The voyage of the luggage

Let me set the scene. We get a call in the morning saying we that they found our luggage and it's still in Chicago. Japan Airlines and American Airlines are blamng each other. We were on our way to the Great Wall (which was and is great, by the way) and it really took the wind out of our sails. I'll write more about the wall later, but unfortunately this whole trip has turned into the saga of the luggage. After the Great Wall we took a tour of the traditional areas of Beijing, which were not nearly as interesting as that sounds. It was raining the whole day and kind of depressing.

Then we went to the tea market, and had an amazing visit with a tea vendor who sampled green tea, oolong tea, aged black tea, another kind of aged and fermented oolong tea and tea made from baby chrysanthemum flowers. Best moment we've had here. Then we blew off a special dinner in a top restaurant and started scrambling to buy things, since we're about to go places where you basically can't buy anything. Got underwear, shampoo, toothpaste, that kind of stuff, at a supermarket, then to a mall to buy pants, t-shirts, and way too many other things. We got some, but not really enough. It was 9:45, we were both exhausted, we had both been missing our prescription medications for several days and weren't sure about the wisdom of proceeding.

So we headed back to the hotel to decide whether or not to carry on or to just chuck it and go home. I'd had this voice in the back of my head saying "this is a disaster, let's just go home," and so had Ronnie. We walked in the hotel room at 10:15 and our guide called and said, "Where are you? I've been trying to call. It's 9:55 and the airline just called and the bags are in Beijing and will be delivered to the hotel between 10 and 12."

Our first thought was that we'd believe it when we saw them, and our second thought was that it was a good thing we'd rubbed the happy Buddah's tummy for good luck during the tea ceremony. At 11PM the bags arrived, and the trip is saved. We're off to Xi'an tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

It's going to be hard for met to do any formatting, because all the menus are in Chinese for some reason, and of course I don't even know which button is for changing preferences because I don't know how to spell "preferences" in Chinese.

Anyway, we're in Beijing today, but now the trip is all about trying to get our baggage. Chicago says it's here. Here they say it's in Chicago. All I now is it's a terrible mess and we have to go out and buy clothes and we don't know if we're ever going to get the bags. It's made it really hard to enjoy ourselves.

I'd be hard-pressed to say that I'm blown away by Beijing at first sight. It's not a place that reveals its charms instantly. We saw the Forbidden City , which was impressive and beautiful in places, but Tiananmen Square, though large, was pretty unimpressive and though it's said to be the world's largest square, it's certainly not a "wow!" The Temple of Heaven was also very pretty, but the walkway in was populated by vendors trying to sell t-shirts, guidebooks, watches (I need a watch but I passed), and various sorts of junk. They were ever so slightly aggressive, and it wasn't really that pleasant.

We had a great lunch. I can't remember the name of the place, but you probably aren't going there anyway. It had tastes familiar in US-based Chinese food, but richer and more complex. The soup, which was a kind of egg drop soup, but with fish eggs, was exceptional. We also saw a state-sponsored crafts complex, where we get an introduction to silk carpet and embroidery and a fresh water pearl showroom. Very pushy salespeople.

Finally gave up and came back to the hotel and crashed for a while. Then off to the mall to buy clothes. I'm pleased to say that we will both be able to wear something different tomorrow.

I haven't uploaded pictures yet because I need to conserve my battery until the luggage arrives. Didn't take much today anyway. We're doing the Great Wall tomorrow, which should be pretty photogenic.

The next day

Far be it from me to wax philosophical, but when you're in a situation like this you really can see who is nice and who isn't. We packed all of our prescription drugs, and of course didn't have enough, so I went for a walk (no, we didn't take in the Chicago nightlife, which is very nice) and found a Walgreens,, where the pharmacy staff jumped through all kinds of hoops to get us an emergency supply. Hopefully we'll see more of the nice types today on our way to Japan and China.

SPLAT!

That would be the noise made by the first day of our trip. Let's just say things didn't go smoothly. The car service didn't show up and they didn't call to tell us that the driver hadn't shown up for work, so we had to jump in the car and dash to the airport. We got there in plenty of time, especially since the flight was delayed by 20 minutes or so. I was kind of nervous, because we had a connection to make in Chicago (we were going via Tokyo to Beijing), but 20 minutes was no problem.

The flight got in more like 30 minutes late, and then there was a long line to take off. Finally, we get to Chicago 15 minutes before the flight to Tokyo. I was relieved to see that our flight was at the gate right next to the Japan flight, and I could see them loading baggage as we pulled up. We dash off the plane and the rudest gate agent in the entire world barks at us, "Sorry, you missed your flight." I say, but it's right there, pointing at the plane. "Sorry, your luggage won't make it. You need to rebook." It's actually boring to recount this now, but we're stuck in Chicago for a day, and we couldn't get our luggage to change clothes because (here comes the punchline) our bags are on our flight to Japan.

We spent most of the early afternoon trudging around the airport, and finally got a shuttle bus to the serviceable hotel that American Airlines put us up in. They gave us food vouchers too! Get this, $10 for lunch for 2 people! Wow! Almost enough for McDonalds, or coffee and a muffin at Starbucks. Anyway, we napped at the hotel and now we'll get some dinner and buy a toothbrush and such. Then we go back and do it again tomorrow.

Every trip has lousy stuff happen, but on the first day? This is the worst. The hardest thing after stuff like this happens is to not spend the day going over what happened and what you might have been able to do to prevent it. Should we have been more insistent with the obnoxious gate agent? Maybe. It's always worth the time to try to learn from what happens to you every day, but it's seldom worth the time to keep returning to the same painful moments and beating yourself up about it. We're a day late and it sucks, but that's the end of it. And tomorrow something else will happen.

After dropping the kids off at camp, I turned my attention to China preparations. One of my big questions was, is it okay to wear shorts in China? It's really hot in some parts. In Europe, I'd never wear shorts (or sneakers), because it screams "tourist" at least, and probably "American tourist," but in China that's not really much of an issue. Not such an easy question to answer. I've learned that they're not appropriate for business meetings, and lots of other things about China etiquette. For example, spitting is very common, though the government is cracking down on it before the Olympics. One guide said that the spitting is most disconcerting when the chef in your restaurant does it.

I also learned that the number 4 is associated with death (I believe that is so in Japan as well), and as a result apartments on the 4th floor of a building are the least expensive. Considering how few American buildings have a 13th floor, I guess I can't cast stones.

Great news for me today! I just heard a report on NPR that first born children have been proven to be, in NPR's reporting, "slightly" more intelligent than their siblings. I always knew I was slightly more intelligent than my brother.

Packing the kids for camp. Not too much to pack. Just a sleeping bag, toothbrush, soap, a few changes of clothes. And, oh yeah, TWO HUGE DUFFEL BAGS full of I don't even want to know what. Amazing that there's room in the bunk once they get unpacked.

Tomorrow they'll be dropped off and we have 2 days to get ready for China.

Summer vacation!

I'll add more soon, but I'll be really getting going once the kids are out of the house and we head for China. I keep reading about how you need to pack everything you might possibly need, because it's hard to get a lot of things in China. This makes no sense to me, since almost everything I pick up seems to be made in China.

Stay tuned...