Tuesday, January 19, 2010
48 Hours
It’s 5 a.m. Jodi’s here and we’re ready to go. Bless her.
I stayed up all night. I hadn’t planned it, but as it got closer to midnight I realized I’d feel worse if I slept for just three hours. And the house is clean.
Once our plane is de-iced in Dayton, we’re off to Chicago. We have three hours until our flight to Seoul. I nap for 20 minutes.
As it gets closer to departure time the large flight crew gathers to our left. The female flight attendants in their cream and aqua uniforms are slender and graceful, looking like a small flock of preening birds as they make last-minute adjustments to their jackets and skirts. Then the entire crew forms a circle, bows to one another and a man with a clipboard begins talking in a low voice.
We hear Canadians speaking French, Vietnamese speaking French, Vietnamese speaking Vietnamese. A woman from Columbus is on her way to see her sick father in Seoul, and two families from Cleveland with small children are going to Seoul to visit family.
I admire mothers traveling with children. They wrestle, cajole, shush, cuddle and walk for hours. These two little ones are sweet, good children, playing peek-a-boo and smiling shyly. It’s impossible for anyone not to get restless on a 14-hour flight.
I’d expected to fall asleep quickly on the plane and wake up hours later with an aching body. In fact, I sleep in snatches of ten or twenty minutes and my body seems to have gotten the message: we need to keep it all together here; we’re in for a long haul.
A longer haul than expected, as it turns out.
We left Chicago on January 19 at 11:40 a.m. We arrive in Seoul, 14 hours later, at 4:00 p.m. January 20. Our flight to Dalian is scheduled for 9:00 p.m. Korean time and we’re to arrive in Dalian at 9:00 p.m. China time. Autumn, Shannon and Damon’s driver, will pick us up at the airport.
As we move from arrivals to our new departure gate we pass the Inchon Airport’s shopping mall. Bernie had tried to prepare himself for a new, rich, modern Korea, but I don’t think anything could have prepared him for this. One description of airport shopping here describes it as a western shopping mall where airliners just happen to stop. Every top name is represented: Gucci, Ferragamo, Dior, Burberry, Swarovski, Cartier, Bvulgari, Armani. Aside to my girls: Clinique, Lancôme, L’Oreal and Clarins are among the many cosmetics.
Arriving at the China Southern Airlines desk, which operates the flight to Dalian, we find our flight is not yet on the board and we can’t get boarding passes printed. We sit, read, and sleep.
At 8:00 p.m. Bernie goes to the desk to ask about our boarding passes. Oh, our flight can’t leave. Inchon is fogged in and there’s snow in Dalian. 11:30 is our new departure time. Even the flight before ours, which was scheduled at around 6 p.m., hasn’t left.
Around 10:30 people begin lining up for the earlier flight, and an American who teaches English in Dalian tells us he’s going to try to get on that plane. Eventually everyone gets this idea. All but seven of us get on that plane. The man in front of us in line gets the last seat.
What about first class, we ask. We’ve called Shannon twice now to postpone the time Autumn is to leave to pick us up.
Nothing. The plane is about to depart. That’s it. Well, ok, we’ll wait another hour. Not as long as it has been.
The clerk gives us vouchers for food in any of the airport restaurants. They are closing fast, but we get fruit and water from the only open one nearby. The voucher does not cover all of my few purchases. Sigh.
The airport begins to settle in for the night. Some of the lights are turned off, though not the ones directly overhead in the ceiling that shine in our eyes while we’re trying to sleep (I pull the hood of my coat over my head).
Then the heat is shut off. It’s considerably colder. I ask for blankets at the desk. I get one large baby blanket and one of the airline’s.
At 11:20 our flight is still not on the departures board and the airport is almost deserted except for us, two Dalian couples who’ve just completed master’s degree work in Australia (one of women is wearing flip-flops and no coat), and a black American woman. There’s not even a slight rustle from the airline counter, about twenty feet away. We’re not flying anytime soon.
I phone Shannon again. Autumn’s gone home. She gives us instructions for the taxi once we do get to Dalian: get one, call her number, and let her talk to the driver.
Bernie approaches the desk again. At no time during the seven hours we’ve been here has there been an announcement about our flight, nor has the clerk deemed it necessary to walk over to the small mass of humanity huddled in her Incheon Airport Flight Transfer Prison and inform us as to what’s going on.
Oh, we’re scheduled to leave at 1:30. No, we do not have any real hope that this is going to happen. Realistically, we think we’re going to wait until at least 6:00 a.m.
The young woman who left summertime Australia a few hours ago has changed from flip-flops to boots and added a coat to her ensemble.
With my blanket and coat I think I’m about to get this sleeping in airports down, though Bernie has not been able to drop off yet.
But in a short while, surprise! Our flight is leaving. Boarding passes pop off the printer. Hurry, hurry, the flight is about to depart.
Huh?
As we make our way to a different gate, one of the airport attendants tells us to hurry with a word used to order servants about. Bernie repeats it to her (she obviously didn’t think we’d understand) and says, “Bali? You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve waited here for hours and now you want me to hurry?”
Sometime between 1 and 2 a.m. we’re in Dalian. As we exit immigration and customs, a handful of men approach, wanting to take us to our destination. Our brains are still functioning, but at a somewhat reduced level. We know that these are probably unlicensed cabs. But we don’t know the availability of licensed cabs beyond the doors just ahead. And soldiers are posted all over the airport. Surely they would stop these drivers if they were truly unscrupulous, wouldn’t they?
We agree to go with one of the drivers. He quotes a price and he and Bernie settle on something. Then I call Shannon and let her tell him where to take us. I get the distinct feeling that the driver thought the trip and the price would be for one of the hotels in downtown Dalian, and now he’s just learned he’s driving to the Development Zone, a suburb several kilometers away.
Once we’re in the cab and leaving the parking lot, I realize that we could be taken somewhere, robbed, and dumped in the cold, not just overcharged.
Of course that doesn’t happen. The most exciting thing on the trip to Kaifaqu is the sudden appearance in the middle of the highway of two stopped, overloaded bicycles that causes our driver to apply the brakes quickly. He’s as astounded, apparently, as we are at the sight.
In front of the apartment, he points to my cell phone. I hand it to him and he calls Shannon, who comes down to meet us. The first thing she says is, “How much did he charge?” When I tell her she’s immediately around to the driver’s side and the bargaining begins.
After five minutes or so of back in forth in the middle of the freezing night they are still at it. They smile, laugh, go back and forth, all very friendly but determined. At last they come to an agreement. Shannon tells us he said, “But it’s three o’clock in the morning!”
He helps carry our bags upstairs.
The fare was the equivalent of $25. We don’t think that was bad given the distance from the airport.
A bed has never looked so good.
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