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\nHave a pleasant stay!<\/p>\n
I did have a pleasant stay, but am glad to be on my way home, getting paid to convert kerosene into carbon dioxide, and only a toss of an aluminium tube away from my bed.\u00c2\u00a0 I got up at 7:45 and stayed in my packing schedule quite well, leaving the hotel at 10:30 in another taxi.\u00c2\u00a0 The hotel porter was great – answering my “thank you” with “my pleasure” and then wishing me a nice day.\u00c2\u00a0 The drive wasn’t that great.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember discussing with a beltway friend how annoying drivers are who can’t take their lumps when the make navigational errors but have to switch lanes at the last moment or wait in awkward positions in\u00c2\u00a0the middle of intersections, but that’s D.C.\u00c2\u00a0 If I let all such misdemeanors annoy me in Beijing, I’d be permanently annoyed, because you can’t drive without seeing people driving on the shoulder, switching lanes without using indicators, and generally opportunistic and aggressive driving.\u00c2\u00a0 An hour later I was at the airport, and upon walking in the door saw a counter that said “Customs \/ ATA.”\u00c2\u00a0 Great, I thought, this should be easy – except that the hall, as usual, was packed with people and carts and suitcases and moving about presented a challenge.\u00c2\u00a0 I got to the ATA counter only to find it unoccupied, with a note advising me to go to the counter on level two, at gate four, for the Chamber of Commerce to collect 60 RMB and put a stamp on my Carnet.\u00c2\u00a0 I had just walked through a door number 4, and walking about seemed to indicate to me I was on level two.\u00c2\u00a0 So where else was I to go?\u00c2\u00a0 I ended up walking straight to customs and showed them the Carnet A.T.A.\u00c2\u00a0
\n“You had better get it stamped by the Chamber of Commerce,” the official said.\u00c2\u00a0
\n“I tried, but there was nobody there,” I replied.\u00c2\u00a0
\n“I guess it is Saturday,” he said, and I hoped they wouldn’t hold that against me.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, his colleague asked me to show her the items on the Carnet A.T.A. list and then stamped and signed it – without the 60 RMB fee.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
As usual in China, I set off the metal detector and got patted down, then sat around in the lounge.\u00c2\u00a0 I may have mentioned before that new terminals are being built in Beijing, and they are overdue.\u00c2\u00a0 The Beijing Capital Airport is one of the most crowded I’ve experienced.\u00c2\u00a0 At least I got to skip the line at boarding time with a wave of my magic card.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
I sat down in the wrong seat, H instead of G, not expecting the letters to run that high with only seven seats across, but I did feel a little dumb when the rightful occupant pointed it out.\u00c2\u00a0 He quickly suggested I stay where I was and he took mine opposite the aisle, what turned out to be a wise choice on his part, because my reading lamp didn’t work.\u00c2\u00a0 For that reason, I watched more movies than I had intended to: 3:10 to Yuma (good), Frantic (still a delight after all the years), and Heartbreak Kid (worse than unsatisfying).\u00c2\u00a0 It was at the end of 3:10 to Yuma (which felt like it ran for 3:10) I started to bemoan not having an individual control over my movie but only a choice between several channels on a fixed schedule.\u00c2\u00a0 And then there was a line at the loo…\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
We got to “see” ourselves land when the pilots turned on the onboard forward camera, which was fun, especially with it being a night landing.\u00c2\u00a0 But as I said, one more landing and I will be home, so I’m giving my blogging notice until I pick it up again in two weeks.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NOTICE Dear guest, When you use the Internet just plug and play. The charge is based on the number of computers you use. We will solve the problem when it occurs. We hold no responsibility for that.Your understanding is appreciated. If you need any help,please call the Service Center.Tel:20100. Have a pleasant stay! I did have a pleasant stay, but am glad to be on my way home, getting paid to convert kerosene into carbon dioxide, and only a toss of an aluminium tube away from my bed.\u00c2\u00a0 I got up at 7:45 and stayed in my packing schedule quite well, leaving the hotel at 10:30 in another taxi.\u00c2\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thduggie.com\/thduggies_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}