Donuts, of course. This decision would come back to haunt me however...
A quick stop at the United Club in DC brought me some much needed snacks:
Ahhh...legroom. What a 6 foot 1 traveler needs most.
All that way to fly over Horseheads! Ha!
Dinner number 1: "Vegetarian" Indian food, and most importantly, ginger ale.
Fourteen some hours later, deplaning in Bejing. It's true what they say about the smog in the capital of China, even though you can't really see it here. It's about 4pm local time, I believe. The flight was, relatively speaking, fairly good. There was an empty seat next to me and a very good selection of movies on the in flight entertainment. First movie: "Dr Strangelove". Second movie: "Hunt for Red October". At first I found it amusing that both movies had James Earl Jones in a supporting role. Then I realized even more interestingly that both were about a potential nuclear Armageddon by a loner with nuclear weapons at his command. Totally random movie choices!
About two thirds of the way through the flight (over the Polar Ice caps no less!) I happened to look at the in flight map and notice that we were somewhere over Russia. I went back to one of the available side windows and looked out to see this amazing vista of the Russian tundra.
Hello, Bejing! What they say about the smog in the capital city is true, even if you can't really see it in this photograph.
Moments after getting off the plane, I was greeted with a woman standing with my name on a sign. I wasn't sure what this was about, but I walked up and introduced myself. Apparently, she had a pass for me to jump ahead of a lot of lines, and a free ride on a golf cart. Being dead tired after being awake for the better part of 20 hours, I had no idea what this was about. I gamely followed her, cutting ahead of a long line of tourists waiting to go through the "transit" customs line, then back around through another TSA-like screening, and then was told to give this pass to...someone. Yes, I was extremely befuddled.
I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me, so I asked an information kiosk where I should go. I was told gate E19, so I gamely set off in that direction. I didn't ask for a golf cart ride because it felt unnecessary. I walked past a Duty Free shop twice, and on the second time decided to duck in and by some provisions...important provisions. Namely, gin.
Once at E19, it's apparent that this is NOT the right booth, so I wander back over to the main concourse area, and decide that what hell, I'm going to ask for a ride to gate E22, identified from the flight info board.
E22 is not the right gate. E59 is, and E59 is a long, long way away. I trudge around for a few minutes and finally break down and ask another golf cart driver if he'll take me to E59. This gate turns out to be located down an escalator and...out to a bus. I climb aboard the bus with a bunch of other people. The bus is not running, and it's dark in the bus. We all stand in the dark bus smelling diesel fumes for a good fifteen minutes before departing for the Air China plane. We take off a good 20 minutes late (making my 3 hour and 10 minute flight feel like even that much longer) but I do manage to capture a neat image of Bejing from the air by night.
Air China provides us with another meal (meal #4 for me on this trip, I ate two other separate times on the United Flight).
I didn't quite trust the food (sorry, Air China) so I asked for a vegetarian option, again. It wasn't half bad, even if I still have no idea what it was. Finally, after 19 hours of flying time, I made it to Hong Kong. I figured that I'd be asleep, in bed, within an hour of stepping off the plane. Boy, was I wrong.
A few hours before landing in Bejing, I asked one of the United flight attendants if I needed to pick up my luggage and re-check it at the airport. She asked for and examined my boarding passes and luggage tags, and said that no, I did not need to pick up my luggage as it was checked all the way through to Hong Kong. This, as it turns out, is an incorrect statement, because after standing at the luggage carousel for a good twenty minutes, myself and a bunch of others realized that our luggage was not going to be in Hong Kong that night. My best guess is that my bags spent the night in the Peoples Republic of Bejing.
This ended my first day of traveling, finally asleep in Hong Kong, local time 11:30 (or so) PM.
