Sam At Large

Apparently it takes quite a few to change the tire on an Air China jet at the Beijing Airport. At one point, I counted at least eight workers standing around the front landing carriage. Two were actually crouched down using tools… the rest were on quality control duty.

I should point out that this did not count the further 10 baggage handlers that stood around waiting for the the tire guys to finish so they could load the plane for its next flight

I pretty much spent Day 1 in the air or at Beijing Airport, where all I saw were runways and smog.

All those news reports and pictures I have seen with all the smog… it’s true. There is no lie in it at all.  This girl sitting next to me in the plane had the window seat.  She looked out as we were descending then turned to me and told me it was cloudy.  I had a look… “That’s not cloud,” I said.  The look on her face was priceless.

The Beijing Airport is absolutely enormous.  The scale of everything was just bigger than any other airport I’ve ever been in.  Even the roadways around the airplanes was bigger than anywhere else I’ve been.  It has four lanes around the buildings rather than the two I normally see.  The gates to the plane are built on two levels rather than one.  The ceiling and the pillars in the international terminal must be 150 feet tall. That ceiling may probably be the most impressive architectural thing I’ve ever seen… and I didn’t get my camera out to take a picture.

I then had to wait for a connecting flight to Changsha.  The problem was that the plane couldn’t take off from where it was and we were delayed a further three hours.  By the time I got to Changsha, I’d been up for 24 hours and traveling for most of it.  I fell right asleep when I got to my hotel.

I leave for China on Friday. I’m super excited and I have no idea what to expect. I won’t have access to Facebook or Twitter while I’m there — thank you, Great Firewall of China — so this will probably be the best place for updates as I’m traveling for the next couple of weeks.

I almost look like I know what I’m talking about.  However, my friend Mike Nierychlo DOES know what he’s talking about.  Read his blog and you’ll become an expert on wine and impress all your friends at your next dinner gathering.

So, we tried Molson’s Old Style Pilsner (and here), Labatt’s Lucky Lager and Pabst Blue Ribbon (and here).  This whole thing started with me mentioning Lucky Lager on my Facebook page and Mike invited me to come on his show and talk about it.  But, in the end, I think I actually preferred the Old Style Pilsner.  It tastes good and the illustrations on the cans are pretty classic at the same time.

It’s been hard to miss the news of the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano (Seriously? A Wikipedia entry already? Awesome.) in Iceland.  It seems like every news website has something about it.  The images on the internet are incredible — they’re beautiful and horrifying all at the same time.

Iceland is not the only country affected by the eruption, but the entire planet has felt the effects.  Air traffic through Europe has virtually been halted and would-be travelers have been advised to check the status of their flights.  I’m one of these would-be travelers.

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