Day 1, 2, 3 Travel to Beijing

Monday, May 10, 2010

My Dad picked me up at my house around 5:15, we stopped off at Nordstrom where I got a chicken wrap and non-fat Ice Storm. (my addiction.) There were a couple students on campus when I first arrived, everyone else started arriving around 6:30, we started loading the bus around 7:30. There are 40 of us on the tour, 37 students, myself, James Melton and his assistant Teresa Dovel. We are all assigned a number (I'm number 22) and responsible for an extra piece of luggage - I have a suitcase of PR materials, other students instruments or sound equipment. I learned most of the student's names on the trip up to the airport. I sat in a defective seat that had a floppsy arm rest and permanently reclined seat. Good thing Bobby Laumea is a good sport. Also around me were Dustin Ginn, Amy, Tyler and Joshua Avne. Tyler wasn't feeling well, so a bunch of kids laid hands on him and we all joined Clinton in praying for him.

At the airport, Teresa and I passed out the passports and we lined up to go through check-in by number. The travel agent had misspelled two of the student's names on their ticket, so we had to pay $100/misspelled name (The travel agent needs to reimburse that). As we checked in we sat on the floor in front of a store, I passed out oranges and cookies and we were enjoying our visiting when one of the students came over and informed us that they weren't going to let us on the plane because our luggage was too heavy. Those of us that were already checked in gathered in a circle and prayed that we would be able to get on the plane - about 5 of the students prayed aloud right there in the Bradley Terminal - this is going to be a great trip, I'm surrounded by prayer warriors. About 15 minutes later someone came over and said we were good to go - apparently the person we were dealing with had less than stellar math skills. Going through security was easy and we didn't have to wait long at the gate before boarding the plane.

Luckily, the plan is divided into sections of 3 seats, so my worst fear is unfounded (being in the center of a 5 seat section). I am in the middle seat on one of the sides next to Josh Avne and a woman named Fawnny. Both are very nice and quiet. The seats are interesting , they don't really recline, so the back of the seat in front of you doesn't get any closer to your face, but the inside of the seats slide down a little so you do get to recline a bit. I was asleep before the plane pulled away from the gate, woke up about an hour later and asked Josh if we'd taken off yet - he confirmed we had. I slept for about 6 hours an hour or so at a time. I started to watch Crazy Heart - paused it, turned it back on, dozed off and caught the last 10 minutes. I spent the last 3 hours of the flight reading the book "Same Kind of Different as Me", the book RIch preached on last Sunday. What a great book, EVERYONE should read it, it's easy to read, but be prepared with a box of Kleenex. It's the true story of a homeless black man and a white art dealer and his wife and how their lives intersect. While I read it I listened to Ella and Louis, Rollando Villazon and Anna Netrebko and a couple of Brandenburg Concertos (David sounds better) through the plane's music selection. I was only mildly claustrophobic near the beginning, but then after a while, it was hard to imagine not being in my tiny little space. twice in the 14.5 hours we were on the plane we were fed. Unfortunately, I wasn't hungry when they fed us dinner, so I only had the rice, olive and shrimp salad and part of the dinner roll. I wasn't hungry for breakfast either, so I only had half of the breakfast sandwich - which was tasty. A couple of hours later I was hungry, and Fawnny returned to her seat with an apple - she got it at the back of the plane, I went back there and got the last one - yum.

It's Wednesday morning, May 12. Hong Kong is misty, so I can't see a lot from the plane or while we are in the airport, but the steeply rising mountains (hills?) look cool. There are 5 of us that are on a different flight to Beijing, James (aka Doc), Jeff Melton, Jenny and Josh A (there are 2 Joshes, 2 Kevins, 2 Dustins), when we got off the flight the gate was 19, so Jenny Josh and I walked to gate 19 while James and Jeff stayed behind to help sort out the misspelled name issue for this leg of the flight. Gate 19 is the farthest gate in the concourse from the security exit and when we got there, we found out that the gate was changed to gate 64, so back to the center, on to a train to another concourse and another hike to Gate 64. Not that we were complaining, it was good to get the exercise.

The flight to Beijing is 3 hours, I'm on an aisle seat (yippee) and there is more leg room on this flight than the last. It's not as fancy as there are only a couple of screens and we don't get a choice of which movie to watch, so I'm watching some fantasy movie - the lightening bolt thief - or something like that. Breakfast was a choice of chicken with potato or Dim Sum. I chose the dim sum - it was quite good, but not quite what I'm used to eating at 9am. But this is all about new experiences. I can hardly wait to brush my teeth, my brush and paste are in my checked luggage, I'll definitely remedy that on the flight back.

Beijing is set up in 6 concentric rings (used to be 5 until recently) Pretty much, where we are in Beijing could be a U.S. or European city, the architecture is all very modern and not asian. The Hotel (Chong Wen Men) is in the middle of Beijing, in the first ring. Its' nice and comfortable, although the beds are the hardest I've ever slept on, I am so tired, I don't care. After checking in, taking a shower and resting for about 1/2 hour, Dustin G and Josh R stopped by to pick me up to go shop at H&R (there's an H&R across the street.) 9 of us went exploring - we had 2 hours before dinner. We found that clothes in Beijing for the same label are the same price or higher in Beijing as they are in the U.S. The clothes at H&M were the same or similar as what's in our stores in O.C. We wandered several blocks saw 3 or 4 malls that remind me of the malls in Chicago - from the outside they look like office buildings , but once inside it's a mall that's 5 - 8 stories. We found 2 great bakeries with free samples. They had cinnamon bread that looked so good for about $1/loaf. We all want to come back here. at about 5:30, we all came back to the hotel and rested until the 6:30 call time for dinner.

Dinner is literally next door to the hotel, we have a room all to ourselves with 3 large tables with the Lazy Susan in the middle - our lazy susan doesn't work, so we have to manually turn the glass as plates are placed on it. It is about an hour before the food arrives, I am so tired I almost go back to the room without dinner, but force myself to stay. The food is mostly good, we had a dish something like kung pau, beef, steamed bok choy, some eggplant dish that tasted a lot like oil, a sliced potato dish that's very good, bananas with caramelized sugar, rice, egg drop soup that tastes like custard, and sweet and sour chicken (the best plate of the evening). Afterwards, we are going to go to get an ice cream bar, but the place is not open, so at about 9 - 9:30 we go back to our hotels and go to sleep.