Getting to Beijing

We arrived rather late. The flight was fine but I could not sleep very much. I watched "27 Dresses" (or at least the second half of it), and some of the discovery channel. Its pretty nice to have TV on airplanes. I also read through the Wall Street Journal and did some work on my laptop. With a few hours to go we hit some really bad turbulence -- the kind where you feel like the plane may break apart. I'm not prone to being nervous, but after a few drops that left my
stomach 5 rows back in the overhead luggage bins, I started to wonder if I would make it to Beijing alive. I told myself not to worry. "I'm sure this plane has been flying this route for 30+ years without an accident." But, you know, that didn't make me feel much better. Can you say metal fatigue?

One of the stewards on the flight noticed I was wearing an EMC shift and so struck up a conversation with me about EMC. He has a high school friend who works there too. He said the air in Beijing is horrible. True to his word even as we approached Beijing the air in the plane began to smell. We landed and I could barely see accross the runway. Yuck. The Beijing airport is huge. Very open, expansive and clearly ready for the Olympics. I passed through passport control and customs without a hitch, and used an ATM to get some Yuan. Easy enough to find a cab, but the driver does not speak english. I showed him my hotel confirmation, but he did not seem to know where to go, so I cracked open my laptop with detailed directions in Chinese and I
think that seems to have done the trick. I say that now as I ride in the backseat, hopeful that I will arrive at my hotel. Immediately upon exiting the airport the traffic is horrible. I don't know where we are going, so I don't know if I will be stuck in traffic for 10 minutes or 10 hours. I hope the former. I'm already wishing that I had taken the train.