It's just after 5:00 Saturday afternoon as we head south from Beijing to Hanoi.....5 a.m. Saturday back in Columbus. After getting up at 5:30 Friday to catch my first flight, I have yet to sleep. With luck, I'll be in my hotel room in 3-4 hours and nothing that has to be done until my first meeting at 7:45 Monday morning.
The day has been pretty uneventful. The first flight, to Newark, left and arrived early. My duffel bag, into which I cram my wires, backup hard drives, and the like, got security's attention and was flagged for extra screening' Fortunately, I look too old to be perceived as a danger to anybody.
Boarding for the 13 1/2 hour flight to Beijing started early, and it wasn't until I got to the head of the line that I was told my boarding pass needed to be stamped again at the gate. It DOES seem that security stations around the globe are competing to see which can add the most redundant procedures. I actually got to direct a middle-aged Chinese lady to her (my) gate. Surprisingly, the long flight was not as taxing as I had feared...plenty of reading material plus fully charged laptops and music player. There were 138 movies available (well, about 120 once you stripped out those available in multiple languages. A coupole even dated back a shade...as in Easy Rider and some early Brando. I wound up watching Hannah and Inglourious Basterds, neither of which is worth seeking out. About 2/3 of the (full) plane was Chinese nationals. We were fed three times, with none of the food being memorable in either direction. My seatmate was a 30-ish accountant who had spent 7 years in Columbus getting his B.S. and MBA from OSU. This was his first trip to China, and was heading straight from there to another business trip to Brazil. He's working for some international accounting firm in Houston. The flight attendants (12 in all) were amusing....two had the demeanor of drill seargents, and quickly put several running kids and self-absorbed passengers in their places.
Wish I had booked a window seat for that flight. Our route took us north through Maine, along the eastern side of Hudson Bay, traversing Greenland south to north, then over the arctic ice cap and through Russia and Mongolia to Beijing. We didn't get any really good views until the great wall of China, but that was because most people shut their window shades and slept.
We disembarked late in Beijing because the terminals are in China while the runways are near Santiago. The airport is very modern from the outside, but needing a good cleaning inside. There was relatively little traffic in the terminal or on the surrounding freeways...I suspect that was a function of this being the weekend. I got lost in the terminals twice, and barely made my plane. People were universally friendly, but their command of English was limited and my knowledge of Mandarin is limited to La Choy. Signs are in both Mandarin and English, but were rather sparse.
This Vietnam Airlines plane is spotless, and the attendants are impeccably groomed. Decided to jump right into food culture and have the tariyaki eel for lunch...it was OK, but I suspect there is much better to be had outside of this metal tube hurtling through thin air. The Vietnamese coffee to close the meal was superb, as was the Vietnam national beer (Halida).
That's about all of the excitement so far today. Time to shut this down and re-read the initial reports for the bank where I start Monday.
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