krazykanuck

A great day down, we headed back to the Conrad. Due to it still being the Chinese holiday, traffic was very light and we made it back to the hotel in about 50 minutes vs the normal 80-90 mins. We bid adieu to Helen and Mr. Ma and went up to the lounge for afternoon snacks followed by cocktails.

Conrad afternoon tea/snacks setup



On the next day, Mom and I decided to split up and do our own thing until happy hour and dinner.

First up was a trip to the Beijing Ancient Observatory. I thought it looked neat and was on the way to my next stop. Fascinating to see, and easy to forget about the history of trade in between the west and Far East back before the US and Canada were even colonized, pre-1600.

Entry to the Beijing Subway, a fantistic value as pretty much every fare was $1 USD or less


Station nearest the Conrad






Following there, I continued west to the CCTV Tower observation deck. It was a clear day with great views, though pretty windy and cold up there. The deck is open air and around the 30th floor of the building.










Back over towards the hotel, I took myself on a walking tour of Santilun along the various embassies and consulates. I eventually found my lunch at a McDonald’s in the mall to see what’s new in China. Surprisingly good, though I had to pay in cash because none of my payment methods worked at the automated kiosk. It accepted Union Pay, WeChat Pay, and Apple Pay.



I finally found my target, Jing A Brewing. Beijing’s microbrew scene is pretty nascent, but it seems a common thread is US expats starting up microbreweries to diversify the beer scene. A little tough to find; it’s in a square hidden off both of the main cross streets.





Loved this middle beer!



For dinner Mom and I were headed for dinner at Jing Yaa Tang, a restaurant in The Opposite House hotel in Santilun. I wanted to have a good Peking Duck, and Mom ordered a couple of vegetarian plates. It was all superb.

Peking Duck with accompaniments



Spiced fried tofu



Remnants of some of the best broccoli I’ve had ever



On our final morning, we woke up and packed and went out to the Beijing Zoo to see the pandas. I asked for and was given 2 pm late check out, which for the first time in my Hilton life was achieved happily and without pulling teeth or threatening the clerk with bodily harm

OK so didn’t get to get completely up close and personal with the Pandas though it was feeding time, so they were content!

Entrance to the Zoo



A really lazy looking Panda



This guy was entertaining to watch







After covering our Panda bases, we headed back to the hotel to check out in the lounge and stayed for a coffee before grabbing a cab and heading for PEK. The Conrad bellman made a cab appear in about 90 seconds. 30 minutes and about 130 RMB later we were at Terminal 2. We were there a bit earlier than T-180 but the Delta counters were open, and by open I mean there were 4 Sky Priority desks and 1 Main Cabin desk open. With no line for immigration and minimal lines for security, we were in the Skyteam lounge with little delay.

Skyteam Lounge at Beijing PEK

I hadn’t seen much about this lounge besides a couple posts in the Delta sub-forum. I didn’t have high expectations, but it did the trick. There were a couple of hot food options and a serviceable selection of self-serve booze. The chicken, rice, and noodles were pretty good. There are luggage storage lockers near the check in desk which is a nice touch, especially if you want to avail yourself of the nap friendly chaise loungers.









Some high class vino right here



I have to say I did get a laugh out of the fact that they couldn’t even cater regular Carlsberg, had to cater Carlsberg Chill. The Carlsberg website even describes this as “Cool, light, refreshing and easy to drink lager. The ideal drink for trendy youths and partygoers.” LOL at 4.5% I doubt that. https://carlsberggroup.com/products/...rlsberg-chill/





2/26/18
DL 188
PEK-DTW
N503DN
Seat 3D

Thankfully my IFE was working on this flight, so I got to enjoy my chosen window seat. Mom was in 2D.



Boarding was more orderly than ex-DTW, menus and PDBs were handed out, meal orders taken, and we were out of town on time.

Something to note is the differences between the seats. The odd numbered D seats don’t have the little shoe cubby that I had in my C seat. Mom mentioned that the footwell and footrest is basically double width in the first row since there is no forward seat intruding on your space.



I was also surprised to see the amount of wear that is evident even though this plane only entered service in November.



Here’s the menu for the return flight:









Apps:





Main (Australian beef):



Dessert



Another solid meal, especially with the beef turning out pretty good, though as usual I’d have preferred it a bit more rare. The loaded baked potato was ^ though.

