Today I finished my Beijing holiday and am traveling to the southern city of Shinzhen (which I’ve learned is pronounced “shinJIN” with the “J” pronounced as in French, not English. The “J” in “Beijing” on the other hand, is pronounced like the English “J”–I had always pronounced it like the French J.)
The flight was quite an adventure. When I got to the airport an information lady pointed me to a certain aisle. when I got there a sign pointed me to a second aisle, and when I got there the person at the counter pointed me to a third aisle. Before I could proceed to that aisle, some guy came up to me, took charge of my luggage and me and led me to the right counter. I didn’t believe him since it said “China Air” and I had been told to check in with “Shinzhen Air”. (China Air did sell me the ticket but the flight was operated by Shinzhen air–this sub-contracting of flights seems to be common. Our flight from Tokyo to Dalian was ticketed by China Eastern but was operated by Japan Airlines.)
Now came problem number two: The passport number on their computer wasn’t even close to my actual passport number. After some consultation they gave me my boarding pass anyway.
After the usual security checkpoint and boring wait at the gate area be boarded the plane.
As I was sitting down I discovered I couldn’t find my passport. After some additional fruitless searching I told the stewardess of my problem. she told the captain who came to talk to me. He suggested I go back to the gate to look for it. He said he’d hold the aircraft while I looked. One of the stewardesses went with me, but my passport wasn’t at the gate. I searched my pockets again, and the stewardess searched my jacket. She found it in one of my jacket pockets. I felt very stupid but also very relieved. So we ran (literally) down the ramp from boarding gate (which was at least 20 times longer than the usual such ramp. The captain announced that the passenger had found his papers and we could now take off. I felt embarrassed to have delayed the flight–especially since I had the passport all along. (I had looked in my jacket, but obviously not hard enough.)
The delay I induced in the flight turned out to be minimal, however, compared to the time our plane spent waiting in line for our turn to take off. This latter easily consumed an hour.
So as a consequence we were somewhat over an hour late getting in to Shinzhen.
Luckily–and by now I felt I could use some good luck–my bag was one of the first off the plane. I try to arrive at the airport quite early, so my bag is usually one of the first checked. I always figured this would make it one of the last off. But today’s experience disproved that idea–I guess bags get pretty randomized in processing on and off the plane.
My next (and, thankfully, final) problem for the day was that the driver who was supposed to meet me was nowhere to be seen. I ended up calling the Foxconn employee who was supposed to make the arrangement. (Someone had to show me how to use the phone.) She said I should go to the large “B” sign on the departure level. This seemed unobviousness enough to be annoying. It turns out the Foxconn woman had sent me email with instructions, including a picture of the sign, but it was sent after I had left the hotel in Beijing, and had no access to my email. The kernel manager for my company had bugged her several times to send me information on where to be picked up. Now I see why.
The ride from the airport seemed as long as the one in Beijing, which surprised me. The weather was cloudy and gray. The ground was wet but it had not rained since my arrival.
I was hoping to have dinner with another engineer from my office who is here, but he had to work late so I ate alone. I ate in the hotel Chinese restaurant. The food was good, but Chinese food is better eaten in a larger group so we can order multiple dishes to share.