Beijing Trip - Beijing Airport

I’m currently on my Air China flight from Beijing to Chengdu. I arrived at the airport at around 9:30am and tried to check-in electronically but the machine couldn’t recognize my passport. Checking in at the counter wasn’t too bad though and there weren’t any problems. I bought my ticket through Ctrip.com so I was a bit worried since I didn’t have a paper ticket. The terminal is really big but I’m not sure it’s that much bigger than the HKIA building.

With my boarding pass in hand, I tried to go down to the arrival area to look for John Chen. I didn’t know which flight he was on but there were not that many international arrivals. The only flight from London was BA39 but it was 30 minutes late. Seeing how the people walking out were from a flight that landed 45 minutes ago, chances were slim that I would see John before I had to board my flight so I gave up. Maybe I’ll see him back in the US during Thanksgiving. One thing I did notice about the arrival area was that there were almost no seats for people waiting.

The flight I’m on is not that full. I think it’s a Boeing 757Airbus A321-200 and it’s really new. Even for a 2.5 hour flight, they served us lunch. I’m sitting in one of the emergency exit rows; I seem to get the emergency exit row seats quite often in Asia but never in the US. The plane and service is much better than the last time I flew on Sichuan Airlines from Chengdu to Sanya. On the in-flight video, they show a short clip on the Olympics. At the end, there’s a shot of an athlete waving. You would think since it’s Air China, they would have a Chinese athlete since there were so many gold medal winners. Interestingly, it was the PeruvianParaguayan model that participated in the javelin event.

I’m also sitting right next the mid-plane lavatory. It’s surprising how many people can’t figure out how to open the door. At least they all figured out how to lock the door from the inside.

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I still can't get the Internet to work on my computer at my friend's apartment in Chengdu. The gateway probably has a list of MAC addresses of users so I need them to add my computer. I'll probably keep using my friends computer to update this blog. The connection is pretty slow anyway so I'll add pictures when I'm in Hong Kong or when I get back home. At least I can post text for now.