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We woke up at 6:45 a.m. We had both had strange dreams. I had woken up in the middle of the night forgetting which hotel I was in and how to get to the bathroom. I guess this is a sign that we are ready to come home. We took nice showers in advance of our 13 hour flight home, and finished packing our luggage.
We went down to breakfast at around 8 o'clock. We had omelets to order with bacon, as well as orange juice, peach juice, coffee, green tea, dumplings, sponge cake, watermelon, yogurt and granola, beef with black pepper crust, and bread. There was some blue sky today (our Beijing luck had held out once again!), so I took some pictures from the courtyard and then returned to the room to freshen up. At 9:50, we headed down to the lobby to check out. We were greeted by Karen (Qi Xia), who recognized us from a photo that Alice had sent her. We checked out, got a refund of our credit card deposit, and asked the desk staff if they could mail our stamped postcards. They were happy to do so. We went to the car and met our new driver. We chatted with Karen on the drive to the airport. She is 28 and single, has great English skills, and was quite a sweetheart. It took 45 minutes to get to the airport. Karen escorted us in but had to leave us before customs, which is a secured area. We went through customs and then checked in at the Hainan Airlines check-in desk. The woman who helped us gave us a comment card to fill out then and there about her service. That was rather awkward. Next we went through immigration, handed in our departure cards, and got our passports stamped. We wandered around and went into the shops to kill time. We browsed in a fancy handicraft emporium that had a lot of nice art from Tibet. It was very similar to a lot of the art we had seen in Bhutan. We wandered into some of the other gift shops as well. We had some leftover yuan, and we enjoyed spending it, buying some fancy teacups for Craig and Steve as well as some nice tea: green tea, jasmine tea, and tea made of dehydrated flowers that would bloom when you put them into the boiling water. We also bought some refrigerator magnets and a cute pair of wooden chopsticks with a inlaid pattern of cats. We were thirsty and warm, so we bought two cold bottles of Fanta. We went downstairs to our boarding gate and had a seat. Before we knew it, they gave the boarding announcement, and we lined up to get on the shuttle bus. Our carry-on luggage was hand searched, and we were told that we couldn't take our Fantas any further, so we chugged them down. When we got onto the bus, there were no seats left. An older man offered us his, which was very sweet, but we of course politely declined. While on the bus we chatted with an American from Maryland who had just spent a month in Guangzhou for business and had never had a chance to see any tourist sights. The shuttle bus arrived at the Hainan Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner. We got to our seats in the middle section. We had two aisle seats in the set of three seats, so Craig traded with the young lady who was supposed to sit in the middle. Her friend was in the middle seat in the row behind us, so she then traded with the man on that aisle of that row. She was thrilled, never thinking that she'd be able to sit next to her friend on a 13 hour flight when they were both assigned middle seats! Everyone was happy with the final arrangement. We ate our Snickers that Alice had thoughtfully given us, and we pulled away from the gate at 1:48, taking off at 2:15. As soon as we were at cruising altitude, I broke out the computer and started typing notes. Craig got out the iPod and we listened to Rainbow. (We had chosen Ronnie James Dio as the theme for the music on this trip). We lowered the brightness settings on both devices, and both batteries lasted the entire 12+ flight! It was amazing! We didn't want to sleep, as it would make it more difficult to adapt to the time zone switch. I typed the entire time, except for when meals were being served (which, granted, was often on this flight!) The first meal was beef in green pepper sauce, potato, chicken salad, brownie, and water. We had JDB to drink. A while later, I went to the galley and got us some cheese and crackers, JDB, and green tea. For a snack, they servied chicken sandwiches. Later on, I walked to the galley and stretchedc my legs, while getting us cheese, orange soda (Mirinda) and another chicken sandwich for Craig. We watched the flight map during the flight, and the outside temperature hit a low of -81.4 Fahrenheit. Brr! Shortly before we landed, we were server yet another meal: spaghetti bolognaise with a croissant and some tomatoes. We landed in Bostom at 2:45 p.m. It was so weird to fly for over 12 hours, only to land 30 minutes after you took off (according to the clock)! Nonetheless, the flight had ben extremely comfortable and it passed very quickly. The prices were incredibly reasonable for a non-stop flight around the world. We would definitely be doing this again! There were very few American passport holders on the flight, so we got through immigration quite quickly, even though the kiosk earmarked Craig for additional scrutiny and we had to see a human. While waiting for our luggage, we chatted with a woman who was born in Beijing and had relatives in Guizhou, but lives in Groton. We went through customs and then out to the street. We called Steve to let him know that we were home It was gorgeous weather and in the 70's, so the fact that we were wearing sandals and no jackets wasn't a problem at all, even at the end of October. Steve picked us up at a little bit after 4 p.m. and drove us home. We did two loads of laundry and got a good night's sleep so that we were ready for work in the morning. |
 Breakfast at the Red Wall Garden  Breakfast at the Red Wall Garden  Arrival at the airport with Karen  Crossing the International Date Line 
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