Try, try, again
It was with great disappointment that I had to postpone my second trip to China first from April to August and then again till November. We were finally set to leave on Nov 5 and arrived with minor issues on Nov 6. Anyone travelling through the Beijing airport might want to take note of a few things.
This airport is huge and all in one massive hanger it seems. When checking our luggage into Pearson airport in Toronto, we were told our luggage would be checked through to our destination. We were only given the first of our two boarding cards with instructions to pick up the second set at the Air China desk in Beijing. Being in a wheelchair, I was of course the last to de-board. By this time, everyone else from the plane was long gone and we were left to find our own way to where ever we needed to go next, customs as it turned out. After customs it was time to make a long trek to the AIr CHina desk. We only had 2 hours between our connections so we needed to hurry. We first had to wait a fair while before the mono rail picked us up. After that, able bodied travellers were provided with a lovely moving floor while we wheelchair users were forced to wheel along what felt like miles and miles of carpeting. Upon arriving at AC check in, we were asked to weigh in our luggage. Our luggage?????? What do you mean, it is supposed to be checked on through. “Hurry hurry hurry” the ticket agent is saying, “you must have your luggage here in 10 minutes or it will be too late”. Apparently, we must be at the boarding gate 30 minutes before take off and it takes 45 minutes to travel from the check in desk to the gate. HOw in the world is anyone suppose to manage this with only a 2 hour gap between flights.
My poor travelling companion is now racing back through the airport and returns in the nick of time, that is if I am willing to pay an extra fee to have the golf cart drivers taxi us to the departure gate. After a hair raising ride, we pull up to the gate with 10 minutes to spare only to see………….nothing. Not a soul around, lights off and our plane pulling out of the hanger 10 minutes early. What do we do now?
Back to an Air CHina desk to arrange to get on the next flight departing in 2 hours. The problem is, Air China does not fly till the next day. A different airline can take us, that is as long as we don’t mind buying new tickets. Now, as irritated as I was getting by this time, it in no way measured to what was coming. The clerks all spent so much time chatting with each other, on their cell phones and disappearing for lengths of time, we were now going to be running into the same time crunch with getting from point A to point B again without missing our flight again. If I had to end up paying for a 3rd set of tickets, well, it wasn’t going to be very pretty.
End of story is, we just made the flight. If you are travelling through with a connection in Beijing, you might want to make sure you have a little more time as opposed to a shorter wait.
We were collected from the airport as expected despite arriving in late. I was very pleased when we arrived at the hospital to find the same warm welcome in a clean and modern environment. The doctors, nurses, therapists and various other staff are all pleasant and extremely helpful. Getting around is easy and cheap and the food…………..oh the wonderfully delicious food. Like last time, my non existent appetite has returned voraciously.
I think this is a long enough read for a start. I will blog again soon with my first week under my belt.
Add comment November 15th, 2008
