- Bananas and the Big Nose
- SO Glad We Opted for Premium Economy
- Stupid Customs and Scammers in China
- So Happy to See Jill I Could Cry
- Stained My Clothes Within An Hour of Boarding Our International Flight
- Other Friendly Faces on Our Flights
- Wow! There was a 3-year-old in our cabin for 15 hours?!?
Okay . . . so here is the rundown of our adventure so far (I guess you'll have to read closely to figure out how the aforementions potential titles fit). . .
Leaving San Diego
We got through the San Diego Airport security in-- oh-- about 5 minutes. Seriously. Because we flew through the commuter terminal, there was no line at all. Then we had to wait for three hours-- well, we were supposed to wait for three hours, but we didn't because they offered to put us on an earlier flight. Figuring it'd be nicer to wait in LAX than the San Diego Commuter Terminal, we took the opportunity.
Waiting in Los Angeles
Because we had five hours before our flight from Los Angeles to Guangzhou, we decided to walk over to the international terminal. When we arrived at the China Southern counter, we discovered a sign that read, "Counter opens at 7:30pm." That was at around 5:45pm. So we sat outside for a while and waited. That's us waiting on a bench outside the airport for the counter to open.
Once the counter did open, we didn't wait at all-- there was a separate carpeted line for those of us flying in premium economy. Then we troddled off to go through security. Again, a very speedy endeavor. We mused about the woman behind us in line who kept trying to go through with a bunch of metal bangles on her arms. When the TSA officer asked her to remove her bangles, she did-- only to try and carry them through in her hand! Boy did we feel like seasoned travelers watching that.
China Southern's Premium Economy--Totally Worth the Money
Our cabin was only about half full-- there were two other couples (Steven and Brenda Duffy and the Curtises-- I forget his first name, but hers was Wei). They were all from Phoenix, using Children's Hope International. In front of us on the plane was a nice family-- Katherine and her husband (whose name I can't remember), their 3-year-old David (adopted last year), and Katherine's parents. They were from the Boston area, though Katherine's parents live in Solana Beach. They adopted David last year and now they are back to adopt his best friend from the orphanage-- a little girl. David was amazing on the airplane. I couldn't believe how well-behaved he was for the 15 hours on-board! We played "drop the object over the back of the seat into Karen's hands and giggle" for about 20 or 30 minutes, and then he moved on to something else-- other than that, I hardly knew he was on the plane at all!
The food in premium economy was really good. They served us dinner about an hour after we boarded the plane. I had beef with rice, and Jason and my mom had fish and rice. The flight attendants were extremely attentive-- and we were each given a pillow and a blanket, ear phones, a pair of slippers and an overnight kit (which included lip balm, lotion, toothpaste, a toothbrush, under eye cream, a comb, and eye covers). The airline boasts about their individualized video screen, but the videos were all in Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese, I think)-- and only one movie (a French movie that was very strange) was subtitled in English. Needless to say, we didn't use the video screens. Also, even though it was a Boeing-777, there were no American-style plugs, so we couldn't use our laptops (bummer), and when Jason's i-pod died, that was that.
Still, we were pretty comfortable. There was even a headrest with malleable sides so I could lay really far back without my head falling off to my chest while I dozed or anything. We slept for quite a long time, and eventually needed to find something to do other than sleep. I read my Remedies text, I ate some yummy noodles (in the style of cup-of-soup), and I read some of Goodnight Nobody. Then they served us breakfast. I had the cheese omelette. It was yummy. And the fruit was great, too. Jason asked for the eastern breakfast, which included jok and some dim-sum looking dumplings. He was pretty excited about it. You can see us at the end of our flight just to the left a bit-- not bad for fifteen hours on a plane.
Oh-- I should mention-- although I titled this post August 17th, we actually skipped that day entirely when we cross the international date line. We left the U.S. at 11:50pm on the 16th and arrived in Guangzhou around 5:30am (Chinese time, which is fifteen hours ahead of California) on the 18th.
The Guangzhou Airport
We wandered through the first stage of customs without a problem. I was a little worried only because the customs paperwork asked us for a contact address and phone number, and I only had the address in Chinese characters. I wasn't about to try and copy those! Fortunately, no one asked us for any more information than we provided (the name of the hotel and the phone number).
