Chasing the Sun: On my way to China!

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July 2nd 2008

Published: July 4th 2008

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Out the window

View of the California coast as we headed north to Alaska and then across the Pacific.

I headed out to China today for the last part of my EMBA program at UCLA. What should have been a simple trip to the airport resulted in nearly missing my flight. There was a bomb scare at the International terminal (terminal 5?) at LAX and they shut down all entry to the airport just as we were arriving there around 11:00 am. Traffic was a mess and we drove around for a while hoping that entry would be opened soon. It wasn't. We ended up going to the In and Out Burger on Sepulveda and grabbing some lunch. There were fire trucks and police all over the place. Finally it appeared that they were letting people back in and we started to fight the traffic towards the terminals.

I had a 1:20 pm flight and it was getting close to 1:00 pm. We were able to get to temrinal one but access to the other terminals was still closed. I had to jump out of the car, grab my stuff, quick hugs and kisses good-bye to everyone and run down to terminal 2. It was like that old commercial with OJ Simpson running through the terminal except that I

Japanese Coastline

View of Japan as we descended for landing.

was outside and had a huge suitcase. It was oddly empty in the terminal so I was able to breeze through check-in and security and get to my gate just as they were boarding.

I flew from LA to Tokyo on what was a pretty long flight (10.5 hours). I was sooooo glad that I used all my Northwest miles to upgrade my seat to business class and it made the flight much more enjoyable. I only slept a little, but the flight was at least pretty smooth and sitting in the upper deck of the 747 was neat.

We landed in Tokyo the afternoon July 3rd. It was very hot there and not much in the way of AC in the airport. I had a short layover and found the Northwest club lounge a great place to relax in. A little sushi, a beer and some free internet made it the perfect layover. One note about the airport itself; it was immaculate and very orderly inside and out. It looked as if it had been kaizen'ed.

The flight to Bejing was "short" about 4 hours. At this point I was starting to get pretty tired but

Me on the plane!

forced myself to stay awake. I wanted to be able to crash at my hotel in Beijing and start adjusting to the local time. The flight was good and going through customs was quick and easy. I was supposed to meet one of my classmates in the airport who was on a different flight getting in at about the same time. It turned out we were in different terminals so I grabbed a cab to get to the hotel. The cabbie didn't speak English and I forgot to bring the hotel name and address in Chinese. I had been told that all the drivers would know the Penninsula hotel, but this one didn't. I did have the hotel's phone number so we made a call an got directions.

Beijing was hot and humid at 10:30 pm. In the 5 minutes I had to wait for a cab I was dripping wet. The air quality is not the greatest either. Flying in, the lights below looked orange through the smog. A lot of effort has been made to clean up for the Games and I'm sure it has been an improvement. It's just amazing to think what it was like

Dinner!

Bento-box style meal on the flight from Japan to Beijing.

before the clean up efforts were made and I wonder what will happen after the Games.

Got to the hotel, checked in, called home to let Kristina know I made it and then crashed. I spent the entire day chasing the sun as it headed west and I was ready for sleep.

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