Travelin'

Dear Erin and Grant,

So glad to hear that California is treating you well. I'm certain that Grant is drooling on all of our favorite sites and relatives in the greater Sacramento area. As I strolled around China today, I took note of all the little Chinese kids I saw and wondered what Grant's little sister would look like. She'll no doubt have crazy hair, drool like mad, and be the first girl adopted from China to be over 6' tall in the fourth grade, making her a true match for her brother.

My trip is going fine. It's 3am Friday morning, and I can't sleep, so I thought I'd write about the trip over. Be careful on those crazy California highways, and make sure grandma doesn't try to use that girly pink pacifier on Grant. I hate that thing.

Give Grant a kiss for me.

Love,
Bret

After taking one last shower in good clean water (I'm fairly certain the water here in China was bathing an eel six minutes prior to hitting my skin), I headed to the airport on Tuesday at 5:15am. The one perk of being on my third trip to China this year is that I've got enough frequent flyer miles for "elite" status, so I get bumped to first class automatically on flights within the U.S. if space is available. Lucky for me that the flight to L.A. had space, so my coworker and I had nice seats with plenty of legroom.

We arrived uneventfully in L.A. at around 11:15am Indy time. Our flight to Japan wasn't scheduled to depart until 4:30pm Indy time, so we killed time recharging our various iPods and laptops in preparation for the long flight. I also watched about half of "Zodiac" which proved to be a pretty decent flick. We had a couple of beers for the road while sitting in the airport. I couldn't figure out why we were getting some looks as we downed our second one, until I realized that it was only 9am in California. I figure Lindsey Lohan is probably having a drink somewhere in LA, so I should too. We grabbed one last "normal" cheeseburger (meaning there was no seafood on it) and boarded for Tokyo.

When I arrived at my seat, neatly tucked into coach on the aisle, I immediately noticed that the little magazine pocket on the seatback in front of me was broken in such a way that the springs which normally push the flap against the seatback were now pushing outward. This meant that now only was the spring sticking out into my leg room, but it was doing it with two sharp metal pieces which were going to apparently be embedded in my knees for the next 12 hours. Lovely.

A few minutes after boarding, and while I tried desparately to push the springs from my knees into the seat back in front of me, a young lady with an eastern European accent took the window seat next to me. The flight wasn't full, so we were blessed with a seat between us. I figured this meant that at least I wouldn't be wrestling for the arm rest for the whole flight.

I continued to mess with the magazine rack spring. I would tuck it behind two bolts inside the seat back, and after a few minutes it would spring back out of the seat at high speed. To make matters worse, the seat was now occupied by a young lady who was, no doubt, convinced prior to take off that the individual in the seat behind her was trying to get into her shorts through the seatback. Not wishing to disturb the young lady, I gave up and angled myself as to avoid the springs.

We departed on time, and I settled into my usual routine of watching TV and listening to my iPod. For anyone who cares, I cruised through "Stanley Road" by Paul Weller, The Best of the Allman Brothers, "Hearts of Oak" by Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, and the Best of Roxy Music. It was an eclectic trip.

A couple of hours into the flight, the individual in front of me decided to recline her seat. Now my wife and I have debated in the past as to whether this impedes on the space for the person behind, and I can now assure you that it most definitely does, at least on a 747. She cranked the seat back as far as it would go, which meant that the magazine rack was now performing a minor surgery on my legs and all extra space was completely eliminated. To make matters worse, she preceded to sit on the front edge of the seat half the time, not even USING the seat back. I was incensed.

Around this same time, the young lady in the window seat decided to lay down across her seat and the vacant middle seat. "I'm terrible. I cannot sit still on deez flights" she informed me. She then used my right armrest to as a sort of foot rest while lying down, which caused it to push approximately two more inches over into my gut. Every once in a while the pressure would be relieved, but only because she had dozed off and was now using my thigh as a foot rest. It wouldn't have been so bad except that she was wearing no socks and appeared to have hiked the Gobi desert barefoot at some point.

So there I sat. Twelve hours across the Pacific with -2" worth of legroom and hiproom on either side. I endured, mostly with the iPod. I watched the remainder of "Zodiac" and tried to watch the movie on the plane. I can tell you with great certainty that "Are We Done Yet?" featuring the talents of former rap star Ice Cube is the worst movie released in the last 10 years. I really expected to see a cue card man at some point. Ice Cube has the worst line delivery of any actor in history, only crowned by his occasional use of the word "axe," as in "Lemme axe you a question" or "I axed you not to pay for this movie." It was terrible.

Finally about six hours into the flight, the lady in front of me made her way to the restroom. In a move of desparation, I waited for her to actually go into the lavatory, then I reached up and pushed the button on her seat which adjusts the seatback. I gave myself another couple of inches, but didn't move it up so much that I thought she would notice. This genious plan saved me for the rest of the trip. In her groggy state, she didn't realize for the rest of the flight that she'd been duped out of a fully reclined seat back. And the extra space made being used as a footrest for a model for Dr. Scholl's corn removal products almost bearable.

We arrived in Tokyo in the middle of the night. I guess that was early Wednesday morning Indy time. I had now been traveling for 24 hours. I saw none of Japan. Our layover was short, and the airport terminal windows provided only a view of the runways. I guess I can't say that I've actually been to Japan, as I was only on the ground for about an hour.

As my coworker and I were getting off of the previous flight, our names had been called to come to the service desk. I was quite sure this meant that my clothes were now either strewn around the tarmac at LAX or our flight to Hong Kong was cancelled. Surprisingly, it was to tell us that coach was oversold on the flight to HK, so we were being moved to first class. Weeeee! Not only that, but our new seats were in the little first class cabin upstairs on the plane. If you've never been up there, all the seats are fully reclinable and provide various massage features. It was heaven. The memories of the previous flight soon faded, and I actually fell completely asleep for several hours on the way to Hong Kong.

We arrived in Hong Kong at around 10am, Indy time. Having previously traversed the border in the middle of the night, I was hopeful that we could catch a bus which would take us all the way onto the mainland without hassle. These services stop at 11pm (11 am Indy time) so I was doubtful that we would be so lucky. We quickly discovered that another perk of being "elite" status is that your bags come off the plane first. Our bags showed up within about 5 minutes, and we caught the last shuttle to the mainland.

In the end, we hit the hotel at somewhere between noon and 1pm, Indy time, which is 1am China time, around 32 hours from when I left. The travel is easily the worst part of the trip over here, but being in first class on the two of the three legs definitely helped.

I've already worked a full day here, taken a tour of Wal Mart, and been attacked by a guy carrying fruit on his back using a giant bamboo pole. I'll tell about that adventure in the next entry...