Waiting in Line Is Not My Forte

First Leg of Travel Complete!

Our next flight for Auckland was not scheduled to leave until 1:00am, so we had a layover of more than six hours.  Air China, however, provides a hotel for business class passengers for such instances.  China offers free transit visas for up to 144 hours, which can be secured in the airport, rather than getting -- and paying for -- a regular tourist visa, which involves a lot of paperwork and several hundred dollars.  We'd talked about maybe going into town for dinner with this time, but in the end, elected to avail ourselves of the layover hotel.  We weren't exactly sure what we were doing, but we were among the first people in the line for transit visas.  We filled out the short forms in line, but they only had one immigration officer working, so the line moved very slowly.  After 20 minutes or so, we each had a visa and then went to join the very long immigration line for foreigners.  They only had three agents working this line, and it moved even slower.  As the time ticked by, we wondered if it was even worth it.  Still, we persevered, got admitted, and then rode the shuttle train to the main terminal.  We found the transit hotel desk; they found our names immediately and called for a car to come pick us up and take us to the Crowne Plaza.  I looked at my watch, however, and saw that it was already after 8:30 pm.  I asked the man when we'd have to be back at the airport from the hotel, and he said 10:00 pm.  We looked at each other and decided on the spot that it wasn't worth it for such a short period of time.  We elected, instead, to reverse everything we had just done.  We reboarded the train, went back through immigration and security, and then slowly made our way to the lounge.  The lounge itself was very nice and relatively empty.  We enjoyed some dim sum dumplings, and basically read for about an hour and half before heading to the gate for our Auckland flight.

The Lounge in Beijing Capital Airport

Beijing Airport Lounge

It was VERY cold in Beijing, and we could feel the cold air sneaking through the floor-to-ceiling windows.  As before, we were among the first to board this flight, which was on a smaller Boeing 787.  This time Anna and Katherine sat side-by-side, and I was across the aisle from them.   We were prepared this time, for having slippers placed on our feet.  As before, we each took a sleeping aid with our first meal, and then slept through until the second meal right before arrival.  The flight from Beijing to Auckland was a little shorter than the first one.  It did not pass as quickly as the first however, probably owing to our growing excitement.

Our Flight to Auckland