Travel time!

This post is a few days overdue, but they have been a very busy few days.

I arrived in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China at 12:20AM on Thursday morning.  It is currently 6:10PM Monday evening, and I am finally finding myself with time enough to sit down for this.
But all things in good time.

I left Denver International Airport at 7AM on Tuesday morning, with almost everything I own packed thusly..  My first flight was DEN - LAX, about a two hour flight.  About one hour layover preceded the "real" flight, from LAX - PEK, or Beijing.  This was about a 13 hour flight, which I believe is the longest I've ever taken.  For obvious reasons, I sprung a bit extra to get a premium economy seat.  It was the right decision.
Also on the jetway at LAX was...this interesting plane.  I guess if Frontier can have little animals on the tails, there's nothing to say cartoon characters cannot decorate the side of this one.

The plane was unlike any I've ever taken.  The windows had no shades, but instead had adjustable tints that could be changed with buttons.
...well, that was the theory anyway.  In practice, they lowered the tints to minimum as soon as we reached cruising altitude, and darkened the cabin so that it was basically night for 13 hours.  It wasn't unpleasant, but it did feel a bit silly to have adjustable tints that weren't adjustable.  Sort of like living in a mobile home - why call it that if it never goes anywhere?

I believe it was a premium economy feature, but there was a plastic bag of goodies on my seat when I walked up.  Inside were a pillow, blanket, sleep mask, headphones, and these cute little flight slippers.  Obviously, my gargantuan feet made them feel a bit insecure.  Still, they were far more comfortable than the hiking boots I'd worn onto the plane (they took up more space in my luggage than my tennis shoes, so I went with them).

The plane also had meal service.  Included in the fare were this meal (which was...not too bad, though the pasta was cold and I'm not about that life), a 'midnight snack' type thing (a chicken wrap, not pictured as it was dark), and breakfast (which I didn't partake). 

The flight followed the Western coastline up California, along the Aleutian Islands, and down through Russia.  We actually flew over Harbin to get to Beijing.  I asked a flight attendant if we could just stop by for a second.
...ok, no, I didn't.  But it makes for a better story.
Along our flight path was this mountain, striking in its solitary beauty.  All around it, barely foothills.  In Colorado, our mountains are an enormous range; varying heights for different peaks, but nothing quite so stark.  Some googling later, I now know this is Mount Shasta, which I correctly assumed was a volcanic mountain.

Across the ocean, I was greeted by a more familiar sight in that the mountains in northern China/South-eastern Russia are in long, expansive ranges that call in siren song for brave adventurers to explore their secrets.
Not being a brave adventurer, I took a picture from an airplane window and called it a day.

My flight landed in Beijing around 1PM local time, which was 11AM back in Colorado.  My next flight, from Beijing to Harbin, was at 10PM.  Let me tell you, a nine hour layover is pretty awful, particularly when lugging your whole life around with you; I had to claim my suitcases and re-check them 7 hours later.  I started this layover with some food - braised string beans and minced pork, which was delicious.  I also learned that China's bendy-straw game is on point. Makes our bendy straws look almost stiff.  And yes, in case the color isn't a giveaway, that's a coke can.  A kinda tall, skinny one.

I don't remember the flight from Beijing to Harbin, except that rather than peanuts or pretzels they gave out some kind of meat in a bun...like a cross between a hamburger and a calzone.  Hard to describe, but this is a decent approximation.

Reps from my school picked me up at the airport in Harbin and brought me to a temporary apartment.  It was pretty nice, a studio with a nice bed. At that point I'd likely have taken a small couch or even just a blanket on the floor; it had been a long day.

Something I didn't know about most Chinese apartments: the bathrooms are remarkably efficient. The whole bathroom basically doubles as the shower, with a drain behind the washing machine (in my new place, which I'll have pictures for in a few days, the drain is right under the showerhead, which makes way more sense to me).  Space is at a premium here, but I've never seen such a design before.  Every once in a while, when traveling, you see something that makes you say, "now why don't we do that?"  I haven't spent much time in busier urban areas, but I believe even most NYC apartments still have a shower stall.

The next morning (read: mid-day) when I woke up, I finally got a good look at the view from my temporary place.  I'm not usually one for urban sprawl but there's something really lovely about how China manages its space.  Apartment communities are tall, narrow buildings with green common areas between them.  You can't really see any in this image, but my new apartment photo dump will show them more.  My basis for comparison is limited, but when I think of Chicago or NYC I think of dense buildings and suffocating closeness.  Even in the outskirts of Beijing, while flying in, I could see similar structural practices.

The last few days have been a series of visits to the two schools, banks, mobile companies, etc. to get all the things in order for living here.  There have been some challenges along the way there (look into the Great Firewall of China) but so far, I'm managing most of them.  Because there's been so much going on, I'll unpack it in a later post.

I'll leave on this note: two amusing things I've seen in stores.

First, there's something that just makes me laugh

Second, something that was actually surprisingly tasty: Steak-flavored Cheetos

Zaijian,

-L