The Silent "I"

Touring in Tianjin

In our quest for Solar Eclipse '09, our first stop was Tianjin, China, a large port city about two hours from Beijing.  We landed to incredibly smoggy, gray skies, where the 97 degree heat and 95% humidity had our clothes sticking to us in about 3 seconds flat. "Sticky" and "uncomfortable" don't begin to cover it.  The gray haze that covered the city seemed to cover the entire countryside as well, and after seeing the giant industrial smokestacks along the way, we knew it was more than coastal fog.  After driving the lonely road from Beijing to Tianjin, we arrived at the lovely Rennaissance Hotel in Tianjin. 

The Rennaisance in central Tianjin is located across from a grand Concert Hall, and conveniently next to Starbucks and a luxury mall featuring Prada, Cartier and Gucci. From the front, the skyscraper building looks two-dimensional. We were in the part of town the guidebook said was frequented by foreigners searching for a little bit of home in a Subway sandwich and Starbucks half-caff latte. The lobby of the hotel featured a grand staircase on one side and a gorgeous mural of a modern rendition of the Great Wall opposite. It had an "East meets West" feeling, and I immediately felt underdressed and grubby standing there, wearing traveling clothes and needing a shower.

We were fortunate to be upgraded to a suite on the Club Floor, which meant free drinks and snacks, along with a very posh two-room suite overlooking the gray smoggy skies of Tianjin.  We fought to stay awake long enough to have some snacks and soft drinks in the lounge, where three Chinese women were holed up with laptops and working furiously on some project or another. The staff was friendly and spoke English to us, which was a relief, since our Chinese is limited to “nihao” (“hello”) and “Xiexie” (thank you). We ate a few eggrolls and some custardy dessert of unknown origins, and went back to our luxurious suite.

We ordered up a light supper in our room, fought to stay awake, and then promptly crashed around 7:00 pm. Alex was given strict orders that if he were to awaken in the middle of the night, and we were still asleep, he could watch TV in the other room, with the door closed. He mumbled “ok” then fell asleep.

At 3:30 am, I woke up and realized there was no going back to sleep. I noticed a couple of beady little eyes staring up at me in the dark and said, “Hi, Alex.” We were all awake, with nothing to do for another 2 ½ hours, when the restaurant opened for breakfast. I made use of the time by sending text messages to my brothers in Texas and to my Twitter account. I was able to use my cell phone in Tianjin, but at $2.99/minute, I opted for texting instead of calling.  Plus, I had no earthly idea what time it was in the US, so I thought I'd play it safe.

After breakfast, we caught a taxi to another part of town that Frank read had a famous shopping street, rebuilt after a major earthquake. It was pouring rain, and we borrowed an umbrella from the hotel to take along, but it barely covered Alex and me. Street vendors appeared out of nowhere selling cheap umbrellas, so we bought one. Most of the shops seemed to be closed, with the exception of Niketown, a Disney store, and some other sneaker stores that looked suspiciously like Foot Locker. Not exactly the exotic Chinese souvenirs we were looking for after traveling half-way around the world.

From Beijing to Tianjin

We arrive in Beijing at 2:00 in the afternoon, the first leg of our solar eclipse ’09 journey.  We made our way by car to the port city of Tianjin.  The Beijing airport has changed a great deal since we were there in 2004, and everything looked sparkling and new.  Beijing had to put on a happy face for the hoards of foreign tourists invading for the 2008 Olympics, and the airport improvements were evidently part of the package. 

I was most impressed with how shiny and clean the floors were.  There seemed to be numerous maintenance people, all wearing surgical masks, methodically cleaning the floors throughout the airport.  Someone in China must have perfected the formula for floor wax, because at times I was convinced it was wet, but it was just so shiny you could see your pores in it.

We had been concerned that we might not make it through quarantine, since the Chinese government has cracked down on North American flights into the country due to concerns over the Swine Flu.  We had heard horror stories of people going into Beijing and being quarantined for a week in a hotel.  We had heard that not only the people who had the virus, but anyone with a fever, or anyone within 3 rows of anyone with a fever, would be quarantined.  We were told on the flight to remain seated when we landed, and wait for a Chinese health official to board and take everyone’s temperature.  I expected this to be a long and tedious affair, if it were anything like my attempts to wrestle a thermometer into Alex’s mouth.

The Chinese, however, have perfected the art of auto-temperature taking, and before we knew it, a young Chinese man in a crisp white uniform jogged up one aisle waving a wand, and jogged back down the other and headed out the door.  We were warned, in English, to stay seated until the plane was cleared.  The next announcement was in Chinese, and this time, all the Chinese passengers all got up in unison and started wrangling their bags from the overhead bins.  We waited a beat for an English announcement, which never came, so we followed suit.  When in Rome, so to speak.

We had pass through two more health inspection aisles on the way to baggage claim, which of course, made me sweat profusely.  It wasn’t the fear of being quarantined or Swine Flu or any other illness, real or imagined; it was the 97 degree temperatures with 98% humidity that did me in.  Luckily, perspiration doesn’t show up on the infrared monitors, so we walked through without incident.

Frank had also read that the Chinese customs officials checked for people bringing contraband cheese into the country, so we made sure to avoid the cheese-sniffing dogs.  I referred to this as the Policy of Lactose Intolerance and really wanted to start shouting “Free the Brie!” but I managed to control myself through Customs.  

Beijing Bound

We’ve taken off on another whirlwind trip, this time a cruise from Tianjin, China, to Cheju Island, Korea, and back out to sea to view a total solar eclipse.  At six minutes long, this is set to be the longest eclipse of the century, according to Frank.  Our last eclipse tour, also a cruise, took us to Europe and North Africa, with the main event landing us in the Sahara Desert, in Libya.  I can’t say that my life has lacked in adventure since I married Frank.

Alex was disappointed that we couldn’t sit in First Class, but the price in coach was right (free).  We managed to score some Economy Plus seats on United, which is a step above Sardine Class.  Our seats for the 12 hour flight were comfortable enough, and we had enough electronic gear along for the ride to keep us occupied, including  multiple cameras, laptops, an iPod, a Nintendo DS,  a Google Smartphone and in-seat movies.  I wonder how the early settlers endured months of riding across the plains on wagon trains without the wonders of video solitaire to pass the time.

We flew the Great Circle route, going north out of San Francisco and up over Alaska.  We waved down at Sarah Palin, who no doubt is spending time keeping a watchful eye on the skies for Soviet attacks, now that she is gainfully unemployed.

Alex made friends in the airport with two sweet kids who, as luck would have it, were sitting one row in front of us.  Alex and the boy shared DS games and talked Yugioh shop in between movies.  The rest of the time, he rocked out with my iPod, occasionally singing “Eye of the Tiger” at the top of his lungs.
I have a hard time sleeping on long flights, so I watched a couple of movies, and saw the end of “He’s Just Not that Into You” about 3 times. It was a sweet movie, with just about every young actress in Hollywood taking part in it.  The flight was pretty uneventful, and the eleven hours passed quickly with the help of Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston. 

My only complaint was that the food on this flight was probably one step below prison fare. The highlight was a small cup of dehydrated ramen noodles with what looked like chunks of spam floating around in it.  I think United Airlines must have found some treasure trove of WWII c-rations that they decided to serve us on the flight to save on costs.  Next time, I’ll know to bring my own ramen.