China Part 2: Beijing Day 1

A 12-hour flight is hard. The worst part is actually the sitting -- my butt hurt about an hour and a half into the flight, and all the rest of the way. I did have time to read over 200 pages of my friend Chuck's novel, so that was good, but on the way back I took the pillow they gave me and sat on it all the way back to LA. That helped a little.

We landed in Beijing in the afternoon, but 1:00 AM West Coast time. We stayed up until 10:00 China time, but jet lag does not go away in a day, and I woke up at 3:00 AM.

So I was tired when we started the day, and the first thing we did was took a fairly long bus drive to the jade shop. It turns out that shopping is something you do on a tour, more than you would ever choose to on your own. Jackie got some nice jade earrings, but I was feeling ill. Next stop was lunch, and I skipped it. Then on to the Great Wall, our first big attraction, with me feeling terrible. But I got out of the bus and walked with Jackie up some steps and walked around, although I was in no shape to go up the hill. All my pictures that day are blurred at the top and bottom for some reason, but I have a picture to prove we were at the Great Wall. It really is pretty amazing -- wide and tall and running up the hills and across the hilltops in both directions, with lots of little towers. Some of our group walked all the way to the top of that hill behind us, but several stayed close to the bottom.

We had an hour and a half at the wall, and as I walked around, I felt much better. I realized that I had been feeling motion sickness. I used to get carsick as a kid, but as an adult I mostly only get seasick, and that only a couple of times although I have been on many boats. But at least two other times -- once in St. Lucia and once in Canada -- I got sick on buses when I was really exhausted. Fortunately, getting out of the bus for a good long time was the cure, and I felt fine the rest of the trip.

Next stop was the Beijing Zoo, and guess what we saw there? This guy in the picture was hiding in the back, and I silently willed him to come out and give us some good pictures. And he did, wandered all around and then stretched out and posed for us. I love it when ridiculous stuff works. There were some little baby pandas too, plenty of pandas.

Dinner was Peking Duck. It was good, but they wrap it up like Mu She Pork and put plum sauce on it and pieces of cucumber, and then you can't taste the duck as much. There was lots of duck, so I just ate some of it plain. During that meal they introduced us to Chinese firewater, which I have since learned is the most-consumed alcoholic beverage in the world. It's about 50 percent alcohol, served in very small glasses. For those who have tried Aguardiente, that's the closest thing I know of. One of our group, Cedric, took a great liking to firewater, and that became an ongoing joke for the whole trip.

By then of course we had met all of the 11 other people in our tour group and spent the day with our tour guide, Nina (actually Li Nan, but our guides took English names for us.) It was a nice group, and we liked Nina, so things were off to a good start.

China, Part 1: "Call Your Wife"

Going to China takes a bit of preparation. You have to get a visa, which is no small task. It is also recommended that you get certain inoculations, which we did at the local pharmacy. In our case, we also booked a hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express near LAX, because the flight to China takes 12 hours, and we did not want to fly to LA and then fly 12 more hours without rest.

So the Friday before Thanksgiving, we left the boys in charge of the house and headed for the airport. The flight was no problem, and we called our hotel from LAX and waited for the courtesy bus. When the bus arrived, the driver asked us to leave our bags at the back rather than take them on the bus with us, and he loaded them in the back. We drove to the hotel, through some bad LA traffic. When we got to the hotel, the driver unloaded our two bags. Trouble was, we had three bags. Jackie and I both stuck our heads in the back of the van to be sure, but our carry-on was not there.

The best we could guess was that the driver failed to load the third bag into the van. So now what? I headed back to the airport with the driver to find the bag, while Jackie checked into the room. All I could think was that my passport was in that bag, as well as all of our medicines and my CPAP machine. If we can't find that bag, we aren't going to China. I was pretty much in shock all the way back to the airport, and traffic getting into the airport was worse than getting out had been, so for 20 minutes I sat there wondering if our trip was already trashed. As we got close to the terminal, traffic was heavy enough that I got out of the bus and walked ahead to find the bag. And thankfully, there it was. Some fine person had grabbed it and set it up against a pillar.

I grab the bag and turn around to find the bus. "Sir!" "Sir!" "Is that your bag sir?" I look behind me, across a couple of lanes to the sidewalk in front of the terminal, and there are three airport security guards and a cop. Turns out one of them is the fine person who noticed the bag, and they have been watching it and now want to talk to me. Fortunately their main concern is making sure it's my bag, and since my passport is in it, it doesn't take long to convince them. They make fun of me a bit (except the cop, who is very serious) and tell me to keep an eye on my bag. By the time I am allowed to take my bag and go, the bus is waiting for me. I get on and sink back into the seat, so relieved. The bus driver says, "Call your wife." Good idea.

It turns out that Jackie had lost her driver's license somewhere in Seatac airport, but she had her passport with her, and that is good enough identification anywhere you go. The biggest bit of drama for the trip was behind us at that point, and the next day I took a picture of our plane while we were waiting to board. Next stop, Beijing.