It started early this morning, around 5:30 - 6AM, when my alarm went off. Both Dyanne & I slept pretty well last night, after arriving in Beijing ~9:25PM. Main things on the agenda today was to fly from Beijing to Changsha. This is about a 2 hour flight. After arrival in Changsha, we needed to retrieve our luggage, get to the hotel, and do "stuff."
In this case "stuff" meant to do whatever Genie (our FTIA China coordinator) said we needed to do. Grab necessary paperwork, passports (normally carried around our neck in a hideaway pouch or in a belt pouch, worn under clothing), and gifts, then head out to the Civil Affairs Bureau to meet/receive Gui Yu Guang, or better known as Zoe Yuguang Johnson.
This morning, it felt GREAT to shower & shave. I would have done it last night, but we had to stay ready in our room for Genie & an FTIA accountant to visit to collect the in-China moneys. This covered hotels, airfare, plus whatever else I can't recall right now (9/14/05, 12:15AM).
Before we caught our flight, we tried to open one of our checked bags. The "high quality TSA Approved" locks I got just plain SUCK. The lock on our main checked bag nearly jammed shut, and the combination lock dials could hardly turn. It ended up opening no matter what numbers you had the dial set to. The other lock, on our small checked bag, refused to open when the correct combination (set the same on 4-5 locks) was entered. We ended up having the hotel in Changsha (after the flight) open the lock. We thought they'd just chop it off, but the guy they sent (for free) used a flashlight & worked the dials until it opened. This bag had all our baby stuff (formula, thermos for hot water for formula, diapers, Dyanne's makeup, gifts for the orphanage people.....Stress we didn't need, but at least they opened the bag for us.
But anyway, back to the flight...It was WONDERFUL. This is probably what air travel used to be like back about 20-30 years ago. Not the cattle car mentality of modern travel. We flew China Southern Airlines. The aircraft we were on (made by Airbus) had Rolls Royce jet engines, which made Mark (a metallurgical engineer working for RR aircraft engine division) very happy. Mark & his wife are in our travel group.
The aircraft looked pretty new inside, clean, plenty of flight attendants. We snacked on a Dove chocolate bar containing hazelnuts & raisins (Dyanne got it along with some other snack goodies at the airport). Milk chocolate, I'm afraid - not nice dark chocolate, but sometimes certain sacrifices must be made. Life is tough!
During our 2 hour domestic (within China) flight, they served beverages at least 3 times, a full lunch, and then a snack. In the US, you'd be LUCKY to get a 1/2 ounce bag of pretzels plus 1-2 soft drinks on a flight like that.
The lunch was pretty good, too. Bread, pickles, chicken, rice, mixed veggies, plus...FISH JERKY. We heard that this was made in Hunan Province. It's actually pretty good. Not very fishy at all, but has a good chile pepper/garlic/cumin/salt/oil flavor. Dyanne didn't eat hers, so I still have one to "spare." There was also what looked like slices of Japanese fish cake (served in some Udon noodle soups), but it tasted more like ham/chicken/bologna/?. This was served with strips of squid or octopus colored with orange blotches to make it look like boiled baby shrimp. Nope...not shrimp. Not sure exactly what it was. I ate it.
I did not eat the sliced pears/apples/whatever, for fear of the "flowing liquid doom." I've read that for travelers to Mexico, even after being "trained" as to how to avoid Montezuma's Revenge, about half of the travelers get zapped anyway. Doesn't sound fun at all!
One pretty amazing thing on the flight...in-flight cleaning of the lavatories! About halfway through the flight, an attendant went in & cleaned (wiped down at least) each of the two lavs in the back of the aircraft. When have you seen that before??? Our aircraft also had video screens that would automatically flip down during flight & back up when landing. We got to watch such interesting (?) shows as contortionists, a couple guys playing the William Tell Overture on 2 hand air pumps (the old style ~3 foot long versions).
Then there was the Discovery Channel show on rattlesnakes, and that other memorable show on mud skippers (Dyanne knew what they were, I didn't). The lady mayor of Anniston, MD sat behind us. She was apparently visiting Changsha to talk about how her city's infrastructure is set up. We saw the hordes of news leeches (video camera types) descending upon her when we left the airport. They'd given her flowers & everything.
As we came in for a landing around 1:15PM, you could see the green rice paddies all around the airport. When I spoke with mom & dad this evening on the phone, I told them that Changsha has lots of red clay roads, which remined me a lot of Georgia. The overall impression of the countryside is almost like that of rural Japan. Pretty nice looking, actually. The air is VERY hazy, probably from pollution. Changsha is a pretty industrialized city.
OK...It's now 1:50AM here in noisy Changsha (I think there's 4 peddles on the floor, with the HORN peddle linked to the GAS pedal). Time for some quick & dirty picture dumps, without too much cutesy comments (hard to believe I know)....
Lunch on the plane. Clockwise from the upper left: pears, bread, ham/squid, main dish, pickles, fish jerky.
Fish Jerky...Yum, yum, eat 'em up! Note the red pepper flakes for a Hunan Spicy Surprise...
The Happy Couple, enroute to receive Miss Zoe.
Changsha rice paddies, from the bus taking us from the airport to the Changsha Dolton Hotel
Slightly Overloaded truck
Does this look safe to you? Can you say "compressed gas rocket"?
Paying homage to the Goddess of Air Conditioning!
Receiving Zoe!!!
Holding My Baby Girl
Proud Mama Bear & Her Cub
Proud Mama & Zoe, a quiet minute together
Hmmm...Peanut Butter Crackers...I've never had THESE before! Look at that cute face!
It's been a long day...Time for a little nap
And it HAS been a very long day. Zoe crashed at dinner time (~9:30PM), and has only woken up once crying while I've been crunching away on the website.
It's now 2:20AM, Changsha time, and I'm going to bed. 6:30 or 7 or 7:30 or 8 will come pretty early!. Stay tuned for more pics...Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel.
Jeff Johnson 9/14/05 2:20AM
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