The date is now Monday, July 20th, my dad had just returned to America for 2 weeks and I receive an email from my mother saying that my grandfather (on her side) had recently been hospitalized and that she needed to come to China within the next month or so. I called some relatives who all assured me that the situation was fine and I did not need to rush my mother to China. I noticed the award ticket sale on United and purchase my mom a ticket for 50,000 miles to come to China on Aug 18, the first day permitted under the promotion. This was also optimal as it meant that I could stay in China a bit longer if I wanted to (it's not that hard to change an award ticket in First Class). In addition, I also purchased a ticket from Beijing to Datong (where my maternal side relatives were) to see my grandparents for the next monday july 27, costed just US $45 and was a short 30 minute flight. So all is well, on Thurs, July 23, my cousin and I head to the airport to go to Xian, China, home of the Terra Cotta Warriors!

Here's where the trip gets interesting (and quite sad):

Air China Flight 1235
Boeing 767-300, Seat 12 J & L (Business Class)
Beijing-Xian

When we went to purchase the tickets, the only option we had for the outbound was full fare economy and I noticed that Business Class wasn't a whole lot more ($100 USD for both of us combined) and decided to go for it. We managed to score deep discount coach seats for the return trip. My rationale was that Beijing Airport's lines are known to be long, security lines would be a pain, especially during the afternoon rush, and I figured the Lounge Access wouldn't be so bad. The return trip, I didn't care so much since Xian is a much smaller airport. Well, somehow, I gambled correctly. How? The checkin lines were long as usual, so the business class counter was really cool, we got to use the VIP security line, took less than 2 minutes, and we got to relax in the lounge. Then, just as we were about to begin boarding at 4:00pm for our remote gate, a huge storm hits Beijing and the airport shuts down.

We go back to the Business Class Lounge and at least get to relax comfortably while we wait out the storm.

An hour later, the airport re-opens, but a huge queue of takeoffs and landings now has to be sorted out. We finally board around 6:00pm. There was a huge crowd at the gate pushing and shoving to get in line. We got to zip around and use the VIP line and were then escorted to a VIP bus rather than the regular bus. The tranquility of premium cabins, it was already starting to pay off! Our bus waits for the regular bus to leave, purposely waiting for the economy cabin to board the plane before leaving for the remote gate, this way, we could get on board peacefully. We arrive at the remote gate, and guess what, we're at the bottom of a jetway, go up an elevator, and enter the plane through the jetway. I'm thinking, now why couldn't they have just directed us to walk to that particular gate and go down the jetway as you normally would board an aircraft? Then I realized that the 767-300 was an international jet that had arrived from Singapore and was parked at the international gates, which is only accessible through emigration (yes, china actually has emigration control as well as immigration control unlike in the US where the govt could care less if you leave). So we board and only 4 of 26 seats are occupied in the business cabin while the First cabin had all 9 seats occupied. Guess what? We then find out that we are really far back in the takeoff queue and we have to stay at the gate for an undefined period of time. At least, it was nice to wait out the delay in the Business cabin rather than in the coach cabin. This cabin was actually quite similar to standard US Domestic First Class, nice but could be better.


I chatted with the FAs for quite a while, it turned out, I knew more about their planes than they did. They were quite impressed that I knew the plane we were flying on was due for retirement soon. We talked about the differences between the US and asian aviation industries. They were impressed that United had FA's going on 80 and still working! When they asked me what airline program I belonged to, I pointed to the United Jet next to us:


and might I add, one of the FAs was exceedingly cute. She served me my business class meal while on the ground and I kept engaging her in conversation (she was the business cabin FA and there wasn't much else for her to do so I kept both of us entertained ), I learned that she also had to work the return flight immediately after we would land in Xian and that the five hours of extra work that she had to do on the plane was all unpaid since Air China only pays according to what the official schedule says. She also served me some Chinese sandwiches, which didn't taste good at all, I didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't like the sandwich (her service was so good!) so I just put it in my bag while she wasn't looking and threw it away later when I got off the plane.



