And I’m Off… to Qingdao

Despite the hard time I had leaving for the airport, once I got there it was a relatively smooth trip all the way to Beijing.  I arrived at the airport in plenty of time, I had no trouble checking my bags, I receive my TSA pre-check as usual, and I had exit row seats on the way to Chicago.

I spent most of that flight finishing up all the last minute work emails that needed to get done before I would be out of my normal job for a month…  and in the grand scheme of things, a two-hour flight to Chicago was a drop in the bucket. This itinerary had a three-hour layover, so I wandered over to the Admiral’s club. I met a quirky old guy who was trying to buy a house and was quite chatty.

He also was making some borderline questionable comments to a cuter woman, significantly younger than he was who was definitely not having it. He said something like, “Well aren’t new looking beautiful today.” She essentially ignores him, but he presses on, and if nothing else provides some entertainment for me.

A few hours later, I was on a new Boeing Deamliner, enjoying my exit row seat and ready to go to sleep. We left about an hour late, but I was already trying to sleep so it didn’t bother me as much. In the end, I was able to get a decent amount, between the Ambian and it being pretty close to normal bedtime which made the flight go so much faster. I woke up with about 4 or 5 hours to go and decided to stay up so that I could hopefully sleep again a bit when I got to the hotel. I also wasn’t complaining about being able to watch DeadPool and 13 hours – the Bengazi movie.

I did need to recheck my bags and go through security which turned out to be a bigger hassle than normal. First, the airport was pretty poorly marked as to where I would need to go for my next flight.  However, I was able to figure it out since my phone was working there. When I finally did find the check in counter, my bags started buzzing because of a “battery” inside of it.

So they pulled me behind the ticketing counter and open up the baggage belt area with the key. Very odd. Certainly having the airline reps speak very little English didn’t help the situation.  Eventually though, I figured out that they didn’t want the power bank in the checked bag, so I just put it in my backpack.  Then I went to go through real security.

That turned out to be quite the adventure as well. In the end, I had the various cords, chargers, and who knows what else spread across 3 bins. They kept pulling more things out… I guess I feel safe!

After an uneventful domestic flight, my bags came out as planned, and there was a driver waiting for me. There was no traffic at 2 AM, so it was a quick trip to the hotel – something you’re always thankful to see when you’ve been travelling for 30 hours!