China 2008: Day 10: HKG-PEK-LAX
Getting ready to leave, we were back on Victory Ave. (aka pet street!) for breakfast. Had a hard time finding lunch food, but breakfast worked out well. We also found we'd spent enough money at the local 7-11 (we drank every night of the trip, I think!) on beer and snacks that we had filled up two discount cards. I'm not quite sure what that got Diana, though.
Wandered around some more, to the wellcome supermarket across the street and around the block, where we examined real estate prices and maid prices (!), then waited for the hotel shuttle to come. Started raining just for good measure, which made the extra time we spent running in circles in the shuttle to be both welcome and annoying. Welcome in that we were dry... annoying because of whatever screw-up that happened, it cost enough enough time that we could have had dim sum! *sigh*
Made it to the airport and thought I had time for lunch (dim sum? sure!), but food was slow in coming. I ate enough to be reasonably happy, then ran off to catch my flight. Diana probably scarfed the rest of it and had time to kill...
Getting off the plane in Beijing, I was greeted by the normal weather there. We deplaned on the tarmac and took buses to the terminal. Instead of 35F, it was the average 26F outside. From 75F to 26F... ouch.
Expected to kill another 2 hours, but my flight was delayed (not a surprise) by over an hour. Sat in one of the few airport restaurants at Beijing International for a few hours. Thank goodness for laptops, but boo on no internet. Past 8pm or so-- my flight didn't take off til 10:30 or 11pm-- Beijing International gets pretty desolate for waiting passengers. Even Starbucks closes...
On the plus side, the flight back wasn't bad. Air China's service sucks-- it doesn't exist outside of designated mealtimes and you have to go up and ask for it even after 2-3 hours of no drinks being offered-- but it was nighttime again, and hence, sleep was very attractive. The food on Air China is decidedly average; not as good as Malaysia Air, but with more variety. The rice and duck was edible, but it looked more edible than the "Western" meal...
Waking up somewhere over the Pacific and not knowing what time it was was a little rough, but eating a pretty bland "Chinese" breakfast somewhere off the coast of Alaska was pretty disorienting-- it was something like 2pm local time. Odd for breakfast... but at the same time, it meant we were almost back in Los Angeles. Woohoo!
