FROM BEIJING, CHINA

(click on image to enlarge)

A Long Day

BEIJING, Mar 20, 2007 - When I arrived at the Phoenix airport on Sunday Mar 19 for my next trip around the world, the place looked like a zoo.  People, and not just bags, seemed to be hanging from the rafters.  "What on earth is going on?" I wondered.  And then it dawned on me... the "March break," an annual rite in America that gets millions of students and their families on the move.

Even the first class line was snaking around for several hundred yards.  So my first thought was that while I may make it to China, given all the TSA (security) rules and restrictions these days, my bag may not.  But that was not the worst of it...

When I finally made it to the counter, after about 30 mins in the line, the America West agent informed me that my first flight, from Phoenix to Los Angeles, had been canceled.  "It figures," I thought.  "No wonder people have nicknamed this airline America Worst."  And I had had that happen to me more than once before, usually before or after some long trans-Pacific flights.

My only hope, I realized, was to try to charm the female African American agent.  "Bet you can perform some magic for me," I said, trying to flatter her, "and try to get me on another flight.  You seem to be very good at what you do."

From that point on, she and I were like old pals.  By the time she finished rebooking me on another flight, she was calling me "honey" and "love."  She even personally carried my bag to the TSA inspection point so as to make sure they would take it ahead of the hundreds of other bags that were waiting to be checked.

So to make the long story short, I did make it to Los Angeles on time, as did evidently my bag.  From there on, it was a cinch, I figured.  For, however infamous America Worst is for its incompetence, so is Singapore Airlines for its prowess in flying and serving its customers.

Indeed, the next 11-hour leg of my 'round the world trip -  from LAX to Tokyo - was mercifully uneventful.  As on earlier flights on this route, the Singapore Air crew pulled the blinds down so it felt like night time even though it was a daylight flight.  So while most passengers slept, I worked most of the time on the annual Octathlon Annex Bulletin. 

We got to Tokyo a little bit a head of schedule.  You can see in the top left corner the tail of the Singapore Air 747 jetliner that took me here.

And a close-up from another angle.

Once again, we arrived in Tokyo just before sunset (also see Oct 2006, June 2006, Jan 2005 [right] arrival photos).  So it all seemed deja vu.

If "all roads lead to Rome," as the old saying goes, all (of my) Tokyo flights seem to land at sunset, it seems, no matter where they originate.  The Jan 2005 arrival (right), for example, was from Perth, Western Australia via Singapore.

But there was nothing deja vu about what happened after that.  It was my first time having to change terminals at the Narita airport for my connecting Air China flight to Beijing.  And that was probably the most interesting thing that happened on this trip so far.

The first three Japanese airport employees whom I asked for directions acted as if they had never heard of Air China.  Finally, the fourth person told me I needed to go to Terminal 2.  She pointed me to an escalator that would take me to a bus to that terminal.

"A bus?" I asked to make sure I understood her correctly.  "I need to take a bus between two airport terminals?"

"That's right, a bus," she confirmed.

So I went...

The next scene that awaited me was like something out of the "sci fi" movies.  Have you ever seen anything more foreboding that the entrance to this pedestrian tunnel under the Terminal 1 at Narita?  And I had to walk all the way to the other end just to catch a bus to Terminal 2!

Once I got to the bus stop at the end of Terminal 1, it turned out I was the only passenger there.  It sure seemed strange, almost eerie, to be the only person at any spot of a city with the population of 10 million+.

I tried to make small talk with a couple of bored looking security guards, but they just smiled and signaled that they had no English.  So we waited.  And waited... 

"Lucky my incoming flight was early," I thought.  Finally, a bus arrived and I boarded it.  It seemed to meander forever before finally arriving at the Terminal 2 building.  There were no signs of Air China there, either.  

After a couple of abortive attempts to extract some information from two other airport employees, I finally stumbled upon one who spoke adequate English.  "Oh, I can do that," she replied, when I asked where I could get my Air China boarding pass.  And did. Quickly.

"Now you must take the train to the departure gate," she said.

"A train?" I repeated.  I knew that the Japanese were crazy about mass transit. But to have to walk two miles, take a bus and a train, just to change terminals, seemed a bit much, even for Tokyo.

"Yes, a train," she continued calmly.  Then she pulled out a map to show me where to go.

And there is the train station from where I left for the Terminal 2 gates.

CONTINUED... on to Beijing...

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