The alarm went off earlier than we wanted it to after a day of final pre-trip preparation and a fitful night of sleep. We got up and ready to hit the road. Our 4 kids all woke up to say goodbye and wish us luck. We pulled out of the garage at 6:30AM and made our way to the airport. Traffic wasn't bad and we knew it paled in comparison to what we'll see when we get to China. We parked the car in the short term garage as Julie's sister and husband were planning to come down later that day and pick it up for us. (Thank you!) We checked our bags and had the first of many visa inspections done before they could print our boarding passes. We have 4 suitcases with us, 3 larger and a roll aboard that we'll be able to consolidate into one of the larger ones once we give the gifts we are bringing to the orphanage directors and nannies.
Our flight to Chicago was early, which contrasted nicely with the cancellation we had coming back from LA on vacation. Weather makes all of the difference! We had a long layover here which we planned on purpose to make sure we had time in the event there were delays or anything that could cause us some issues. We wandered around Chicago O'Hare, ate breakfast and watched the planes get loaded, push back and new planes take their spot. It's really neat to see the effort that goes into making commercial air travel actually happen. Finally it was our time to board the plane that would be home for the next 14-ish hours.
Not a whole lot to say about the flight other than it was smooth, we landed in Beijing 30 minutes early and we watched a lot of TV shows, movies and slept. Once we parked the plane we offloaded into buses to be taken to the terminal. We exited the bus and got in the long line for customs. It took almost an hour to clear customs and was pretty warm with little air movement. We zombie walked through the serpentine until it was finally our turn. I was surprised that social media apps worked on the cellular network as I expected them all to be blocked. GMail, Facebook, Twitter and Swarm all worked like they do back home. We have an Intentional plan on our lines which was easier than dealing with foreign SIM cards and different phone numbers in case anyone needed to get in touch with us back home.
After customs, we joined the mob of people to go to baggage claim. Usually you ride trains from the arrivals terminal to the terminal where the baggage claim is, but the trains were broken today so it was all buses. This caused a lot of confusion and delay and people with tight connections were getting anxious. I had read that transiting PEK can be an exercise in patience and we had booked another long layover to try and compensate for it. We were not stressed, just tired and wanted to get to the next step. It took another hour to get to the baggage claim hall and get our suitcases (YAY! They all made it!). We took to them to domestic transfer desk and yep - you guessed it - got into another line. LOL. Here people were really freaking out as they were missing flights due to the train delay. Also, Asia in general seems to have a broad acceptance of what can be considered checked baggage. You have a box? Awesome, rig it with tape and you're good to go. You have a plastic bag? Entomb it with even more tape and they'll take it. It's really mind blowing to watch and we've seen it in Asia more than anywhere. Of course, your home-brew box turned luggage slows the process down for everyone. Another 45 minutes go by before we drop our stuff off and go to domestic security.
Domestic security in China is a lot like TSA back home, but no Pre-Check option. They also inspect your portable batteries very closely which I am surprised doesn't happen more in the USA as well. The lines are much smaller here but it still takes more time to go through. We both clear and are finally airside in the domestic terminal. We kill the next 2.5 hours in the Air China Star Alliance Gold lounge, which is a bit of a benefit from travel for work. Unfortunately, there are a lof of Star Alliance Gold people flying tonight and it took us a while to get seats in a very large lounge. We enjoyed some steamed buns (curry and chicken for me and veggie for Julie), some coffee, water, Coke Zero, more coffee, more water, etc. It was a pleasant experience and the time went faster than you'd think.
It's finally time for our flight to Xi'an so we wander down to the gate and hang out. As it is getting much closer to time to take off people start to ask when we are boarding. As it turns out, our inbound plane was delayed and they didn't have an ETA for us to leave. Killed some more time and boarded as soon as we could, which was almost an hour after our originally scheduled departure time. I more or less fell asleep as soon as we sat down and when I woke an hour later, imagine my surprise to realize we were still on the ground and hadn't moved. Just like back home, when there is a delay, you lose your take off slot and need to wait to get a new one. PEK is a busy airport and we apparently were pretty low on their list of people to take care of so we sat for another hour before finally taking off.
It was an uneventful 1h40m flight to Xi'an and we were happy when we landed even though it was very late. We went to get our bags and were happy to see all 4 of them on the belt. With bags in tow we exited the hall and saw someone with a sign and our names. Thank goodness! I'm not sure what we would have done had she not been there, especially in the zombie-like state of mind we were in. We loaded our stuff into the car and 30ish minutes later they were dropping us off at hotel and we were checked in.
We went to our room, took showers after a 32+ hour day of travel and hit the hay pretty hard. Tomorrow, Saturday, is a free day for us in Xi'an and while nobody wants to spend an extra day away from their family, our strategy paid off with the delays incurred throughout the day. We really were not stressed as we had plenty of time and just followed what we needed to do. Tomorrow is a new adventure!
Operation Gotcha - Day 13
Operation Gotcha - Day 13
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