Anyways, around 9:30pm, five hours late, we finally get on the runway and take off. I slept the whole 80 minutes of the flight. I didn't have lunch that day save for some instant noodles in the lounge and the business class dinner was simply a few slices of fruit, cookies, and nuts which I had while we were waiting out the delay. We get to Xian around 11:10pm and as we leave, I thank the crew for their service and patience and wish them well on the return leg (they put in like 6 hours of unpaid overtime that day, they wanted to leave more than we did, who wants to be trapped at work for six extra hours and not get paid?). We head to baggage claim and wait for my cousin's bag. Since we were in Business Class, her bag was tagged as "Star Alliance Priority" and it came out of the chute with lots of "Priority", so much that it was the LAST bag to come out! Yeah, so much "Priority" there, haha!

We head to the hotel and we're so tired, we skipped the dinner that we had previously planned and just retired for the night. Next morning, July 24th, we got up around 8am and she gets in touch with her boyfriend and arranges to have lunch with him and me around 11:30am that same day and afterwards, she and I would head to the terra cotta warriors exhibit. Just as we were about to leave, she received a text message from her mother informing us that my maternal side grandfather had suddenly passed away the night before. Just a few days ago, everything was fine and now he was gone. I spent the next two hours making phone calls to my relatives to verify that it was indeed true and didn't stop until I managed to get ahold of my parents and delivered the bad news to them. I thought about heading immediately for my grandmother's home but after consulting with my relatives, I decided to stay in Xian and stick to my original schedule. It was a thursday night in Austin where my parents were and after speaking to my father, we decided that they would go down to Houston the next morning to get an emergency visa and I would start looking for flights to leave that Saturday morning from Austin. Before leaving for lunch, I posted a thread on Flyertalk looking for tips on last minute travel, and received much advice, which I appreciated greatly.

At that point, I had done pretty much all I could do for the moment, so my cousin and I headed out for lunch with her boyfriend. My cousin is primarily related to me through my father's side, we share a common set of great grandparents, though she is also distantly related to me through my mother's side as well (3rd cousin once removed on that line) and my grandfather was also her first cousin three times removed, though they have never met before. (many families in china don't really keep track of relatives past 3 degrees unless the 3rd degree families happen to be good friends). We do our best to put the tragedy aside and try to enjoy our visit to the terra cotta warrior exhibit as best as we could.


The Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit was absolutely incredible. Before, I had only seen it on paper but now, I finally got to see it in person. I also learned that the statues were actually in color when they were first dug up but the colors would quickly fade in just 24 hours due to oxidation. Interesting...

We return to the hotel around 7pm and her boyfriend and her go out to have dinner. They invited me to go along but I declined figuring that I should go and check up on airfares and for advice from fellow FTs on how to purchase my mother a ticket to return to China on short notice. After several hours, I came up with a solution. Last October, I decided that I wanted to stockpile some AA miles in anticipation of using them for an intl First Class ticket to Hong Kong in 2010, so I signed up for the credit cards, dined with the rewards network, and took some inconvenient routings on domestic trips just to squeeze out all the miles I could get, about 112K by that point. Then, in April, AA announced the one-way award structure which I thought was really neat. However, the problem was AA only flew to Shanghai and I needed PEK and calling from China to the US was rather expensive. Enter, Skype! I originally did not plan on bringing my laptop to Xian but at the last minute, decided that I would. I was also lucky that the hotel had internet access in each room. Went online, purchased some Skype credit and called AA and managed to find just what I needed, a one way award from AUS to ORD to NRT to PEK leaving early Saturday morning. I knew my mother was facing a long bereavement trip and she was also looking at an overnight train trip from PEK to Datong, where all the relatives were, so I ignored her request for Economy and booked her in Business. This way, she could get some rest on the plane and not be as tired upon arrival. I was so glad that AA had started the one way awards, it was so nice to not worry about the return date. There was a $100 close in processing fee which I gladly paid. Upon ticketing, I then contacted my parents and told them that everything was taken care of as far as airfare was concerned. Now, I shifted my attention to getting her to Datong. Fortunately, we had a family friend in Beijing who was quite wealthy and I enlisted the friend to purchase an overnight train ticket and to pick her up from the airport and take her to the train station, so everything was all set now. I also noticed that my mother would arrive in Beijing on Sunday, July 26th about 15 minutes before I would, great timing! With everything taken care of and now really mentally exhausted, I ate the sandwich that my cousin brought me and went to bed.

