Trains, planes and automobiles
Jamaica,
New York,
United States
Thursday, July 17, 2008
So this was my day. Taxi to the SONO train station. Metro North train to Grand Central Terminal. Shuttle bus to the airport. Airplane to Beijing. All I needed was a boat thrown in for good measure I would have had the global warming trifecta!
Everything went smoothly. Almost too smoothly. Matt, Lynn and I made it to the airport without any problems. (Lynn is one of my friends. Matt met Lynn on a Habitat build last year. They are co-leaders on the Mongolia trip.) So we check in and get rid of our huge bags and head to the bar. Of course we do! Sockmonkey comes out and the shenanigans begin (sockmonkey was bestowed to Lynn a while back from a friend. Monkey goes on trips around the world and has some sinful tastes and desires. These are often documented in compromising photographs.)
I think it's at this point where I truly realize that I'm heading to China. Up until this moment it had been an academic, preparation and packing exercise. But now ... I have a ticket ... a seat ... it's really, really, happening. Wow.
What's the fastest was to fly from New York to Beijing? If you said over the north pole you'd be right. We went straight north over the poll and then headed south to Beijing. At one point one of the attendant windows were opened (the cabin windows were closed so people could sleep) and we could see the ice on the 'ground' below.
Movies on the plane were: Jet Lee's Warlord, the Bucket List and a really interesting Chinese war drama. Not really sure what it was about since the earphones were terrible and I couldn't hear anything.
I did manage to get some sleep on the plane, maybe 6 hours. This should help reduce the jet lag.
