Have Finally Arrived!!!....24 hours behind schedule

This is a view of the North Pole from the plane.

And again, the North Pole.



I'm alive and well in Beijing!

My flight that was due to leave Dulles on Tuesday, June 10 was delayed due to mechanical problems. When we finally boarded, we sat on the runway for 3 hours because all planes were grounded due to inclement weather (If only United Airlines had had the foresight to fix the plane on time). We ran out of gas during this period, because the air conditioning was necessary to cool off the 300 passengers making their way to Beijing. After 3 hours on the runway, our flight crew became illegal, because if they had flown the 14 hour flight after having already spent 3 hours on the runway, they would have been outside of FAA regulations.

So, I spent the night in Sterling, VA, and finally boarded my plane at 10:30 am (your time)on Wednesday, June 11. I thought I was lucky enough to have a window seat until the girl in front of me pushed her seat back onto my knees. I'm getting pretty good at the Chinese art of passive-aggressive though (and it only took me one flight with 150 Chinese people!), so I simply left my windows open during the flight, and she got no sleep. And I had the bonus of looking out at the lovely mountains of Siberia for a good three hours (we did not fly east or west, but rather straight over the North Pole, it was gorgeous).

We landed here in Beijing at 11:30 am. The airport is gorgeous and when you look at it from above, it looks like a dragon. When we got off our plane we rode the train to the terminal to pick up our bags (it looked just like the monorail at Disney and was just as long) and then proceeded to wait for our ride.

I have to say, I made the right choice by traveling to China during the Olympics year, because everything is written in Chinese, with English underneath. The people can't say much beyond "Hello, What is your name?" but at least I can read the signs. I have a whole week of intensive language and culture class starting on Monday, and while I certainly won't master the language, maybe I'll be able to say more than Hello and Thank You.

So, all's well in Beijing thus far. I'm currently at a hotel, I will be moving into the dorm in two weeks (apparently this Olympics business sets everything back). The internet is far better at this hotel then they expect at the dorm, so I may be far more observant and perhaps long-winded in the next few weeks.