Big metal bird flies over big water

Location: Kuntai Royal Hotel, Beijing

I'm here.

My internal clock is all confused — I don't know what time it is, or even what day. OK, my computer tells me it's 7am back in Seattle, and the hotel clock says it's 10pm here. I think we're both on Monday now...

Getting to the airport this morning (OK, technically it was yesterday morning, but it feels like today to me) was an adventure. In all the confusion leaving the house, I managed to leave behind one of my bags — the one containing the computer I'm writing on now, so it was pretty important. Hey, I had four bags, plus (ahem) three things to carry on. The bad news it I didn't realize the bag was missing until we were at the airport and had paid for parking. The good news is we had left really early so there was time to hurry home and get it. That left me with just barely enough time to check in, get through security, and board the plane. No time to get any food before boarding, and no time to pick up any Chinese currency. And of course a short flight like Seattle to San Francisco doesn't serve any food, so all I had from waking up until after 1pm was a couple little packets of pretzels and a tiny glass of orange juice.

When I got to SFO, I went over to the international terminal as quickly as I could, got some Chinese money, went through security, and found someplace to eat. Huevos rancheros definitely took the edge off, and then I found a place that could make me a latte. I had a little while to organize my carry-on things before my row was called to board. There was a whole athletic team of guys in grey sweats with CHINA on them — I don't know what sport it was. Many of them were fairly tall, so it could have been basketball or volleyball. There were also a lot of Americans wearing big pins with a red logo on them that I couldn't read. Some sort of tour group, no doubt.

The duration of the flight was about 12 hours, and the 747 was completely full as far as I could tell. The food was pretty decent on Air China, stir-fry chicken and vegetables (actually a little on the spicy side) with steamed rice for the first meal, along with a tasty little chocolate dessert. They didn't come around very often with beverages, however, and the glasses were tiny. I tried a miniscule glass of red wine. I think the label said Great Wall, and I couldn't tell if there was a variety listed. It was not the worst red wine I have ever tasted. I'll leave it at that. For the second meal, I had noodles with veggies and little tiny bits of chicken.

I completely skipped the movies, and read The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Films, which was enjoyable, though it suffered from a ridiculous number of typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors. Who edits those things?

And I listened to the Zen on all-track shuffle, so I got monks chanting mixed up with Mozart on piano, the history of reggae, Japanese rock, and obscure progressive items. And I napped a little, though not much.

I filled out three little forms on the plane for customs, swearing I have not come into contact with any poultry and so on. Customs and Immigration was ridiculously easy, much faster than my trip to the UK in 2001. They took my papers, stamped them, and said thank you.

My new boss JW was waiting outside the customs area with a driver, who loaded my stuff into a Passat and took us to my hotel. After having a shower and a few minutes to settle stuff into the room, JW walked me around the corner to a nice little restaurant where we ate and talked. So much to get up to speed on, and that's not even counting work!

Later I'll take some photos and post them. My energy level is flagging fast, and it's getting to be a reasonable time to go to bed. My first impressions are: it's a really big city, and there's lots of neon, and there are lots of stylishly dressed people. No signs of any drab conformity, and there's construction absolutely everywhere.

The cross-oceanic library

I thought I'd make a list of the books I'm taking with me. An inventory might be handy in case something goes astray in transit. It's kind of an odd selection, consisting largely of books that I haven't read that were easily accessible (not packed in boxes in the basement). There are also a few I've read before but feel like reading again.

In my carry-on bags:
Coyote — Allen Steele
The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies — John Scalzi
China — Eyewitness Travel Guides
Culture Shock! Beijing — Kay Jones & Anthony Pan

In checked baggage:
The Queen of Springtime — Robert Silverberg
Dance, Dance, Dance — Haruki Murakami
A Deepness in the Sky — Vernor Vinge
Coyote Rising — Allen Steele
The Rough Guide: First-Time Asia

In a box to be shipped:
What If? — ed. Robert Cowley
Broken Angels — Richard K. Morgan
Dark Matter — ed. Sheree R. Thomas
The Tale of Genji — Lady Murasaki
The Star Dwellers — James Blish
Three Famous Short Novels — William Faulkner
Illegal Alien — Robert J. Sawyer
Forward the Foundation — Isaac Asimov
Shadow's End — Sheri Tepper
Flights — ed. Al Sarantonio
The Intuitionist — Colson Whitehead
Musashi — Eiji Yoshikawa
Brightness Reef — David Brin
The Europeans — Henry James
The Weird Colonial Boy — Paul Voermans
The Killing Thing — Kate Wilhelm
The Four-Gated City — Doris Lessing
Hidden Talents — David Lubar
Mountains of Majipoor — Robert Silverberg
Phases of the Moon — Robert Silverberg

I had sort of hoped to take more of Silverberg's Majipoor books, but they're buried a little too deep in the basement boxes to get at without a taking more time than I have.

