Wow, that was a long flight. I had my doubts about half way through our flight from Vancouver to Shanghai that I was actually able to sit in an airplane for 12 hours. I kept looking at my watch wondering why time was standing still. Having never been any good at sleeping sitting upright I knew this was going to be a long night. At one point, about 8 hours in, I felt tired enough to give it a try. The rest of the passengers were obviously on a different schedule though, and were all just waking up. The noise in the cabin was like nails on a chalkboard and I was agitated.
I gave sleep a half-assed try and gave up about an hour later. Oh well, maybe on the next leg of our journey?
China Eastern Air turned out to be a pretty nice airline and I would certainly fly with them again. The staff are all very friendly and speak very good English (admittedly, I should have learned a few more words in Chinese before boarding). One cautionary note; don't request gluten free meals unless you are really sensitive. While they were technically gluten free, so is cardboard, and may have tasted only slightly better.
My first meal was boiled chicken, boiled potatoes, and boiled carrots. Yup, that's it. Oh ya, with a rice cake and margarine on the side. That may have been the best part. Aaron, on the other hand, had fried fish and rice noodles in a nice sauce with green beans and carrots. He said it was pretty good. I was envious but optimistic that the next meal would be better.
My next meal turned out to be.....a meat filled bread thingy. I obviously passed on that. Aaron said it was really good! (Are we seeing a trend already?)
By this point in the trip I'm way past tired and I'm starving. This is not a good combination. There is a brief moment when I wanted to either cry or, well, cry. I refrained, but it was tough.
Hope surfaced when, about 10 hours into the trip, they started serving breakfast; our last meal. I figured there was no way I was going to get screwed on this one. I mean, how hard is scrambled eggs and bacon? This is where I think I actually heard my heart break just a little bit and saw my last pinch of hope fly out the window. I open my warm airline foil packet to find a mass of white goop (I think it was some sort of egg substitute, because real eggs would be ridiculous) covered with steamed spinach (long past it's edible window), boiled potatoes, and a boiled tomato. I couldn't eat it. The regular Western breakfast? Scrambled eggs and sausages with hash browns. I must have looked like a 5 year old who just dropped his ice cream cone. I just stared. I was dumbfounded. I resolved to change my meal request for our flight home.
Once in the Shanghai airport I was impressed at the efficiency of the customs and immigrations folks. There were a LOT of people in that lineup and we made it through pretty quickly. I did find it odd that we had to go through a radiation detector (thankfully Aaron thinks it was off). Once on the inside we grabbed our bags and endeavoured to find our connection to Beijing. If only we could read Chinese! While there are English translations for most things, they forgot to translate somewhere that domestic flights were actually in another terminal. We only lost about 20 minutes figuring that out and jump on a shuttle to terminal 2.
Once checked in we head to the gate. My stomach is yelling at me to eat something! I tell myself, "I'll get something on the next flight". I'm not sure if it was the lack of sleep or the intense hunger but I know now that I was delusional. It's been many years since most airlines serve actual food. This was no exception. There was nothing edible. Except sandwiches, there seems to always be sandwiches.
We board the plane and just our luck we sit on the tarmac for about 40 minutes. I only figured this out when we arrived in Beijing 40 minutes late because as soon as I was in my seat I passed out. That was the first hour of sleep I had been able to get since waking up 18 hours prior, and it felt great. If only I could find about 8 more of those I would be set!
We land in Beijing and are anticipating being greeted by a smiling guide holding our names up high on a sign. We quickly realize he's actually not there. I want to cry (for the tenth time) and momentarily deem our trip cursed and ruined; because nobody overreacts when they are starved and exhausted, do they? After waiting somewhat patiently Aaron decides to give him a call. Yup, he's there but had been waiting at the international gate arrivals. As he comes to find us I'm so happy to see 'Robert' that I could hug him. Side note, he confirms that giving himself a western name is for our sake though I'm pretty sure he's just tired of hearing his name brutally mispronounced by us foreigners.
Off to the hotel we go. We arrive, check in without much hassle, and proceed to our room. I have never seen a better looking king sized bed in my life!