Happy House

Thursday, May 9, 2014

It was around 3:30 PM when we landed in Beijing, and after we negotiated customs and immigration we quickly retrieved our luggage and headed for ground transportation.  There was an impressive gauntlet of drivers with signs, and we found ours at the end of the line.  Peter (not his Chinese name) was there with his Viking River Cruises sign and had our name on his list.  Actually we were the only ones on his list, so we were able to leave right away without waiting for any other passengers.

On our way to the hotel, Peter shared a huge amount of information about Beijing and our tour.  One of the first things we learned about was the Happy House, or Happy Room.  In the US, we call it a restroom, in Canada it's a washroom, and in China it's a Happy Room or a Happy House.  Don't ask me why.  Peter also explained that the Chinese toilet is quite different from a western one, and that the guides would rate them for us using the 1-5 star system.  A 1-star is probably one we won't want to use, and the ones in our hotel will be 5-stars.  He also explained that we'll want to bring our own paper;  many public Happy Rooms don't have any.  I was prepared for this, thanks to friends who had been to China recently.  From this point on our guides were always careful to let us know when we should be sure to use the facilities in our hotel before we left for a tour.  I found myself drinking much less water than I normally do.

Sooooo, after about an hour's drive we arrived at the Kerry Hotel in Beijing.  The Kerry is beautiful, and the Happy Room is definitely a five-star accommodation.  In fact, the toilet was a Toto model with every electronic amenity you could imagine, and some you couldn't.  It's a good thing I didn't know about those when we built the house.

Since we were on our own this evening, we walked into the mall that's attached to the hotel and found a crowded noodle restaurant to get a light dinner.  A bowl of soup with some pork dumplings floating around seemed just right, along with a couple of Tsingtao beers.  Then we headed back to our room to rest up for tomorrow's adventures.

Back to the Beginning

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

With no need for the alarm I had set for 4:30 AM, I was up, showered, and urging David to get cracking. We had stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn at RDU, and would leave our car there during our trip.  Their van whisked us to the airport, and we checked our bags and got our boarding passes in short order.  I had tried to print those before we left home, but because China requires a Visa, they could not be printed without a document inspection.  Our flight to Chicago was uneventful, and since we had a four hour layover there, we settled in to the United Club, where I got my first Bloody Mary of the trip. They didn't really have much in the way of a proper breakfast there, so we went in search of that.  I tried to talk David into taking the bus over to Terminal B, where Wolfgang Puck has a restaurant, but as I wasn't successful, I settled for a greasy omelet from a stand.

Our flight was running a little late departing, but nothing major.  We're flying Business First, so we boarded with group one and quickly found our seats, only to be totally shocked that they are facing the rear of the plane!  Imagine sitting in your seat and looking out the window at the front of the wing and the intake of the jet.  The sensation of taking off was interesting, to say the least.  While the plane was boarding, we enjoyed a glass of wine and got acquainted with our home for the next fifteen hours, the Boeing 777.  Our seats reclined to various positions, including completely flat for sleeping, and of course, we each have a personal entertainment system.  David was watching a movie before we even took off!  Our flight attendant, Lena Horne-Harris, was delightful, but did not regale us with an aria.

Lena presented us with our menus for the flight, and we selected our salad, entree, and dessert from the choices.  Of course, now that it's two weeks later I don't remember much about what we ate, but for airplane food it was pretty good.  Being right next to the galley we got really personal service, and David and Lena hit it off immediately.  After dinner he got up and when he returned several minutes later he had two glasses of Amaretto, which were the perfect ending to the meal, and had the added benefit of making us sleepy.  The cabin lights were dimmed, we reclined our seats, and off we went into lala land.  Ok, not really, but we tried.  I think we got about four hours of broken sleep, which was probably about the right amount to allow for adjustment to the time change in China.

All of China is on the same time zone, and it's twelve hours later there than on the East coast when we're observing daylight saving time.  That may seem odd, as the time gets earlier as you head west, but at some point you cross the International Date Line, and suddenly it's the next day.

Breakfast was served about an hour and a half before our arrival in Beijing.  I chose the omelet with ham and potatoes, and David had the Congee, a Chinese porridge.  I guess he was trying to get into the trip, but it looked pretty nasty to me, and I'm not an unadventurous eater.  Besides, a Bloody Mary goes better with eggs than with porridge.

After breakfast, we get cleaned up and before we know it (yeah, right!) we've landed in Beijing.

And it's already Thursday afternoon.

Last Things First

We're Home!

Since I wasn't able to post anything from China (their government blocks blogger.com), I'll catch up now that we're home.  And since our journey home was pretty eventful, I'll start with that, and then go back to the beginning.

Tuesday morning after breakfast, I got a text from United that our flight from Shanghai to Chicago was delayed and would be departing an hour and forty minutes late.  That shortened our connection time to 89 minutes, one minute less than a "legal" connection.  Still, we felt confident that we could make the connecting flight, and since we had purchased trip insurance, we'd be compensated for any costs related to a travel delay (hotel room and meals in Chicago).

Our flight boarded at its newly scheduled time, and we settled into our comfortable business-first seats as the flight attendants rushed around getting everything ready for departure.  I knew something was up when we were not offered beverage service as soon as we boarded.  An announcement was made urging everyone to be seated quickly as "we need to get this aircraft airborne by six pm or we won't be leaving."  (I'll explain in later posts about the Asian economic summit that was taking place in Shanghai during our visit, but it appears a VIP was landing, and the entire airport would come to a grinding halt when he, or perhaps she, landed).  So off we taxied, and taxied, and taxied...around in a big circle.  The pilot announced that we had "lost our slot", and would be taking off in ten or fifteen minutes.  About an hour after we boarded, we finally took off.  At that time we were sure we would miss our connecting flight in Chicago.