As I prepare for leaving, I've been using available moments finishing up Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Told by Herself by Harriet Jacobs. It belongs to my sister, and I'd like to read it all before I have to return it.

Counting my underwear

The other day I was doing some packing, and found myself counting out how many pairs of underwear I would need before leaving, so I could pack any extra that were clean. It occurred to me that this is a sure sign that D-Day (that's "D" for Departure, or course) is getting pretty close. It's also probably a sign that my situation has led me to attach undue significance to unimportant things.

The only events of real significance are the arrival of my passport with the Chinese visa in it (got here with two days to spare!), and my inability to actually get any Chinese currency. OK, that last is really a non-event. JW had told me that before leaving that he went to a Bank of America branch and exchanged some US currency for Chinese RMB, so I went to my credit union, got some cash, and walked uptown to a BOA. As it turns out, starting October 1, they no longer do currency exchanges at branches. Account holders have to request the transaction online, then go in and pick it up a few days later. The teller recommended I go to TravelEx in the Westlake Center, so I hiked further uptown and went in. They would have been happy to do it for me, but they didn't happen to have any RMB on hand. The nice clerk there called down to one of their SeaTac branches and reserved some for me to pick up on Sunday morning. At least I got some exercise, having walked all the way from Pioneer Square to Westlake Center, and then down to the Pike Place Market to meet D for lunch at the Pan Africa Cafe for some good African food. That's something I might not be able to find in Beijing.

(I actually wrote some of this next bit a few days ago, but didn't get around to posting. I'll keep with blog format and work backwards in time.)

Pretend this next paragraph was posted 10/19.

Thursday was D's birthday. She had to work, so when she got home, we got ourselves together and went to this new pizza place in our part of town. It's kind of a strange place — a combination of casual and sorta-classy. They've got big screen TV's that were showing baseball playoffs, and the staff dresses on the casual side, but the food is not cheap, and they do the service well, as the waitress did a very nice job of presenting our bottle of wine. Slices of pizza cost around $5, but they're really huge, and a single piece is all one person needs. I've never seen one, but apparently a full pizza is something like 28" across, and costs $30+. Anyway, we had a great dinner and then went home and watched the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera on DVD. What a snapshot of another era! And pretty funny too.

Pretend this was posted 10/18.

Wednesday was a day of relief after a time of mounting tension, mostly dealing with the passport and visa mentioned above. I had not heard any news about it since last week when the letter of invitation from China had yet to arrive. No letter, no visa; no visa, no entry to China. Yikes! I was getting a little concerned, but on Wednesday afternoon I got a call on my cell phone that it had come through. It was being sent overnight express to the Seattle office. That was a huge relief. On the phone, she said that she hadn't been worried about it not coming through in time, but nobody bothered to share that optimism with me. I'm not really a worry-wart by nature, but I was certainly headed in that direction on this one.

Pretend this was posted 10/17.

Tuesday was my last soccer game with Kick Arsenal. We played on one of the nice new artificial turf fields out at Marymoor Park in Redmond, so the distance to get there was compensated by the nice playing surface. The weather was pleasant, heading towards the chilly side, but that's what I prefer for playing anyway. The game ended in a 2:2 draw, which is pretty good considering our record this season. After the game a bunch of us went to the Celtic Bayou (yes, it's exactly what you would think with a name like that) for beers in memory of the departure of the team's last remaining founding member. That's me, if you didn't guess. A group of employees at Ticketmaster started the team back in the spring of 1999, and with all the turnover in players during the intervening years, I was the last one left, and the last Ticketmaster person still hanging in there. Many strange stories were shared, and we ended up getting kind of noisy, though not apparently bad enough to merit a warning from the management. I will not even try to attempt a recap of the topics covered. As far as any readers of this know, I have some dignity.

Thanks for your cooperation in pretending.