China 1: A funny thing happened on the way to Tokyo

TOKYO – Somewhere over the Pacific, on a three hour-delayed flight aboard All Nippon flight 920, it struck me that I was being taught a new lesson in patience. I thought I had handled it pretty well so far, and I thought I was on the final leg of my China adventure, ready to be done, to finally arrive Tokyo, to check in to a hotel and relax. I was so ready. And so wrong.

The 14-hour odyssey that was my Saturday started at 6 a.m. when I left the Holiday Inn hotel in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China, for the airport. Zhuhai is a rapidly growing city just across the bay from Hong Kong with dozens and dozens of new high-rise apartment buildings under construction, and a booming economy.

The Zhuhai airport is a relatively modern facility, with amenities that include upscale-appearing shops, a cafe, a restaurant, and two VIP lounges. It’s small, with only about 10 domestic departure gates, but you can tell they get the whole commerce angle of selling things to people who have nothing better to do at the moment than shop. Galleria shoppers wouldn’t be impressed, but you can tell they are working on it here.

Check-in didn’t start as I had hoped, when the young woman working the counter at China Southern Airlines handed back my passport and asked for my ticket number. Ticket number? I wondered what system they were using where my name/passport couldn’t locate a booking.

Fifteen minutes later, after two trips to another counter to confer with colleagues, she returned with a boarding pass. But they wouldn’t check my bag through to Tokyo, only to Shanghai. So with a two-hour connection time once I got to Shanghai (a really big airport), now I would have to retrieve luggage and go through the check in process again in Shanghai.

I passed through security screening without incident and headed for a small restaurant/noodle shop to get some breakfast. I only had about 40 yuan left ($7), not quite enough for a coffee and a bowl of soup or noodles, so I was counting on American Express to get me food. The young Chinese waitress approached with a very modern handheld device to take my order. She didn’t speak English, so I just pointed to place my order: a caramel machiato coffee and a bowl of cooked pork and noodles, totaling about 80 yuan. She dutifully entered it into her device and as I handed her my credit card, she spoke rapidly and with authority in Mandarin. After a moment of me staring blankly at her, she left and came back with a colleague who spoke some English – and clarified their cash-only policy.

Note for the Trip Advisor crowd:  there’s no ATM in the Zhuhai airport, at least none in the secure area. I always carry local currency, but let the cash reserves run too low as I was closing out the China leg of my trip. And my smile and charm were useless against a hand-held ordering device, so I contented myself with just the caramel machiato.  It was quite delicious, actually.

The flight boarded about 30 minutes late, cutting off precious time for my connection in Shanghai.

A couple of other observations:  in China, the on-board customs can be somewhat different at times. For example, instead of a passenger rising to let another passenger enter or exit the row, they just climb over each other. I must have looked a little silly to them as I got up many times during the flight to allow the couple sitting next to me and their toddler daughter to come and go.

America’s Top Model had been selected as the on-board entertainment for this flight, which I found ironic. It can be a little PG-17 at times and this is a pretty conservative place, especially on a plane with many children aboard. But there it was, in all its American glory, to entertain customers on China Southern Airlines.

As we began our descent, the cabin pressure rose – as it almost always does – and the cute little girl sitting on her father’s lap next to me gave out a prolonged and earnest protest wail.  If you’ve traveled with young children, you’ve been in that spot and you know the powerless feeling; Mama’s cooing and even Daddy’s angry orders were insufficient to calm the screaming girl.

After getting jostled and bumped by people racing to be first off the airplane, I exited the aircraft in Shanghai.  I retrieved my bag at the carousel, and ascended the escalator to find the check-in desk for All Nippon Airways. It was 11:35 a.m., I was 5.5 hours into my journey and the clock was ticking on my connecting flight.

Next:  There’s a problem with your luggage, sir. Would you follow me please?