End Run

(This post should have preceded "18 Million People, 6 Million Cars".)


Beijing


After two days of trying and failing to get onto the blog site ("The server is busy") but
having access to everything else, it occurred to me that that site was blocked. As our
native guide, Kevin (aka Yang but Dances With Wolves is his favorite American movie
so his "American" name is Kevin as in Costner), has told us with a wink, "Remember
that China is a communist country." He also pointed out some of the umpteen kazillion
cameras--Big Brother is watching.

To summarize the journey: we left Chicago at noon on Tuesday and 13 hours later we
arrived in Beijing at 14:04 Wednesday. I've dubbed it the Nap and Nibble run. United
has a whacky-doodle seat configuration, some face forward and some backward. Lucky
us, we were in rear-facing seats that looked directly into the (brightly lighted the whole
way) galley. It's been my experience that on long haul flights, the flight attendants will
pull the curtain that blocks light from and access to the galley. Not so much on United.
FYI, after the meal was served, they doused the cabin lights (it was maybe 3 pm) and
adjourned to the above mentioned galley and raided the frig!!! The food was mediocre,
the headphones were uncomfortable (for some reason the airlines have reconfigured
the entertainment consoles so the wonderful and pricey, noise-canceling Bose, etc,
cannot be plugged in, but the sound was garbled, so it didn't really matter.

Our route took us up and over Canada, the Arctic and then down. Every once in a
while I'd peek out the window and see nothing but ice. No truckers or polar bears. On
those long flights you eat, watch a movie, read some of your book, play a little Angry
Birds and think, we must be more than half-way by now. Then you check your watch
and realize you've been gone 3-1/2 hours with 9-1/2 to go. And that's why God made
Ambien and Sonata.

The Beijing airport is HUGE! EVerything in Beijing is huge. It is also very murky. Kevin
told us that no manufacturing is allowed w/in the city limits, but they have cars. Lots of
cars. Millions of cars. But more on that later.

We got to the hotel at 5 pm and went straight to our room. I was asleep in my clothes on
top of the bed by 5:15. At 4:30 am, I was up as was the sun. Sunrise is around 4:30. Of
course, it is so murky and hazy that you really don't see the sun. I broke out the iPad to
post a blog with no luck.

I'm going to email this to Jay so he can post it for me. Thus the end run. They don't call
me Susan Bourne for nothing. The story of how I left Amsterdam without entry stamp

in Bristol, England is for another day. Jay said I had the perfect cover for a spy: middle-
aged (bless you my son for that) suburban mom.

Next blog will be about our first full day in Beijing.