We\u2019re at the airport gate ready for the flight to Seattle at 6:45 am on American. We\u2019re looking forward to getting back to Beijing and a little boredom. The flight departs on time at 9:05 and arrives in Seattle four hours later. There are some nice views of Mt. Rainier as we fly in. We transfer to our new gate area and get some lunch.<\/p>\n
Hainan Airlines is our next airline, and the flight isn\u2019t any better than the flight last year. Judy and I are crammed in the middle two seats of a \u201cfour across\u201d middle section. It\u2019s a twelve-hour flight, and the food isn\u2019t very good. After all our flights the past year, we can be a lot more discerning about the quality, and it\u2019s not good. The movies choices are not good either. We are relieved to finally arrive in Beijing. I think I\u2019m going to avoid Hainan whenever possible. It\u2019s hard to pass up the cheaper fares, but memories of this flight will linger.<\/p>\n
The flight arrives on time, around 5:40 pm (Friday, Aug. 1). The taxi ride into town is slow due to traffic. When we finally get to our apartment, it is such a relief. The apartment looks great. Lilly has done a good job making sure everything is clean and ready for us, including defrosting the fridge. We find places to set our 5 bags down and open them, but the unpacking will have to take place tomorrow. When we head to bed, it\u2019s been 26 hours since the alarm went off in our hotel in Irving. Neither of us slept much on the plane, so we\u2019re both pretty washed up. We\u2019re too old to do this many more times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u2019re at the airport gate ready for the flight to Seattle at 6:45 am on American. We\u2019re looking forward to getting back to Beijing and a little boredom. The flight departs on time at 9:05 and arrives in Seattle four … Continue reading