After a brutally long flight on Thursday, we arrived back in Beijing. It’s a process that begins with hitting the snooze on the alarm clock a few times around 3am.
3am-ish EST - Wake up and get dressed
4am EST - Load car and head to airport
6am EST - Flight leaves for Toronto
8am EST - Arrive in Toronto, clear customs. 2 shuttle busses and 1/2 mile of walking puts us into the departure gate.
8:45 am EST - Board the plane and whine to the flight attendant about our un-retractable armrests.
9:45 am EST - Depart for Beijing
10:30 am EST - Discover that we accidently packed the Ambiens in a checked suitcase…damn!
11:30 pm EST (12:30 pm Beijing time) - Land
1:00 am EST - Drive to our Beijing house
3 am EST (4 pm Beijing) - Eat an early dinner of Chinese take-out (I guess it’s just callled take-out here).
4:30 am EST (5:30 pm Beijing) - Get Lisa and Madeline who are both asleep on the couch into their beds…I follow close behind.
2:30 am (Beijing) - Wake up refreshed and ready to start the d..uh…oh damn. Take an Ambien go back to sleep.
Packing the Contraband
The game is called “maximizing your luggage allowance” and you are limited to the following requirements…
Each person can check two (2) 50lb suitcases and carry on a 22″ case along with a “smaller” type of handbag on the plane. With 3 of us traveling, we can check 300 lbs of luggage and by maximizing our carry-on allowance, we can probably add about another 150 lbs.
During any trip back to the US, the first stop(s) are to Costco, Target, and CVS for vitamins, Clif Bars, skin care products, and various other health and beauty aids. We bought close 80 Clif bars, 6 boxes of Emergen-C vitamin packs, 6 bottles of Neutrogena skin wash, 2 large bottles of Cetaphil moisturizer, and other items. I used a scale (available at Mori luggage) designed for weighing suitcases in order to pack each bag to it’s 50 lb. limit.
Here’s what we took to the airport with us…
2 Ballistic nylon suitcases
4 Inexpensive Ricardo (from Costco) rolling duffles
1 Tumi rolling carry-on suitcase
1 Tumi shoulder bag
1 Swiss Army rolling carry-on suitcase
1 North Face day-backpack
Madeline has an American Girl carry-on rolling suitcase which was cute for about 5 minutes until she wanted Lisa or me to carry it. Now we only take 2 rolling carry-ons and her books go into a backpack.
Getting to the Airport
With 400 lbs of bulky luggage and a 6 am departure, our options are limited.
- MARTA - We drive 2 loads of lugguge to our MARTA station 5 minutes away. Pros: Cheap. Dependable. Cons: Major hassle at 3:30 am. Car would need to be picked up and taken back to the house. Doesn’t run until 6 am.
- Taxi - Pros: reasonably cheap compared to a limo or van. Cons: Unreliable. Luggage won’t fit unless it’s a van.
- Limo - Pros: Conspicuous bling. Luggage fits. Cons: Expensive. Can’t make it up the driveway.
- Van - Pros: Lugguage fits. Cons: More expensive than limo. Wasted space = wasted $$$. Uncomfortable. Ugly.
- Friend - Pros: Free. Cons: Not at 3:30 am.
After looking at these options, we were scratching our heads. I called some limo companies to book a van but found an excellent comprimise. Starlight Limousines has a nice, comfy Chevy Suburban. This turned out to be the perfect solution. It was less expensive than the van and a only about $20 more than a Taxi. It was comfortable as a limo and could ascend our driveway. Problem solved.
Checking In
Air Canada doesn’t have curb-side check-in and I was too cheap to use a skycap. Lisa took a couple bags and lined up at the counter while I made a couple trips to and from the car. Once checked in, the rest of the trip was a piece of cake.
Beijing
Unlike every other airport in the US with $3 carts, Beijing has free carts; so getting our giant pile of lugge into a transportable form was no problem at all. But getting it home would be. While waiting for the baggage, I called Mr. Lu and asked him to bring another driver for the luggage. Within 20 minutes he arrived with his friend, we loaded both cars and headed home for about 1/8th the cost of the Suburban in Atlanta…I guess in some ways, I’m really happy to be back.
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