May 26/27, Vancouver to Wuhan
This one is starting as The Journey From Hell. After two hours of travelling on buses and skytrains to get to YVR two hours before flight time, we found out that our flight was delayed two hours. So we got to sit around with our fingers up our butts (no photo) for quite some time. On the bright side, holy cow, is YVR ever a nice airport these days! We went through check-in in about five minutes, the security people chatted us up and told us stories, and then we were done. There are grottos and rest areas and giant aquaria all over the place, and more shopping than Kamloops, I think.
The China Airlines flight was good, with decent food (2 meals) and excellent service, except they’ve got the new slimline seats and I found them very uncomfortable. After 12 hours, I was really hurting. Going home, I’ll be pumping ibuprofen in advance. Beijing airport was an experience; the international terminal looks like a giant turkey barn that someone sat on; their architects are just as weird as ours, apparently. As we were transferring from an international to a domestic flight, we had to take a train (basically inside the building!) for about 3 miles and then walk for what seemed like another mile to get to where our flight was leaving from. The bad news: we had to clear security again, and they confiscated my aftershave, mouthwash, and sunblock. As if I wasn’t red and stinky enough already. The REALLY bad news: our domestic flight was also delayed, so we weren’t going to get into Wuhan until 10:30 pm, which was actually 6:30 am according to my watch. On the bright side, they sell beer out of the pop machines in the airport, and you can drink it anywhere. We had met Gail and Al from Courtney, who were also going on our tour, and we decided to stick together for the rest of the day so that at least we’d all be lost together.
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At Beijing Airport with our new best friends, Gail and Al. The beer was $3, the water was $4. I picked beer.
The flight to Wuhan was only 2 1/2 hours on a 737, and the seats were better. Once we collected our baggage and headed outside, a very nice man from the tour group (Charley) collected us and herded us into a comfy shuttle bus, and we were off on a 40-minute drive to the hotel. That turned out to be a Howard Johnson, but in China they are tricked out to 5-star; woo hoo! Not that we cared, it was the end of a very long day, and we just wanted to get some sleep, which is what we did.
A perfectly acceptable HoJo.
The view from our window, some of the only old buildings we saw on this trip.