We’re at the part of the trip that’s the part of the movie wherein Indiana Jones makes the trek from Marshall University to seek out a one of the pieces Abner Ravenwood collected. A “worthless” bronze piece, with a hole in it, off center with a crystal. You know the one I mean? Anyway, to get there, Indy flies on a multi-stop route.
Allow me to “youtube” your memory:
A few years back I had a Macbook Air with a free copy of iMovie on it. There was an Indy-style travel map feature you could do and I made use of it for my Road to Boston Children’s Hospital fundraising video. I’ve long since abandoned Apple machines (save for my infuriating iPhone… and my AppleTV… and my still truckin’ iPod…. And…). Point is, my Microsoft Surface doesn’t seem to offer a quick OS Alternative to making a video map. Somebody out there in internelland will probably tell me I just keep to program a C++ CSS page with a layered modulation of tachyon emissions and CMD prompts via backdoor isolinear chip relays. I just typed a bunch of technobabble from Star Trek mixed with words I overheard once in a movie about hacking. The point to the point is, there may exist a way to do the interactive flying map thing on a PC but I haven’t found it yet.
But I did find this internet startup called pictramap.com. The “freebie” version is limited to 20 photos so I’ll try and keep the animated one to that and add in any other photos along the way in the prose below.
Here then are stray thoughts as the travel footage dissolves back and forth with a bastardization of the travel routing map:
Upon arriving at Tom Bradley, I (hereafter briefly referred to as “me”) was approached by a China Eastern representative (hereafter referred to as “CER”). This is a rough transcript of what happened next:
CER: Would you be interested in upgrading to a business class seat? We are running a special promotion.
ME: What’s the promotion?
CER: On top of your ticket price just an additional one thousand five hundred dollars
ME: Uh… no.
This was weird on a variety of levels. First, the CER guy felt like a scalper outside a concert venue trying to sell me his spare and/or fraudulent tickets. Second, this promotion was about four times what I paid for my ticket. And when I boarded the plane it turned out I had a whole row to myself anyway.
Like I said, weird.
When I checked in at the counter, I had to answer a few questions, too. Some verbally, some I just had to read and answer to myself. Here’s an example of the latter:
I wanted to channel my Laurel Canyon Hippie Vibe and ask, “Is anything really ours, man? In the cosmic sense I mean.” But I figured that’d just get me denied boarding.
As you’ll see in the above montage, thanks to my recent Sky Team Elite status update, I was given complimentary access to the SkyTeam Lounge. Bonus.
After boarding, I watched as a flight attendant used a crowbar to unleash this guy’s remote that got jammed into the seatback. And then because there were empty seats the guy didn’t even stay there – he moved to a different row. That felt like a poor showing of gratitude. The woman used a crowbar for you, dude! In neanderthal times that’d be a marriage proposal.
A lot of the transpacific flying is captured in the above montage… and of course the synopses post showed the inflight movie options… but what I cut from the maximum of 20 photos allowed in the freebie PictraMap was a late dinner/early breakfast at the end of the 13.5 hour first leg.
That’s… pork? I think it was pork. By that stage I had kinda given up on my service. Nobody was offering me a crowbar assist, that’s for sure. They’d run out of red wine after the first go around (really?!) and as is typical of this airline they don’t have any diet sodas of any kind. So no Diet Coke, Coke Light, Coke Zero… or even any of that crappy Diet Pepsi stuff. I asked for apple juice at one stage and that was on the cart on the other aisle so that apparently wasn’t available to me. After all the junk I was eating I thought I’d do a ginger ale — but not on this airline. Water. I’ll stick with water. They even ran out of that at one stage.
Upon arriving in Shanghai I was glad to have my 10-year valid Chinese Visa from the Great Wall Marathon of 2015. It’s good for 10 years and even though it’s in my old, now expired passport, by showing it it’s still good. I could skip the 24, 72, or 144 visitor visa option and they just stamped me through. I said to the immigration person that I wasn’t sure what they preferred — I was happy to fill out a 24 hour one since I was just killing time before my eventual flight to Kathmandu the next morning. She told me with my visa I could do whatever I wanted. I don’t QUITE think that’s an accurate translation of what she meant as I’m pretty sure the PRC has fairly strict rules about me checking in with hotel/stating my location and I couldn’t just vanish into the city for a few weeks without repercussions. But it still felt kinda nice to just get stamped and waved along.
As Shanghai was my first point of entry to China and yet I needed to catch a domestic flight to Kunming for my final flight to Kathmandu, I thought I’d have to collect my checked bag to clear customs. As the last bag from my flight rolled along the turntable, I asked an official looking representative and he said my bag was checked through to Kunming so I just needed to head out and clear security for the domestic terminal. I really, really hoped he was right.
I was a bit nervous about my bag therefore throughout my three hour flight to Kunming… although I dozed off here and there, my head snapping back and forth as I came and went in and out of consciousness. It gave me quite a kink in my neck.
Kunming promises 95% of flights having their first bag to the turntable within 20 minutes of the door opening, and 95% of flights having the last bag out within 40 minutes.
I must’ve been on the other 5 percent… because as we headed into hour 2 of waiting for our bags to unload, there was no information as to what happens when they fail to meet their guarantee. I suppose they would argue our flight was in the 5% and they don’t owe us anything. Sigh.
I was nervous as bags eventually rolled down the ramps to the turntable… and relieved when my bag turned up (you can see in the montage above my surreptitiously snapped photo in violation of the “no cameras in the baggage claim hall” rule.
I overpaid for my hourly hotel (not that kind of hourly hotel) but I just needed a shower and the chance to brush my teeth. In the end, it made for a good layover and allowed me time to work on the PictraMap you see above.
I’ve stayed in this airport hotel before. The bed is more rock slab than comfy but it’s fine. I had some problems explaining to the desk I needed towels as there were none in the room when I got there… or at least none clean. There were some dirty ones thrown in the corner. All part of the charm.
SooSang, a graduate virologist studying just north of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan is lonely. He’s looking for somebody to chat with as he doesn’t speak Chinese. He must speak Japanese, English and since he’s headed home to Nepal for a three week break I assume Nepalese. I was trying to read my book whilst waiting for the airport shuttle back to Kunming International but something told me I should say yes to a conversation.