During dinner we encountered some turbulence.  Trays were crashing in the galley, and we were struggling to keep our wine from spilling.  The turbulence continued on and off throughout the entire flight.  Mind you, we're at 40,000 feet, where weather is rarely a problem.  I'm guessing every thirty minutes or so the seat belt light would come on, we'd bump around for a while, the pilot would change altitude, things would smooth out, and then the cycle would repeat.  This made it difficult to get much sleep.  It's a fourteen hour flight.

Upon arrival in Chicago we cleared immigration quickly with our Global Entry status, and went to retrieve our luggage.  Even though our bags were tagged priority, they took about half an hour to come off, and by the time we got down to the baggage re-check and customer service area there were a lot of people ahead of us.  I had gotten a text confirming us on a flight out Wednesday morning, but we needed to confirm that and have the airline arrange our hotel.

In the past two weeks I learned that the Chinese culture is vastly different from ours, and many passengers on this flight were Chinese.  They have no concept of "personal space", don't understand waiting their turn in line, and have no problem pushing someone aside to ensure their needs are met.  Those of you who know me will understand that I would not tolerate that well.  Understatement of the decade....

We have our flight, we have confirmed seats, but there are no rooms in Chicago.  Period.  There's a restaurant convention taking place and every single hotel is booked solid.  We get a voucher for $74.10 for a room at Rodeway Inn.  Those of you who know me know that I'm not a Rodeway Inn kinda gal.  Still, we head outside to wait for the shuttle, which the United agent had confirmed was on the way to pick us up, and would be there in about twenty minutes.  I get a severe thunderstorm alert for ORD on my phone.....

After standing outdoors in the thunderstorm for about 40 minutes, I called the hotel (or maybe the Rodeway Inn is a Motel?), and am assured that the shuttle is on the way...please be patient.  Twenty minutes later, still no shuttle, and the Hyatt Regency shuttle pulls up and picks up some of the other people who were on our flight....WHAT?  I get Rodeway Inn and there are rooms at the Hyatt?  The driver asks us if we want to go to the Hyatt, and I said if they have a room, sure!  He says that they do, so we go.  After all, our trip insurance will pay anyway, so who cares about the airline voucher.  I jump off the shuttle at the hotel and head to the desk while David retrieves the luggage.  I explain to the desk clerk that I don't have a reservation, but that their driver said they have rooms and I need one of them.  No....they have no rooms.  None.  Zero.  Nada.

Back downstairs.  David has a "conversation" with the transportation manager for the Hyatt, who agrees that the driver shouldn't have told us that rooms were available and offers to take us back to the airport.  Whoopee.

We decide to check in for our 6 AM flight and spend the night in the United Club lounge.  It's reasonably comfortable and I can get a glass (or 8) of wine there.  After waiting in line for about half an hour we get our bags checked, get through security, and head for the lounge.  The automatic doors don't open.  A receptionist appears and whispers that they close in eight minutes, pointing to the sign that says their hours are 4:30 AM to 10:00 PM.  I won't say that I cried at this point, but it was really close.  Remember, we've been up since 5:30 AM Tuesday, Shanghai time, which is 4:30 PM Monday, Chicago time.  It's now 10 PM Tuesday, Chicago time.

So....we spent the night walking the terminals.  We'd walk for a while, then sit for a while, then walk for a while, then sit for a while, then...well, you get the idea.  Everything in the terminal closes at 10 pm.  We managed to get two glasses of wine to go at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant right before they closed.  Starbucks is the only thing that stays open 24 hours, and we got a great salad and sandwich there.  We were certainly not the only stranded passengers, and later in the early morning we decided we'd get a latte.  When we arrived at Starbucks the line was ridiculously long.  It took us ninety minutes to get our latte.

Wolfgang Puck's restaurant opens at 4:30 AM, so we go there for breakfast;  they have a decent breakfast pizza.  Then we head to the gate for our flight to Raleigh.  After a relatively uneventful flight (I think I slept about an hour), we land, exit the plane, and find our dear friend, MJ, who was in Raleigh for business, waiting for us at our arrival gate.  I have never seen a more beautiful sight!  We had a nice, although much too short, visit before our shuttle arrived to take us to our car.

And now we're home.

Nighty-night!

The alarm will be going off at 4:30 AM, so it's time to try to sleep.  We decided to have a rather simple dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill;  I don't think my nervous stomach would have enjoyed anything gourmet.

One more sleep!

The Excitement is Building!

The day has finally arrived! I have an appointment to get my hair cut this morning, and when I get home from that, we'll hit the road. It's less than two hours to Raleigh, so plenty of time for a relaxing dinner before an early bedtime.  I realized when I pulled the drapes open this morning that it will be the last time for two weeks that I do that.  Isn't it funny how the daily routine becomes special when you take a break from it?  I'll enjoy our adventure, but I'm positive that I'll be just as happy to be opening those drapes again in a couple of weeks.

I keep checking the United Airlines website to see if I can check in yet for our flights.  So far no luck  :(

Mundane Monday

While our adventure technically begins tomorrow with an overnight in Raleigh prior to our early morning flights, today will be filled with the mundane tasks of housecleaning and laundry for me, and grass-cutting for David.  Packing will be pretty much completed by bedtime tonight.  How on earth can the day before be so boring?

Aah...packing!

Packing for this trip has become quite the adventure. Since we're traveling on three intra-China flights during our trip, we have to comply with their baggage allowances. Carry on bags cannot exceed eleven pounds! My carry on weighs eight pounds empty, so adjustments must be made.