China: Day 1

A good start to our trip – Jerry and I were both upgraded to Business for the first leg, from Charlottetown to Montreal. So we had breakfast! Which was great, as that 0600 flight can be a pain.

Of course, for me things were exacerbated by the fact that I’d only had 3 hours sleep. I was finishing the draft of the Afghanistan report and didn’t press send on that file until 0130, then had to get up at 0430 to go out to the airport. And it was snowing!

Anyway, into Montreal a bit late – winter travel in Canada always requires de-icing! I don’t know why the airlines don’t build an extra 30 minutes into their ‘gate to gate’ schedules – and so we didn’t have much time to waste – we basically walked from one gate to the other. Then we had a quick flight into Toronto, and were able to use our Business-class issue headphones and so not pay $3 for another pair!

In Toronto we made the long trek out to the International Star Alliance lounge, and over a two and a bit hour period I managed to file or respond to over 200 e-mails, which made my inbox a bit less daunting. I really must train myself to ‘file as I go’ or something, so that they don’t all accumulate – many were ones I had read and just hadn’t discarded, or else were ones I just needed to put into one of the folders for future reference – only a few dozen actually required a written response. And of course, as I went to shut down I realized that those responses had generated another dozen messages for me! Sigh.

We got on the plane for Beijing – no upgrade there, sadly – and got ready for a 13+ hour flight. I settled in to my aisle seat, my jacket and my backpack in the overhead bin, and then got buffeted and bruised by people as they staggered down the aisle with more carry-on luggage than I had checked in! They squished and squashed suitcases into the bins – just how many changes of clothes do people make on a flight? How many books can they possibly read? How many winter coats will they require between the aircraft and the terminal? Those little metal measuring boxes – “your carry-on luggage should fit in here” – appear to be no more than decorator features of departure gates. One woman had a stroller bag on wheels, on top of which was strapped a computer bag or similar, plus then her oversized tote bag slung over her shoulder, and then the three carrier bags she held in her ‘free’ hand. She was hardly alone. If airlines would spend more on policing that aspect of air travel then general passenger safety would be better served than having every tenth person being given a ‘random’ pat-down body search.

Anyway, once everyone had found a spot for all their bags we took off, and soon were cruising at 39000 feet. A meal was served, and drinks, so I had two glasses of wine and then I went to sleep for 4 hours. Which was greatly appreciated. Now we’re halfway there, and if my tv set was working I could look at a map and find out exactly where we are!