March 29th, 2013
Guangzhou, China
There is precious little to say at this point as I haven’t even made it to Kathmandu, but I’m plumb in the middle of a 14-hour layover in Guangzhou and I’m bored out of my mind. The China Southern Airlines lounge is nice, if rather empty. Just me and my lounge chair.
The trip so far, a red eye flight to China, has been pretty efficient and painless. Sure, there was the little episode with me and the fat little kid vying for the last of the plate of finger food at the business class lounge at LAX, but we settled our differences long before security arrived. Disrespectful little cur. Other than that, though, it has been smooth sailing. Or flying. Whatever.
Part of the adventure of foreign travel is the food, and I can certainly say without reservation that the food on China Southern Airlines is adventurous. Mostly because they give you a menu with limited selections, take your order, then bring you random things completely unrelated to what your ordered. I ordered “congee” for breakfast, having no real idea what congee was, but figured WTF, I’d give it a try. The flight attendant had described it to me, in her limited English as “Rice and water. Mostly water.” I later found out that they were out of congee for breakfast, but that was maybe because they brought me two bowls of it with dinner, even though I hadn’t ordered any. What I had ordered for dinner was chicken, which I didn’t get. Nor did I get the “Hand Made Beef Ball Clear Soup.”
Truth be told the food wasn’t bad, just a little confused. Also unexpected, as the pre-flight information specifically said no meal service even in Business Class. I guess I shouldn’t complain about getting fed when I didn’t expect to be.
This was my first time flying on an A380 and let me just say that was a huge flippin’ plane. It still seems amazing to me that you can stuff 600 passengers on an aircraft and keep it in the air 15 hours crossing an ocean at over 9,000 miles.
My sole impression of China so far is from the airport here at Guangzhou, so it might be considered a tad limited. Besides, it’s hazy and raining outside, so not much of a view. At least the weather is providing some entertainment with a fairly impressing thunderstorm in progress.
A couple of interesting notes on health. At the end of the flight there was a video shown that I believe essentially said “If you’re sick, check with the health authorities at the airport and they’ll take care of you.” I assumed this included possible quarantine, but the video was all in Chinese, so it was hard to tell. When going through Security here, however, there was a sign that said to remove all headgear, as there were scanners checking for people with fever. I hadn’t seen anything like that before. I guess they take fever seriously here in the home of SARS.
One last thing: In addition to the many creature comforts on the plane (the quilt was quite comfy), they provided pajamas (with no place to change into them), and not one, but two pair of slippers. Apparently the fashion-conscious world traveler needs color options when accessorizing his in-flight sleepwear. I leave it to you, my dear readers, to decide if I look better in the slippers with dark blue trim or the ones with red trim.
Hopefully by tomorrow night I will have a day of exploring Kathmandu to report on and photos of something more interesting than airline slippers.