Day 13: Onward to Home!

Last partial day in Beijing today. Finished up what was left of the packing and had a nice lunch with my family members. We called a University driver (specializes in driving from the various universities in the Beijing area) to take us to the airport. It was a Saturday so traffic was pretty light which allowed our getting to the airport about 3 hours before my flight.

It was a good thing too as the line to check in for my Continental flight was literally 100 people long. The Beijing managers for Continental must be totally brain-dead as they only allowed economy passengers to check in at the automated kiosks. This would have generally been a good idea, except 3 of the 5 kiosks weren't working and the ones that were working were in English. Needless to say, at least 50% of the people there knew little to no English and so had to be helped by the Continental attendants with every step. Counting that everyone had at least 1 bag to check and it all just compounded the wait. The kicker to this whole situation was that they had at least 6-manned booths available to help with check in but they were reserved for first/business class only. There were maybe 15 of those in total, so only 2 of the booths were being used leaving the other 4 completely idle as the rest of us waited in line. Eventually after about a 45 minute wait and constant not-so-subtle suggestions from the people waiting, they finally opened up the non-automated booths for general use. I was quickly finished with the check in 15 minutes later. The one hiccup being they wouldn't let me take Catnip's gift aboard which was this Olympic torch-looking lighter that when ignited, had a flame that constantly changed colors in accordance to the colors of the Olympic Rings. Luckily, there were duty-free stores nearby to compensate.

The flight itself wasn't too bad. The main bad point was there were lots of babies on this flight. Babies + turbulence + regular crying + crying + crying + freaking annoying crying + more crying = no sleep again on the way back. We had the personalized entertainment sets again, but they were the older version and didn't allow us to choose what we wanted to watched. As a result, I watched Get Smart 2 times, Hancock 2.5, and some other random gibberish the rest of the way. The elderly person sitting 2 rows away was on his way to see his grandson in Philadelphia but had to change from plane to train at Newark. He knew very little usable English and his son was apparently too busy or unwilling to come get him once he got off the plane so the other passenger in my row and I tried to help him out as much as we could. The flight from Newark to Houston was uneventful and the Papaya couple picked me up from the airport and took me back home.

Overall, the trip to China was phenomenal. I got to see all my relatives, ate way too much (and somehow only gained 2 lbs...), and even smoothed out some plans for the future!