China: Days 1-2
Ah, China. One of countries in which I have the least interest to visit yet have been to the most. It was cool the first couple of times but this is my fourth time in four years. At least before I was visiting new cities. This time I'm hitting the same ones as last time. Even better, this time we've got three 2am maintenances in five days and one of those non-maintenance days is a travel day. I already barely know what day it is. I'll have no clue by this weekend.
Leaving one day after spending a week and a half in Arizona was rough. I basically landed, checked in at the office, went home and slept, woke up, did laundry, got called by work a bunch of times to deal with stuff, packed and left for work to catch the shuttle. The freeway on-ramp nearest me was closed and I'd forgotten my badge so I went back home to get it but only after I followed the detour the wrong way and was already late by that point. I followed the correct detour to the next on-ramp and it was closed, too. The detour from that on-ramp finally got me somewhere I could get on the freeway and I caught the shuttle a mere thirty minutes late. On the way to the airport part of the freeway was closed and the shuttle had to take a rather roundabout way to get to LAX. Even with all of that, we still made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare. But that was when I discovered that the credit card I take with me for international trips couldn't (or wouldn't) add a travel note to my account and I briefly freaked out about not being able to check in to the hotel when I got there.
The flight itself was awesome. I've never before flown Cathay Pacific but it beat the heck out of both Air China and China Air (yes, two separate carriers). The seats were fairly wide, comfortable, had decent amounts of leg room, reclined in a pleasant but not blocking (Lufthansa) or painful fashion (Air France) and had in-seat electrical plugs. The entertainment options were quite good as well. The only drawback was that we didn't have a direct flight to China. But if we weren't connecting through Hong Kong we wouldn't have been on Cathay so maybe that was worth it to have the longest leg of the journey be the best. I slept almost the whole trip.
Connecting in Hong Kong was fine other than my misplacing my luggage receipt briefly. Our plane had arrived forty minutes ahead of schedule so we beat the transfer window being open. While we waited, I called my credit card company again and finally got the travel note added to my account. Then we checked in, headed to our gate and started the second part of the trip. Hong Kong was apparently super humid. I commented to my teammate that I felt like we were in some soft of supervillain's lair. The air conditioning vents were spewing fog when we boarded. I joked that I wouldn't be surprised if we passed out and woke up in a cave somewhere.
The final approach was uneventful other than the pilot getting lost on the tarmac in Beijing. I found the facts themselves amusing and that we knew about it even more so. Shortly after landing, the flight attendant reminded us to all remain seated and then mentioned that the pilot was taxiing the wrong direction. A little bit later, she said something else and mentioned again that the pilot was still taxiing the wrong direction. It took quite a while to get the plane turned around and head to our gate, during which time the local co-workers who were landing a little after us had managed to land and beat us to baggage claim. Immigration was pretty packed with foreigners and only had six lanes open while sixteen were open and barely busy for the Chinese nationals. But shortly after we got there they opened six of the other lanes to foreigners and things evened out. It was kind of funny to watch a guard walking through the Chinese lines and evicting the obvious non-Chinese. They're not particularly hard to spot. Once through we then waited for twenty minutes for the train to the main terminal to leave. Our entire plane's luggage was already rotating on the baggage claim conveyor by the time we got there. After that we met up with our local co-workers, went to the hotel and slept the rest of the day.
Yesterday some of us woke up and met for breakfast. We met again later for lunch in the city. Our hotel is in the middle of nowhere so it's about an hour cab ride into the city. We went to this little Beijing noodle shop which was apparently popular with the locals. The main dishes were good but none of us were very impressed with the noodles. The noodles themselves were okay but the sauce for them was kind of bitter. It was an interesting experience, at least, since for most of us until that point a noodle shop meant noodles in soup and not noodles with sauce. After that we walked around a while trying to find a taxi. We watched a car try to turn in front of a bus with the expected result (it smashed the side of the car). The funny part was the quick rearranging of the drivers of the car before "getting out" to assess the damage. "Oh crap. My license is already suspended! You be the one who was driving!" We eventually found a taxi to take us to a shopping mall where we walked around but didn't buy anything. However, we stayed too long and couldn't find a taxi that would pick us up for an hour after that no matter where we walked or how we tried to attract their attention. Finally, one did and we got back to the hotel where I crashed because our maintenance was in six hours.
The maintenance itself went fine. Getting to the data center was a minor miracle as there were no taxis waiting and the concierge earlier had apparently been unable to reserve one for us. There was one taxi waiting out on the street corner but he was waiting for a guest to return to pay their fare. Amazingly, since we're literally in the middle of nowhere, another empty taxi passed by shortly after that and took us there. We thought the other cabbie would be there all night and their fare wasn't coming back but after we pulled away we saw a girl walk up and pay him. We started our work a bit late and it took longer than I (but not my teammate) had expected. He was ready to crash as soon as we were done so we came back to the hotel while our co-workers finished up their part of things.
