Oy. FUCK. Trans-Pacific flights are a bitch.
We got up this morning at the crack of dawn-- actually earlier-- to make the trek to the airport and get on going to Beijing via O'Hare. All went pretty well until we got to the airport: true to fashion for this group, we were given limited information and got yelled at when we did what we were told, not what they had in mind. We made it through, though, and everything worked out peachy. I even got to sit next to my new friend Guitarman on the plane to Chicago.
Got a hot dog for lunch at O'Hare-- did you know that in Chicago a hot dog with "everything" comes with mustard, onions, a dill pickle spear, hot peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers, all ON the dog?? Crazy shit, that.
The Klatch worked it out so our seats were all together on the Beijing flight, which was easy because the flight was nowhere near full. That even got me moved up to Economy Plus, which has more legroom!! I got to sit with Pixie B, our bassoonist, and we had all three seats to ourselves. The Muse will be exceptionally proud of the movies I got to watch-- The Queen, All The King's Men, and Man of the Year. Pixie B taught me a great new card game from Japan that I'll talk about more later.
Everything went pretty well until the intermission between films two and three, where all the hip chicks were gathered around our group of seats and giggling. We were catching up after two to four years of being apart in some cases-- gossip had to be shared and jokes made. It was dark out, and this part of the flight functions as sleep-time, so the steward comes up and makes a snarky comment about how we need to keep it down because this is an overnight flight and people have paid "thousands of dollars" for this flight. Now, I've seen our e-tickets for our itinerary, and I know the flight from O'Hare to Beijing is killer expensive, but honestly people. We were served ramen noodles for the next meal, and it's not as if we could sleep-- they came by every forty-five minutes to wake us up to ask if we wanted water. Endless amounts of giggling ensued for a minute, but then we sat down to watch the next movie.
Arrival in Beijing was pretty easy and we got to the hotel all right-- the Plaza Royal Hotel Beijing, the only Five-Star Platinum HoJo I've ever heard of. The hotel staff here is fantastic-- they know we speak little to no Mandarin, and most of them speak at least a little English. (Honestly, I hate being that person who expects everyone to speak English in another country, but I could barely remember the words, much less the inflections to give them the right meaning... I've got Hello, Thank You, and I Don't Want Any pretty much down and I think that may be the extent of it for the time being.)
We get breakfast and dinner on travel days and concert days we get all three meals, and the hotel restaurant has a great dinner service. It's pretty much split between Chinese cuisine (the real kind) and improvised American food. Good stuff. They even give you filtered water with meals (water here is basically non-potable for Americans-- you could do it but you'd have the trots for a good while, and maybe worse) and their coffee is amazing. All righty-- sleepy time here-- I'm about dead and I get to sleep until 8(!!) tomorrow before we go downtown to to a little sight-seeing. Lata!