I managed about three hours of sleep and then happened to wake up in time for the mid meal; I had the dim sum, which I kind of regretted and should have gone for the cheeseburger.



Sunrise over Northern Alaska



I went back to sleep for another few hours until breakfast. The omelet and croissant was tasty, though pretty time inappropriate at 4 pm Detroit time. We were quickly off the plane, through CBP, and off to the Hilton Garden Inn for the one night stay. The last flight of the day back home departed at 6pm, so we wouldn’t have made the minimum connect time, and had to overnight at DTW.



2/27/18
DL 2494
DTW-RSW
737-900ER
20/20 in F

Another solid domestic F flight. As usual on Delta, open bar PDBs were offered. I had nothing to do today besides fly around the US, so started with a Bloody Mary. We pushed back a bit early and despite a slight detour to the deicing pad, arrived early at RSW. Breakfast options were Cheerios, fruit, and a croissant, or sausage and egg breakfast sandwich, fruit, and yogurt. I went with the latter and it was really good.



I’m gonna kill this report here because I slept and wondered zombie like for my SRQ-ATL-HOU return positioning flight. I slept the whole first flight and most of the second, waking up only long enough to order and drink a Woodford Reserve (that the FA kindly refused to take my drink chit for). I lost yet another DL bags on time 2,500 miles because they were too fast, grabbed an Uber, and was home 30 minutes later.

Until next time folks. Thankfully I should be Asia bound in F in T-12 days for Japan on ANA.

hockeyinsider

Is that champagne or Italian/Spanish sparkling wine (and self-serve!) in the United lounge? Wow.

And your mom looks like she could be your wife or girlfriend. In fact, I'm curious to know if Asians thought she was.

offerendum

Do you know, how many Pandas they have on display?

krazykanuck

It's prosecco, so Italian. I don't have the name of the label. One of the few things United Clubs over other lounges. DL you have to pay for all the bubbly options. Some of the Chinese we ran into, especially kids, were interested to take a picture with us. But I'm sure my Mom will appreciate the complement

Don't know...

GiantCow

Enjoyed this TR and the Delta seats look quite nice.

I didn't have time to check out Jing-A but did go to Great Leap which had some nice beers as well.

chongl

Loved the report...I'll make it out to the wall one day...

krazykanuck

Thanks! I wanted to visit Great Leap in the same afternoon as Jing-A, but the Apple Maps on my iPad had the pin for Great Leap in the wrong place, so I couldn't find it out on foot. By the time I got Google Maps up and running with my VPN I was running low on time. While it didn't make the report, Mom and I did go to Slow Boat Brewing on S Sanlitun one evening for a couple beers. Decent beer, but terrible inattentive service from the bartender.

Thanks!

Bretteee

Which company arranged your tours? The part of the Wall you visited is nice and quiet without hoards of tourists. Weather looks nice and sunny. Was it cold?

krazykanuck

This is the company that arranged our Great Wall tour, and I'd highly recommend them. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attracti...r-Beijing.html The rates were very reasonable, in fact lower than other companies I contacted.

It was chilly at night, most days the highs were in the upper 40s/mid 50s and lows were in the 20s over night. As long as we were in the sun it was comfortable

HoangYen12

drink shop near the exit:

HoangYen12

. I'm flying ANA F later this month to Japan, but when a carrier

gaobest

Great TR - but what happened with Delta and the bag at the end? Are you saying that your bag was lost or delayed?

gaobest

Ps how did your mom do with navigating around Beijing during your solo day?
how was air quality - sometimes the media makes it look so bad!

injian

OMG I had this same sammich last Saturday in Guangzhou and it was amazing. Sucks that we dont get the same stuff here in North Amurrica. Thanks for sharing the TR - enjoyed the adventure.

krazykanuck

Oh my bag was on time. It was too on time! I was complaining that I wasn't able to cash in on Delta's 20 minutes bag on time promise!

She was fine as she had her iphone and preplanned her places to visit. As to air quality, it was great for a couple of reasons. First off, we were there while much of Beijing was on vacation for the Chinese New Year holiday so they weren't commuting to work. Also China has made a lot of investments on retiring their coal fired power plants and moving to natural gas in the last couple years. In that picture of the brewery where they had the Airpocalypse beer, when I asked about the air quality discount, the bartender pulled out his phone and looked up the AQI and said it was great that day!

I've become increasingly convinced that the best Mickey D's is outside the US