From Ottawa to Beijing

Who knows whether I can keep this up? I'll try. Here begins my report on China, frustratingly postponed because of the impossibility of accessing blogger.com from that part of the world. I only once managed to publish a blogpost while we were in Beijing and once again in Suzhou. However, I was able to take handwritten notes on the other occasions, so that the details of our forty days in China would not become blurred and forgotten.

The story begins with our flight across the North Pole.

May 7th, Saturday

Crew and passengers for Flight AC 31 to Beijing

On the short leg to Toronto, the Captain of our Boeing 777 came up through the cabin to shake hands with Chris and me, inviting us to visit the cockpit when we landed. This surprise treat had been arranged by another Air Canada pilot, Louis, who knows us at the Rockcliffe Flying Club and who knew we'd be travelling that day. Coincidentally and fortuitously we met Louis himself having his lunch in uniform in the departure lounge at YYZ. During our chat he asked if we'd like to visit the Air Canada pilots' flight planning room at the terminal. Of course! Some 2200 pilots use this facility that contains rows of airmens' hats on pegs, computer desks and filing cabinets for the charts and other paperwork. What do pilots do in the cockpit during long haul flights? It seems they sit there updating their Jeppeson approach plates. While being shown around the preparation area, we were introduced to two of the four pilots about to fly us to Beijing. I was introduced as the editor of RFC's Crosswinds and it transpired that the Captain himself had once edited such a newsletter, for Air Canada personnel; they called it Waypoints. He and the co-pilot showed us the maps they were using to plan our flight. By flying the Great Circle north then south, one of our "alternate" airports en route would be in Norway! Later, we would have to get permission from Russia to enter Mongolian airspace.

An Arctic glacier from above

We had to go through security again in order to reach our gate and the 'plane was 45 minutes late departing because of its previous late arrival from Paris. Our flight lasted about 13 hours. We're not sure where May 8th began, where the date-line was, because the tracker map didn't work in the vicinity of the North Pole. I snoozed very briefly after the plastic chicken and wine supper and lifted the porthole blind to see icefields, the snowy deserts and mountains of Greenland with their glaciers. Further on, blue cracks in the polar sea, pure beauty!

Much later, we saw the Russian tundra very like the Canadian equivalent and the high steppes of Mongolia, with cloud shadows. Approaching Beijing it became cloudy and grey, pouring with rain below us in the late afternoon, but we saw the mountainous edge of the city.

Chris in line at PEK, waiting to have his VISA checked

The first creature we noticed on landing at PEK was a magpie, considered a lucky omen in China. Beijing Airport, designed by Norman Foster, was huge and clean. An official zoomed around on a Segway and I took this illegal photo of the immigration queue. After a little train ride to the baggage carousels our cases were the last to roll up. George and Sha were anxiously waiting for us; George, afraid that either Chris had been arrested or I had fainted, looked extremely happy to see us. Sha had a bunch of flowers for me, for "Mother's Day!" Big hugs all round. Her cousin was there too, a professional chauffeur and a very nice young gentleman; this solved the problem of how we'd reach the hotel.

The front of our hotel after dark

It took a good hour to get to the Zhixin Road (East)––zhi xin dong lu––in Haidian in the rain. Stepping out of the car onto the steps of the Hornki Great Hotel we got soaked. A white sheet had been laid on the steps to protect them. Rob stood there eager to greet us and Sally made me a wonderful cup of jasmine tea in their room opposite ours, which revived me; I was feeling very tired. Rob and Sally had arrived in Beijing from York a few days beforehand. It was fortunate that Sha had been along to negotiate our down-payments with the hotel receptionist so firmly because nobody at the hotel spoke any English, it seemed. At supper, on the hotel premises, we met Sha's parents in the flesh for the first time (though we had seen them before on Skype). It was a lovely atmosphere, friendly and warm, and quite a feast: food kept coming, served from a lazy Susan in a private room adjoining the main restaurant.

I used my Chinese!