Supposedly, I was to arrive in Beijing before Margie, Linda, Jan and Laura but my plane was an hour late. My tardiness was probably predicable because I did NOT fly China Air. If you have never flown China Air try it. Just think back in time about 30 years and that approximates their service. They even bow in unison at the end of the flight to thank you. Good full meals (not ‘snacks’) and drinks but still no diet coke.
The minute we got to the gate I turned on my no-frills Motorola Chinese cell phone and immediately got the call asking “Katie, Where are you”? The girls had arrived 30 minutes early (they flew China Air) and got thru Immigration in record time. Robert, our Chinese guide, took us immediately to our Beijing hotel whose lobby and elevators looked like a Las Vegas “wanna be”. After some short instructions from Robert, the five of us took off to explore the streets. After looking at DVD’s, fruit and people we stopped at a crowded restaurant that looked promising. It ended up being Sichuan, which has a red hot, fiery, chili sauce on almost everything and if the food doesn’t have a sauce it had lots of pepper. Margie was in heaven and the food was really good but most of our stomachs could only take half portions. After stocking up on bottled water for the next day we hit the bed (can’t use the idiom “hit the sack”, cause that would mean that the bed would have to semi-resemble the softness of a sack). I don’t know about the other Georgia jet lagged girls, but Margie & I slept hard and thru the night.
