Day 180 Flying halfway across the world

After a glorious month off of work in February, all too soon it
was time to make the long haul back to Beijing.  I have several
airplane pics in this blog for my little buddy Tayte.  This blog
will give you a glimpse at what it is like to fly half way across
 the world. I left Miami at 7:15am, on 2/28 bound for Canada, 
on Air Canada, no less.  :)

Four and one half hours later, I was landing in Toronto.

The long haul is Toronto to Beijing, but even taking the
'short route' far to the north and over the Arctic Ocean,
it was still a 16 hour flight.  In other words, it's
five movies and three meals. Geesh.

You know you're getting close to 'home' when they serve
you a cup o' noodles and a 'digestive biscuit' for a snack :/

Flying in to Beijing is really quite beautiful :)

The mountains are gorgeous, and I even saw the
 Great Wall as we began our descent.
Sadly, the pics of it were blurry :(

Add the twelve hour time difference, and I landed at dusk,
just after 7:00pm Beijing time, which was on March 1st.
I should have arrived closer to 5:00pm, but we were stuck on
the plane in Toronto for nearly two hours at the gate.  For
some reason the airport lost power and the final passengers could
not check in to board, nor could we push off from the gate.
Nothing like adding more time to an already d**n long trip :/
To add insult to injury, though I zoomed through Customs,
I waited over an hour for my luggage.  Add another hour
for the cab ride, and I was dragging my sorry carcass in to my
apartment after 9:00pm.  It was all I could just to shower, find
my medicine and jammies, and hit the sack by 10:30pm

In spite of two melatonin, I was wide awake at 1:30am, 3:30am,
and 5:30am. When my alarm went off at 6:45am, even though
I was greeted by a beautiful, clean air mountain view, I did
 NOT want to get out of bed.  It generally takes me at least a
week of fitful interrupted sleep until I can get my body clock
 adjusted once again. Circadian rhythms are real, people.

In spite of a turbo-charged Cuban coffee with hot chocolate,
I was still bleary-eyed as I did the morning juke and jive
through the crazy rush hour traffic.  Just look at all the
directions these cars are travelling!  In spite of my sleep
deprived state, I am now immune to walking in front
of, behind, and around moving vehicles.

Oh, the China.

How I wish I was saying G'nite, y'all...