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| The TWA Hotel at JFK Airport |
Our hotel room looked out directly on the tarmac of JFK. When we arrived the night before, we could see out, but the hour and snow made it hard to see too much. We closed the blackout shutters, and it wasn't until the following morning -- when we opened them -- that we saw just how close we were. We immediately saw a huge Singapore Airline a-380 taxi right up to the window.
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| View from Our Room in the Morning |
As our flight was not until the afternoon, we were in no hurry to get up early or rush. We had plenty of time to explore the hotel and prepare for the long trip ahead of us. As I wrote, the hotel was more like a museum, and we spent more than an hour just exploring the various exhibits on TWA, Howard Hughes, and the architect, Eero Saarinen. We especially enjoyed the vintage Lockheed Constellation aircraft, which had been restored as a bar and parked outside the hotel. The folks behind the hotel did a fantastic job with their attention to detail throughout. I really hope they make it.
The Air China check-in queue was long by the time we arrived. Check-in for Business Class, however, was empty, and we walked right up. The check-in agent was very friendly and was going through all our paperwork thoroughly. A few weeks earlier, New Zealand had launched a new visa-like program for tourists. While they still don't require formal travel visas for most foreign visitors, they did put into place a new "eTA" program -- or "electronic travel approval." Anyone transiting or visiting New Zealand has to apply in advance and pay a modest fee. All of the money goes to support environmental efforts, to hopefully offset the impact from tourists. The travel requests have to be approved and in place before you can board a flight to New Zealand; it is not possible to get the visas upon arrival. Luckily I had read about the program, and I had copies of a previously approved visas with me. I handed them to the agent, and then things ground to a halt. Everything was computerized, and the system was not letting her check us in for the flight from Beijing to Auckland. I showed her the print out of the visas, along with the electronic ones, in the nifty app for the program. She called over her supervisor, and I watched as that women typed a mile a minute into the computer. She talked to herself as she worked. After about 10 minutes, she announced that she was able to check-in myself and Anna, but not Katherine. She left to go talk to the "New Zealand person," who was sitting somewhere else in the terminal. No one was in line behind us, which was a relief, as we had already been there for more than 20 minutes. The agent returned and pointed out that on the printed form, the initials "KKM" appeared in the middle of Katherine's name. She asked me if I had noticed that before; I had not. I showed her the original application, on the app, which did not have the extraneous characters. She smiled, asked to borrow my phone, and again disappeared to visit the wizard behind the proverbial curtain. She came back about five minutes later, handed me my phone, and started typing furiously again. All of a sudden she stopped, and handed us our six boarding passes. Everything had worked. She later explained that as New Zealand only launched the program earlier that month, they had been going through all kinds of growing pains with all the airlines flying into the country. She apologized profusely, even though they were at the mercy of a computer server sitting somewhere in Auckland.
Relieved that we'd made it that far, we made our way to the security queue. We could hear the line before we saw it, and it snaked all the way to the main terminal door. I had my "VIP One" reservation in my hand and had to ask three workers where to find the VIP screening entrance before someone knew what I was talking about. They, too, had only opened up a few weeks earlier. We walked up a person at a podium, like a maitre de, and gave them our name. She scanned a print out, found us, and then "invited" us into the lounge; which was, in reality, a room set up like a living room, with couches and chairs. We were the only people. There were security bins there, too, and we were told to put our shoes, bags, coats, etc, into the bins, just like we were in the TSA screening line. We did that, and then she opened a side door which led directly to the front of the screening queue -- right where the agent was checking ID's and boarding cards. The woman had all our paperwork and walked us past the TSA agent. She then deftly cut right in front of the man next in line at the x-ray machine. He, along with many others in line, raised confused faces, and even looked a little mad, as we essentially were cut right in front of him. I felt self-conscious, but when I looked back at the line from where we were, I knew we had just saved at least 45 minutes of waiting.
The woman was on the other side of the x-ray machine, where she handed us our passports and boarding passes, and then wished us a good trip and merry Christmas. Things were definitely looking up.
We were to wait in the Lufthansa lounge, as Air China is a Star Alliance partner with them. We ended up with about an hour there, which was just enough time to eat and relax.
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| Anna Waiting in the Lufthansa Lounge |
Our flight to Beijing was on a 747-8, which is the biggest Boeing aircraft, and smaller only to the Airbus a-380. As such, the gate was very full when we made our way there, just as boarding started. We were some of the first ones to board, and our seats were in the nose of the plane, which I had arranged, and forward to which I had been looking. Having never flown, needless to say, Air China, I was dubious as to what kind of service or product we would be getting. That question was answered as soon as we sat down. We were greeted with a welcome drink, and then the flight attendant unwrapped slippers for each of us, and even put them on our feet for us. That was a first for me.
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| Our Plane to Beijing |
Katherine and I were next to each other, with Anna seated in the window seat directly ahead of us. We had lots of room, and the seats and service were excellent. A very nice surprise. Each of us took an Ambien after the first meal service, lowered our seats into beds, and we all slept about seven/eight hours, waking up for the meal right before landing in Beijing. The 13-hour flight went by relatively quickly, and we all felt good when we arrived in China. We left New York at 3:50 pm on Thursday the 19th, and arrived in Beijing at 6:30 pm on Friday the 20th.
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| Enjoying her Welcome Drink |
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