Thirteenth (last) day in China, and returning home

[aadler]

I’d set the alarm for 4:30AM, but of course Susan got up at 3:50. My first act on rising (remembering our unexpected difficulty on the way out of the States) was to go online and check on our United Airlines flight. There was no indication that the flight wasn’t on schedule, so I proceeded with my morning schedule: shower, shave, dress, and pack the laptop. We were supposed to be downstairs by 5:30, but Kevin called at 5:15 to say he and Mrs Yin were already there.

Downstairs, loaded up, and Mrs Yin drove us to the Hong Kong border. We had thought it opened at 6:00, discovered that didn’t happen till 6:30. While we were waiting, Mrs Yin asked around and established that the bus we had planned to take to the airport would probably not leave in time to deliver us with the margin we needed, so she arranged for us to ride in a shuttle van instead. That turned out to be convenient; we were able to do our passport/documents inspection at a drive-through booth, rather than snaking through the interminable lines we’d had to weather before.

Kevin rode with us to the airport, just in case anything cropped up wherein we needed his help. We didn’t; Susan and I were able to check our luggage and get boarding passes by 8:00, and he got us a McDonald’s breakfast to carry us till departure.

(Susan bought a couple of bridal magazines at an airport gift shop: one in English, one in Chinese. Honestly, women are foreign creatures.)

Kevin saw us to the airport security checkpoint, and that was our goodbye. By the time Susan and I got through there, and took the tram to the proper gate, we still had two hours to spare before departure.

That time passed without incident. Our flight was supposed to take off at 11:10, but with one thing and another it was noon before we got into the air.

I had thought the flight would take over fifteen hours. Instead, we landed in Chicago thirteen and a half hours later. No Business Class this time, but good enough. Switch to another gate, wait another few hours, board at 2:45PM, take off 3:15, land 4:40.

Home.

One of our check bags somehow didn’t make the trip all the way. (Honestly, we picked up both bags at the airport at Chicago, since this was an incoming international flight, and personally put them on the conveyor belt for the remainder of the trip. Up until three years ago, I don’t think I’d ever had a bag misplaced in flight; since then, something seems to crop up on at least one leg of every trip.) Susan turned in a report, then we found our car in the economy lot and started the trip back.

It had been a long day; because of the time changes, I don’t even know how long. We got home, I brought in the luggage, took a good hot shower, and went straight to bed by 7:30PM.