The next day, my cousin's boyfriend took us to a waterfall in a nearby town. We had a lot of fun there, though I originally didn't plan on getting wet but ended up getting wet when I went to retrieve my cousin's shoe that got lost in the river and fell in accidentally. Since I was already wet, I didn't care anymore about staying dry and dove in and had some fun. Didn't really think much about how I would dry off later.

Afterwards, we head back and exhausted again, I head back to my room and start monitoring my mother's flights to make sure that everything was on time and to deal with any delays should any occur. Trying to find a way to dry off, I borrow a hairdryer from the hotel and start blow drying my clothes. It worked! Since we wouldn't be flying until 7:30pm the next night, I arranged to have a 6pm checkout at the hotel, which only costed me $10 USD for a half day rate (gotta love how the US Dollar converts to chinese yuan!)

The next day, July 26th, Sunday, that morning, I received a call from my uncle saying that the funeral was set for Monday morning and in an effort to get my mother and me there in time, he had sent a distant cousin of ours to drive to Beijing to pick us up straight from the airport since the trains would not arrive in Datong until 7am or so and my scheduled flight the next day would not get in until 8:30am. I immediately called our friend to cancel the previous plans and thanked her for all her efforts and promised to reimburse her for all expenses she incurred. The rest of the day, I just sit in the hotel checking up on my mother's flights and even while at the airport, I paid $6 USD for a drink, just so I could get on wi-fi to receive updates on my mother's flights and also to make sure the inbound of our flight was not delayed. We departed Xian on time and arrived in Beijing at 9:10pm (I originally picked the flight since Air China's intl configured planes have more legroom in economy), and my mother's flight arrived at about the same time. After coming out of the arrivals hall, I had some trouble finding my distant cousin picking us up but thank goodness for cell phones, with which we were able to use to find one another. We found my mother already outside waiting and together, we headed to the car and drove to my dad's apartment so I could pick up some things and my cousin stayed there for the night and headed home the next day (it was late and I didn't want her taking a taxi alone that late in Beijing). We arrived in Datong at around 4:30am and the entire family was there waiting for us. The funeral started at 5:30am and ended about five hours later. The whole process was a last minute project since my grandmother had already begun to move out of the apartment since the building was being torn down, and the tragedy just hit suddenly. Many of the relatives had not slept for days on end. We all knew that that particular day would be coming soon, my grandfather had had Alzheimer's disease for about five years already at that point and his memory had long since faded. I've only seen my grandparents (both sides) a handful of times and the last time I saw them all was nine years ago, and had hoped to see my grandfather one more time, though he would not have known who I was at all. It was not much fun in Datong, especially with the whole city being virtually torn down and rebuilt at the time and the excessive rain and pollution. It really was the lowlight of my trip by far. Another annoying thing I discovered was that the city was so low on water that no water was available except for meal times, I couldn't wait to get out of there. Before leaving, I did go see the giant budha just outside of Datong:


Basically, for Shanxi province, where Datong is, unless you have a reason to go there, it really is a place to avoid. It is by far one of China's worst provinces and is light years behind the modern marvels of Shanghai and Hong Kong. I would spend the next few days visiting my paternal side grandparents and also meet a few cousins that I have never met before which will be covered in the next part of this trip report.