There aren't any plans for the rest of today but tomorrow afternoon we fly to Hangzhou and our next maintenance is at 2am on Wednesday. Whee!
Leaving one day after spending a week and a half in Arizona was rough. I basically landed, checked in at the office, went home and slept, woke up, did laundry, got called by work a bunch of times to deal with stuff, packed and left for work to catch the shuttle. The freeway on-ramp nearest me was closed and I'd forgotten my badge so I went back home to get it but only after I followed the detour the wrong way and was already late by that point. I followed the correct detour to the next on-ramp and it was closed, too. The detour from that on-ramp finally got me somewhere I could get on the freeway and I caught the shuttle a mere thirty minutes late. On the way to the airport part of the freeway was closed and the shuttle had to take a rather roundabout way to get to LAX. Even with all of that, we still made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare. But that was when I discovered that the credit card I take with me for international trips couldn't (or wouldn't) add a travel note to my account and I briefly freaked out about not being able to check in to the hotel when I got there.
The flight itself was awesome. I've never before flown Cathay Pacific but it beat the heck out of both Air China and China Air (yes, two separate carriers). The seats were fairly wide, comfortable, had decent amounts of leg room, reclined in a pleasant but not blocking (Lufthansa) or painful fashion (Air France) and had in-seat electrical plugs. The entertainment options were quite good as well. The only drawback was that we didn't have a direct flight to China. But if we weren't connecting through Hong Kong we wouldn't have been on Cathay so maybe that was worth it to have the longest leg of the journey be the best. I slept almost the whole trip.
Connecting in Hong Kong was fine other than my misplacing my luggage receipt briefly. Our plane had arrived forty minutes ahead of schedule so we beat the transfer window being open. While we waited, I called my credit card company again and finally got the travel note added to my account. Then we checked in, headed to our gate and started the second part of the trip. Hong Kong was apparently super humid. I commented to my teammate that I felt like we were in some soft of supervillain's lair. The air conditioning vents were spewing fog when we boarded. I joked that I wouldn't be surprised if we passed out and woke up in a cave somewhere.
The final approach was uneventful other than the pilot getting lost on the tarmac in Beijing. I found the facts themselves amusing and that we knew about it even more so. Shortly after landing, the flight attendant reminded us to all remain seated and then mentioned that the pilot was taxiing the wrong direction. A little bit later, she said something else and mentioned again that the pilot was still taxiing the wrong direction. It took quite a while to get the plane turned around and head to our gate, during which time the local co-workers who were landing a little after us had managed to land and beat us to baggage claim. Immigration was pretty packed with foreigners and only had six lanes open while sixteen were open and barely busy for the Chinese nationals. But shortly after we got there they opened six of the other lanes to foreigners and things evened out. It was kind of funny to watch a guard walking through the Chinese lines and evicting the obvious non-Chinese. They're not particularly hard to spot. Once through we then waited for twenty minutes for the train to the main terminal to leave. Our entire plane's luggage was already rotating on the baggage claim conveyor by the time we got there. After that we met up with our local co-workers, went to the hotel and slept the rest of the day.
Yesterday some of us woke up and met for breakfast. We met again later for lunch in the city. Our hotel is in the middle of nowhere so it's about an hour cab ride into the city. We went to this little Beijing noodle shop which was apparently popular with the locals. The main dishes were good but none of us were very impressed with the noodles. The noodles themselves were okay but the sauce for them was kind of bitter. It was an interesting experience, at least, since for most of us until that point a noodle shop meant noodles in soup and not noodles with sauce. After that we walked around a while trying to find a taxi. We watched a car try to turn in front of a bus with the expected result (it smashed the side of the car). The funny part was the quick rearranging of the drivers of the car before "getting out" to assess the damage. "Oh crap. My license is already suspended! You be the one who was driving!" We eventually found a taxi to take us to a shopping mall where we walked around but didn't buy anything. However, we stayed too long and couldn't find a taxi that would pick us up for an hour after that no matter where we walked or how we tried to attract their attention. Finally, one did and we got back to the hotel where I crashed because our maintenance was in six hours.
The maintenance itself went fine. Getting to the data center was a minor miracle as there were no taxis waiting and the concierge earlier had apparently been unable to reserve one for us. There was one taxi waiting out on the street corner but he was waiting for a guest to return to pay their fare. Amazingly, since we're literally in the middle of nowhere, another empty taxi passed by shortly after that and took us there. We thought the other cabbie would be there all night and their fare wasn't coming back but after we pulled away we saw a girl walk up and pay him. We started our work a bit late and it took longer than I (but not my teammate) had expected. He was ready to crash as soon as we were done so we came back to the hotel while our co-workers finished up their part of things.
There aren't any plans for the rest of today but tomorrow afternoon we fly to Hangzhou and our next maintenance is at 2am on Wednesday. Whee!