Leaving Home - Oct 23rd, 2004

I'm not one to get overly excited so it was with a moderate level of ado that we headed out to the airport on this chilly Vancouver morning at around 11am to fly to China. It's not like I've never travelled before however this time was going to be different - in the past I've flown to "exotic" locales like Toronto, Ottawa, Orlando, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In all those cases I was travelling to something familiar so there weren't any surprises, going to China for 16 days was a big unknown to me.

I was excited about the flight though - this was going to be my first time on a 747, the big boy of the wild blue yonder. Being a planes, trains and automobiles kinda guy I'm always interested in new machinery even if this big jet is nearing its 30th anniversary. I've flown everything from little commuter prop planes that get tossed around by a little wind to the almost big boy DC-10s and 767s but never a 747. Even better was that I got a window seat and was placed near the wing. As it turns out the flight wasn't that exciting though - 747s are like any other plane except much bigger.

We flew on Japan Airlines to get to Beijing, our first destination, but to get there had to live with a 4 hour layover in Tokyo's Narita airport. My brother and I had wanted to add a few days to our trip by arriving early in Tokyo but that was scotched due to the high cost. Instead we milled about in the airport and wound up spending $30 Canadian dollars on a bowl of rice, a bowl of noodles, 1 coffee and 1 bottle of water - it was absurdly expensive even for an airport. The lady working the cafeteria counter reminded me of a Japanese version of Lisa Kudrow's character on Friends, Phoebe - she seemed like a kooky gal.

We left Vancouver around 11am and eventually arrived in Beijing around 11pm (their time) which is about 6am Vancouver time. During that whole time I probably got about 30 minutes of sleep, I just wasn't able to sleep on the plane (I've never been able to). I was TIRED but the time change meant I only needed to stay up a few extra hours in order to adjust so it wasn't too hard to switch over to the new time.

The first thing we noticed when we got off the plane when we arrived in Beijing was the "lovely" smell that China had. At first we thought there was some work going on in the airport which was causing it but my mom straightened Ernie and I out by telling us that the scent was really just Beijing. The airport itself has undergone quite a few updates in the past few years as it gets itself ready for the Olympics but the modernization only gets it up to an acceptable level for such a major airport. I'm used to the standard that Vancouver sets. But enough about the way to China, let's get onto the show!