Tuesday/Wednesday, May 26/27

This one is turning out to be The Journey From Hell.  After two hours of buses and skytrains to get to YVR two hours before flight time, we found out that our flight was delayed two hours.  So we got to sit around with our fingers up our butts (no photo) for quite some time.  On the bright side, holy cow is YVR ever a nice airport these days!  We went through check-in in about 5 minutes, the security people chatted us up and told us stories, and then we were done.  There's grottos and rest areas and giant aquaria all over the place, and more shopping than Kamloops I think.

The China Airlines flight was good, with decent food (2 meals) and excellent service, except they've got the new slimline seats and I found them very uncomfortable. After 12 hours I was really hurting.  Going home I'll be pumping ibuprofen in advance.  Beijing airport was an experience, the international terminal looks like a giant turkey barn that someone sat on; their architects are just as weird as ours, apparently.  As we were transferring from an international to a domestic flight we had to take a train (basically inside the building!) for about 3 miles and then walk about another mile to get to where our flight was leaving from.  The bad news; we had to clear security again and they confiscated my aftershave, mouthwash, and sunblock.  As if I wasn't red and stinky enough already.  The REALLY bad news; our domestic flight was also delayed so we weren't going to get into Wuhan until 10:30 pm, which was actually 6:30 am according to my watch.  On the bright side, they sell beer out of the pop machines in the airport and you can drink them anywhere.  We had met Gail and Al from Courtney who were also going on our tour, and we decided to stick together for the rest of the day so that at least we'd all be lost together.