Sydney to Beijing - Every flight is
different.
Boarding
11:45, everyone on board by 12:02, for a 12:10 departure.
Pushing
back 12:12
Take
off 12:27
Lunch
Airline
food is getting better but the fact they serve it up to you in a metal tray
with a thick aluminium lid does nothing for the quality of the food inside.
I
get what the chef is trying to do but often there is too little of one thing
and too much of another and what you finish up with is slop in a tray.
Sometimes
it's edible sometimes it's not.
Sometimes the meat is tender and other times it's like boot
leather. As it is today.
I
think it's pork, I should have had the chicken.
Or perhaps it wasn't chicken.
The
drinks were good.
It's
going to take 11 hours and 20 minutes from Sydney to Shanghai, a long time to
sit in a plane with nothing much to do other than crosswords or listen to
music.
I
did bring some with me, and I'm waiting for the right time.
Chronic
boredom is setting in by the time we are flying over the Molucca Sea, just past
half way to our destination. We are over 6 hours into the flight and there no
possible way I'm going to get any sleep.
I've
spent most of the last three hours working on what I call the great secret part
of one of my novels called the will. I
won't more you with the synopsis, just suffice to say it's finally down on
paper, digitally that is, and it's a huge step forward in finishing it.
There
is, of course, the end play, the reading of the will but not before there's a few
thrusts and parry’s by some of the players, but all in all the objective was to
showcase a group of people with their strengths and weaknesses pushing their
characters in various directions, some at odds with what is expected of them.
But
enough of that. A quick check of our
position shows we’re over water.
Now
in order to rest my poor brain from all of the hard work, and believe me it is
getting a few thousand words out, I brought along an iPod equivalent any put a
whole lot of 70s hits on it.
First
of all, I can't begin to imagine how these songs ever became hits, our
collective rates in music must have been very different then, But it is rolling
out the likes of profile harem, the turtles, Gerry and the pacemakers, Bobby be
a, and a host of other long forgotten and probably very dead rock and rollers.
Some
still, strike a nostalgic note.
The
Turtles, for instance, though I could not tell you how many hits they had, but
I do still have what is called a 45 record of theirs.
Then
there's The Shadows, an instrumental group t that churned out some rather
Interesting tunes. Not bad that an
instrumental could make the hit parade.
What do they call it these days, the top 40? They did then too. Only the music, if you could call it that,
had changed.
And
not for the better, I'm afraid. Perhaps
that one of those bad traits of being old.
Ok
here's an old favourite, Jenny takes a ride by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit
Wheels. Can't you just imagine sitting
in the back room with the guys mulling over what they're going to call
themselves? Bet a few drugs were
involved in that one.
Then
we can move onto Peter Startedt, who seems to have a gift of telling a story
with a little name dropping on the side in Where do you go to my lovely Perhaps he too had a bad experience with
oranges and left him in the extreme need to sing about their juice when he
followed up with Buy me one more frozen orange juice.
And
it's sad the one forget singers like Villa Black and Perils Clark who both had
some of the most unforgettable siblings, and particularly Petula Clark who went
on to star in the musical version of Goodbye Mr Chips with Peter O'Toole who I
for one never thought he could sing.
Perhaps
he couldn't, and we were just hoodwinked by the magic of the movies that he
could. James Hilton, it seemed had a
talent for such stories, but I'm not sure they turned Shangrila into a musical
perhaps a small mercy we should be thankful for.
As
I say to the grandchildren, I've got two words for you, e nuff.
Time
to move onto something else, perhaps a little more modern.
A
few years ago there was a musical show on, most like in an attempt to cash in on
the success of Glee, but it sort of limped along in the ratings.
The
premise was in putting on a Broadway show about the like of Marilyn Monroe and
the casting of two leads. As much as it
was their story it was also that the directory who classes with the people who
write the book and scored the music.
If
any part of this has any truth to it, then it's impossible to see how anything
ever reached the stage. Of course, there’s
always a lot of tangents but the mainstay for me was the musical numbers, and
the talented leads, Katherine McPhee and Megan Hilty, neither of which seemed
to go on the bigger and better things as is sometimes the case.
But
the music, well, it speaks for itself, and it's good to take it all in once
again and try to remember where and when the songs fitted. And yes, you can almost see the numbers again
in your mind’s eye.
By
this time we’re getting closer to our destination.
Dinner
is served 3 hours before the plane lands.
Yes,
another interesting concoction that says what's in it but you can't really be
sure of the ingredients. It comes and it
goes.
48
minutes before landing we begin out descent into Beijing.
At
9:56 we touch down on the runway, in the dark and apparently it had been
raining though from inside the plane you'd never know.
It
took 10 minutes for the plane to arrive at the gate, the usual few minutes to open the door, and,
being closer to the front of the plane this time, it doesn't take that long
before the queue is moving.
Then
its a matter of following the signs, some of which are not as clear as they
could be. It's why it took another 30
odd minutes to get through immigration, but that was not necessarily without a
few hiccups along the way.
We
got sidetracked at the fingerprint machines, who seemed to have a problem if
your fingers were not straight, not in the centre of the glass, and then if it
was generally cranky, which ours were.
That
took 10 to 15 minutes, before we joined an incredibly long queue of other
arrivals, and that took nearly an hour from the plane to the head of this line,
and when we got to the officer, it became apparent we were going to have to do
the fingerprints yet again. Fortunately
this time, it didn't take as long. Once
that done, we collected our bags, cleared customs by putting our bags through a
huge x-ray machine, and it was off to find our tour guide.
We
found several tour guides with their trip-a-deal flags waiting for us to come
out of the customs hall. It wasn't a
difficult process in the end. We were in
blue. Other people we had met on the
plane were in red and yellow. Tour guide
found, it was simply a matter of waiting for the rest of the group, of which
there were eventually 28.
Here's
a thought, your bus is the white one with blue writing on the side.
Yes,
yours and 25 others because nearly all of the tourist coaches are the
same. A short lesson that doesn't bring
you undone for the three days in Beijing, get the last five numbers of the bus
registration plate and commit them to memory.
It's important. Failing that, usually the guides name is in the front passenger window.
Also
don't be alarmed if your baggage goes in one direction, and you go in another.
In a rather peculiar set up the bags are taken to the hotel by what the guide
called the baggage porter. It is an
opportunity to see how baggage handlers treat your luggage.
That
said, if you're staying at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, be prepared for a long
drive from the airport. It took us nearly an hour, and bear in mind that was
very late on a Sunday night. Once there,
if you are not already exhausted by the time you arrive, the next task is to get your room key, get to your
room, and try to get to be ready the next morning at a reasonable hour.
Sorry,
that boat has sailed.
We
were lucky and our plane arrived on time, or fractionally earlier and we still
arrived at the hotel at 12:52. Imagine
if the incoming plane is late.
Still,
the foyer on our floor looks good, so it’s so far so good.
After
1:30 we finally get to sleep
With
an 8:30 start for the first day.
So...
Did
I tell you about the bathroom in our room?
The
shower and the toilet both share the same space with no divide and the shower
curtain doesn't reach to the floor.
Water pressure is phenomenal.
Having a shower floods the whole shower plus toilet area so when you go
to the toilet you're basically under water.
Don't
leave your book or magazine on the floor or it will end up a watery mess.
And
the water pressure is so hard that it could cut you in half. Only a small turn of the tap is required to
get that tingling sensation going.