When we went to grab our bags, there was a clear sign that told us to pick up our bags and proceed to the transfer counter. So we did. But when we approached the second customs lady to ask her if she needed to search our stuff before going to the transfer counter, she shuffled me to the left (OUT of the area). I tried to tell her I was just transferring, not leaving at the airport, and she waved her arm, directing me out of the area, with my mom and Jason following. Of course, this was wrong; we were supposed to go through a narrow (and poorly marked) hallway to our RIGHT, not out to the left. Our China Southern pilot tried to explain what happened to the security people, but they would not let us back through, so we wandered upstairs to the ticketing counters to try to find our way back in to the international terminal.
Once upstairs, Jason and Mom jumped in line, and I went to the security office to ask for help. The door was open, but I knocked and said, "Excuse me?" Here is how our conversation went:
"Excuse me?"(They both look up, then look back down at what they were doing.)
"Do you speak English?"
(They look up again, stare at me blankly, then return to their work.)
One of them heads toward the door, and pretty much pushes me out of the way-- "Do you speak English?" I ask him. He pauses for kind of a while, then shakes his head no.
So, we got in line at what looked like security for us. Below, I could see the Curtises and the Duffys. But they turned us away at security because we only had tickets, no boarding passes. And they told us to turn around and head the other way. At this point, there were four or so of us (another traveler from the U.S. was alos incorrectly routed, and she wandered the airport with us for a while).
As it turns out, many of the Chinese airlines have similar-looking logos. We were wandering past China Southern, when a man approached us and asked, "China Southern?" I'm not sure how it happened, but my mom had handed over her passport and ticket and he was directing us toward the China Southern counter. He pulled out what looked like a China Southern button and pointed to it and to himself, as if to say, "You can trust me! I work for the airline!" (I suppose the first part was true, but the second part was not.) He stood in line for us, handed over our tickets, grabbed our bags and put them on the belt, then turned back to us with our boarding passes and our baggage claim tickets. Then things got fishy . . .
"Overweight bags," he said. "$200."
"What?!?" I replied. "That's not right-- we weighed them in the United States. They are all under 45 pounds! $200? Are you sure that's right?"
"$200 RMB," he said. "$26"
"Oh," Jason replied. (I had handed Jason $5 to tip the guy.) "Okay."
"No U.S. money," our "friend" explained-- you have to exhange. He pointed vaguely off into the distance.
"Ok," said Jason. "I'll go exchange some money," and the man wandered off with Jason-- with our boarding passes in his hand.
Jason returned less than 5 minutes later. . .
I have to backtrack a little here. Jason has a friend from Romania who basically told Jason that we should be sure to bring "bribes" with us for our trip to make sure everything went smoothly. And I laughed at him. Guess I shouldn't have laughed.
Anyway, Jason returned and explained that when they got away from us, the guy told him $20 U.S. would take care of it. Jason gave him the $20 and he gave Jason the boarding passes, and then he directed us to the right security area. I was steaming mad. I was mainly mad at the customs person who pushed us out of the secure area where we wouldn't have been scammed. But I guess it wasn't really a scam since we were kind of lost and he did actually help us. . .
When we got to security, though, they didn't want to let us through-- they asked for our tickets (which the ticketing agent who took our bags had taken!). My mom, who had gone through the line first looked back at me. "That's all we have!" I said. "Do you think if we go back they will actually remember us and give us the tickets?" Fortunately, our return tickets had a page with the complete itinerary and a nice Security lady told the security guy to use that to collect the information he needed. Once we made it through the security area, someone in one of those golf cart things asked if we wanted a ride. "Are you kidding?" we thought. Needless to say, we opted to walk. I'm sure the golf carts were legitimate, but I was still so angry about the $20 that I wasn't going to trust anyone!
This is us to the left, after getting some "help" at the airport. I know it's not very good-- backlit and all, but it's what we've got. Look at the bright side, you can't see the stain that's down the front of my shirt (from the beef and rice I dropped on myself about 45 minutes after our flight took off to Guangzhou). Anyway, we waited at our gate until they announced our flight to Beijing, and we got on the bus with a crazy bus driver who delivered us to the airplane. It was originally set to be a Boeing 757, but it was a Boeing-777 instead. This time we were in the regular economy section, and boy did we see the huge difference it was from premium economy!Ok. This post has been long enough-- so move on to the 18th to read about our arrival in Beijing!
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