Bye Reno, Hello Beijing

I’m finally in China. I left Reno on June 14 at 9:40 am and arrived in Beijing on June 15 at 8:30 pm. With the 16-hour time difference factored in, it was about 19 hours of travel from Reno to San Francisco to Tokyo-Narita and finally to Beijing. The 11-hour flight from San Francisco to Tokyo went by really quickly. I had a book and magazines to read, and those actually lasted a good 4-5 hours. Then I listened to music, slept, and watched the movie “Zodiac,” and by the time the movie was over, there was only an hour until we landed.

I flew Japan Airlines. The seats weren’t too cramped (although I was stuck in 53K, a middle seat), the food was decent, and the English was fairly understandable. However, the flight attendants were amazing. They were all friendly, professional, and good looking, even the older ones. Lunch was the first meal they served; it was chicken teriyaki with salad, cold noodles, and almond jelly. Dinner featured pasta with salmon, a roll, salad, yogurt, fruit, and an ice cream bar.


When I got to Tokyo, I had to wait for 2 hours for my next flight. So I studied my Chinese characters and dialogues. This flight wasn’t so much fun. As soon as I got on the plane, I developed the worst headache I’d ever had. I put my sweater on and tried to sleep the pain away. It was really scary when the flight attendant asked me what I wanted to drink. First of all, I was exhausted so I was groggy and confused when she woke me up. Second, I thought the headache had somehow caused me irreversible brain damage. I tried to answer “orange juice” to her question, but for some reason I couldn’t remember how to say it in either English or Chinese. The gestures I made with my hands didn’t help at all, and she gave me a weird look when I tried speaking and unintelligible sounds came out. I think she saw me struggling and suggested “Coke” and I grunted or something. I was worried by that point, but I was too tired and dumb to think about it. 15 minutes before the plane landed I filled out my entry forms and then closed my eyes since my head still hurt.

The first thing I noticed at the Beijing airport was the awful air. There was no clear sky as far as I could tell, just a layer of smog. Once I got past customs, there was a mob of people waving signs, each trying to get into a position of better visibility than the person next to him. I finally saw the red HBA flag, and with Dani, Jordan, Spenta, Nick, and Eddie, I boarded the bus to the Beijing Language and Culture University. We’re staying at the BLCU conference center, a nice hotel-like building with single rooms and private bathrooms, perfect for language studiers who need privacy for practicing pronunciation and who may stay up until 2:00 trying to memorize the next day’s lesson.