Travel and Arrival

Notes from February 6, 2010, 9:31 p.m. Beijing

The traveling was smooth and uneventful. All the planes were on time, even early. The thirteen-hour flight between Newark and Beijing was about as expected: hard to get through. After we were fed the first and most substantial of three in-flight meals, I slept for about an hour and a half. I finished my book five hours before the flight was over, then alternated between trying to sleep, eating again (and again), watching the flight map and statistics, and looking at the beginnings of movies or snippets from old TV shows (The King and I, LOTR III, The Philadelphia Story, Hill Street Blues), and playing freecell -- all of the latter on the little screen on the back of the seat in front of me. There were 338 movies to choose from, though that tally is a little deceptive because it includes, in many cases, several versions of the same movie but with different subtitles (Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese). When you choose a movie to watch, in many cases you also get the choice of a bunch of different dubbings (many more languages than just Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese). Contrary to what the clerk told me when I called Continental last week, I could find no evidence of an outlet into which to plug my computer, but that was okay because my computer was out of reach in the overhead bin anyhow.

We flew north out of Newark, over Albany and Montreal and eventually over far northern Canada. Eventually we headed southward across Siberia and Mongolia. The result was that out of the only window I could see that had an open shutter, what was visible for most of the flight was a pre-dawn or post-sunset sky -- for hours and hours and hours.

The flight map makes it easier to visualize why the sunrise/sunset thing is happening. The global view shows the areas of daylight and night moving across the surface of the earth, and we were flying not that far from the demarcation line for most of the trip.

*****

Finally -- Beijing. It was exciting to get sight of it, and a little depressing as well. The air looked a lot like brown pea soup, and given that it’s winter but there’s no snow-cover, the ground looked all brown and dusty as well.

We landed at 2:40 p.m. The process from there included a gate where we had to hand in a form (filled in while still in flight) about whether we might have H1N1 flu, with the threat of quarantine if “they” thought we might. Then a big hall with maybe 15 lines for immigration: 2/3 of the lines for “Chinese Nationals,” 1/3 for “Foreigners.” This took a very long time; several of the people ahead of me did not get waved through quickly. I saw one young man led away by a customs officer -- maybe to more questioning? I don’t know. I got through with no trouble, then waited for my baggage. When I finally came out and saw Jamie in the crowd, I was happy and relieved beyond words. When they had given us the flu/quarantine form on the plane, all I could think of was what a fiasco it would be to be quarantined for swine flu instead of finally, after all that travel, meeting up with Jamie. Luckily it didn’t happen that way.

We took a long cab ride with a driver who wasn’t sure where the hotel was, even though Jamie had printed out some Google Maps pictures. But she got us here with no trouble. We’re in a neighborhood that is local instead of touristy (I’ve seen only a handful of Caucasian faces right around here in almost a week), urban but not skyscraper urban. The room is tiny but clean and pleasant, just about big enough for us and all the luggage. We got here at about 5:00 o’clock, took a breath, and went out to see the neighborhood and get some dinner. As we started walking down a big street Jamie said, “Any impressions so far?” Exhausted and overwhelmed and hardly able to believe I was actually here, all I could say was, “Lotta Chinese people.”

:)