Welcome to the FX hotel. Give us your money!!!

The flight from SFO to Beijing was very uneventful. My brilliant plan of "stay up all night before your flight leaves" yielded very poor results on the way to the airport, as I was super tired, but is genius for trans-Pacific flights as you can't help but sleep almost the whole way. I sweet-talked the gate agent into giving me Economy Plus without having to pay for the upgrade, so I was able to have a little more room than usual. I woke up only to eat, which is pretty impressive for 12 hour flight.

Landing in Beijing was quite a trip for me--the last time I was in Beijing it was 1997 and things were completely different. Terminal 3, the new international terminal completed for the Olympics, is spanking new and enormous. It has a beautiful, skylit roof, that resembles the Needler gun from Halo 1 on the outside, but results in a fascinating architectural element on the inside. The immigration line was typically LONG, since China always puts all foreign nationals in one line and you are stuck behind all the Filipinos trying to come into the country without a visa. I waited so long that the immigration officials actually opened up the Chinese Nationals section to everyone. I immediately defected and ran over there and got waved through no problem. I even conversed with the agent in Chinese! Yay, me!

Baggage was already on the carousel, so that was easy. I was able to take a shuttle from the airport to the FX Hotel, which was pre-arranged by the Beijing Daxue people. The hotel is OK, it's very modern styling, but somewhat impractical. The room is tiny and has almost no storage space. We'll have to see what happens when Jessica arrives; we may not both fit. The hotel also tried to suck me into paying 30 days up front, to which I said no way--we agreed on 2 weeks in advance.

I went to what I thought was Panos' room but found Mike Logan instead, hanging out with his friend Cordell (who lives in Beijing). We chatted for a while and then went to get dinner. We just walked around the area until we saw a place that was crowded. It turned out to be an "everything on a stick" restaurant that was REALLY tasty and so cheap! We had chicken wings, beef skin muscle, lamb, chicken hearts and grilled bread plus green papaya salad and tomatoes with two beers all for just 50 Yuan (approx. $7). Mike and I plan to hang out and use our Chinese skills together. We're kind of the Wonder Twins on this one, him being a halfie as well.

I had grand plans to read more of China: Fragile Superpower for Goddard, but am pretty tired. The beer got to me I think. I will just hit the sack and get up fresh for tomorrow.

Off with a bang!

I'm finally off! Friday was a crazy mix of running errands, packing, tying up loose ends and taking Caroline to Sky Harbor. I made my necessary farewells to everyone and got a ride to the airport (6am, ugh) from Morgan, whom I bamboozled into giving me a ride the other night.

I'm finally excited to hit Beijing--I also managed to fit everything into my nice normal sized orange LL Bean bag. Everyone else brought like ridiculous amounts of clothes and bags and whatever. I'll just buy what I need. I'm hoping Beijing won't be too cold, as I did not bring a serious winter coat; I plan to have James In Beijing's tailor, Mr. Ding, hook me up with a cute little 18th century riding habit style coat. Yes, like the Cylons, I have a plan.

I just have to get through the flight to SFO on US Airways, and then the 14 hour long trans Pacific flight to Beijing. Donny (our Beida contact) promises to have a bus pick us up at the airport at 4pm local time on Sunday. See you all on the flip side!