myChinaBlog

6 June 2008

Airport Travel: Huangshan Part II - Will we ever leave?

Posted by Andrew under: 5. Huangshan Mountains; 0. Home China Page .

After about three and a half hours and five TsingTao beers and three ice coffees later at the airport, we proceeded to check in. Our unopened bottle of vodka had to be “tested” and we thought security was going to drink it. The security checks in China are actually quite thorough and they will open and smell your vials of liquids if they can’t tell what it is by sight. Reggie had his bottle of hairspray taken from him but they allowed him to recheck it - they took him to the baggage area and the heavy metal door slammed shut behind him as if he was being lead away by the Oompah Loompahs; we wondered if we were going to see him again for the rest of the trip. (Fortunately, he rejoined us in the waiting area.) What’s surprising is how nice they are about it, no attitude and they take extreme care in removing items from your bag as well as insure that everything is put back as neatly as possible. You can tell we are no longer in America.

With some time to spare we had to look for outlets for our laptops and the only place was alongside the TVs scattered throughout the waiting area, about 5 TVs in all. I chose mine away from most people and had to move the TV plug to accommodate my fat adapter but quickly plugged the TV back in for the one lady watching a soap opera. (Reggie, however, with his Mac completely knocked out a TV’s multi-plug while a number of people were watching a sporting event.)

About 45 minutes before we are to board, we hear a rumble and sounds of rain all around us; multiple flashes of lightning and more thunder. The rains get heavier and drown out the ambient noises. Every ten minutes they announce that our flight is delayed but no further information is given. Unfortunately this keeps up to way pass our scheduled departure time. In fact, our plane is suppose to arrive from Shanghai, an hour away, but has not even left the airport. By 11:30 we hear a new message in Chinese that did not sound like the ones before and Zach nodded to me that our flight will be canceled and sure enough it is. The people on duty for the airline immediately gather all of us, about 40 or so, so that we can collect our luggage while they bring around two buses - one for us and another for our luggage.

Though no one is happy, no one is complaining either. We arrive at a hotel about 10 minutes away to find everyone surrounding the woman that called us together initially to find out what we need to do. At this point she takes everyones’ boarding pass and directs us to go to the fifth floor of the hotel by way of the one small elevator that holds six people, luggage and all, where she proceeds to assign the rooms. The only real confusion we had was what time we were suppose to meet for breakfast and what time we were being picked up: either 7a or 6a. We got to the room, showered and set our alarm for 6:25, just in case. Amazingly, they had taken the precaution of giving all of us a wake up call at 6:30, without our knowledge.

We could not believe how well thought out and how smoothly this transition went. The airport personnel took immediate action and had us in our rooms within two hours of our scheduled flight time. No one complained, well, we did because our room was hot but that’s not the airline’s fault. A wake up call was placed for each traveler and a full buffet breakfast made available and ready by 7am. You can tell we are no longer in America.