{"id":2094,"date":"2016-11-12T16:19:31","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T08:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/?p=2094"},"modified":"2016-11-22T22:08:51","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T14:08:51","slug":"20161027dl128","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/12\/20161027dl128\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight Log of Delta Airways Flight 128 from Beijing Capital to Seattle on October 27th, 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wasn\u2019t expecting to go back to the States so soon.
\nNo, I wasn\u2019t, but somehow I messed a crucial part of the application process, and only way I could remedy that mess was to make a visit to the States during the school session.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the class schedules for senior-year undergraduates were usually pretty empty. Also, since it\u2019s not peak times, the airlines were offering jaw-dropping rates across the pacific.
\nYes, I thought a return trip to the west coast from Beijing at 3485 CNY with Delta Airlines was pretty much bottom, until I searched for flexible days at found the Hainan+Alaska combination offering 29XX CNY options. Well, I found consolation that the 29XX CNY rates came with overnight transfer at Seattle on the return trip.<\/p>\n

Also, since the US Embassy bought into Cornell\u2019s month-long “conference” and issued me a B-type visa, it saved me the burden of paperwork and presumably lies<\/del> on the visa part.<\/p>\n


\nThe images in this post are hosted on Imgur. Email me should there be any display problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

GPS tracking is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So on the morning of October 27th, I left my dormitory and all the chores of schoolwork<\/del> and headed for the airport. I used the same route as two weeks ago<\/a>, but a lot earlier to save that last-minute dash to the check-in counters (I definitely don\u2019t want a no-show on a crucial international flight). So this time, I arrived at the airport a good 2.5 hours before departure.<\/p>\n

\"Ground<\/a>

<\/br>Ground Floor at Beijing Airport Terminal 2<\/br>With some travelers spending the night on the chairs. <\/span><\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Check-in<\/a>

<\/br>Check-in Counters at Beijing Airport Terminal 2<\/br>Given most international flights operate from Terminal 3, the check-in counters at T2 seemed somewhat deserted by Chinese standards.<\/span><\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Boarding<\/a>

<\/br>Boarding Passes<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Since Boeing 767-300 was the smallest modern plane that was used to cross the Pacific, the lines at check-in were pretty modest by Chinese standards. Then I proceeded to the securities, where the lines were again Chinese modest. I was almost beginning to fall in love with this not-so-crowded terminal.<\/p>\n

\"China<\/a>

<\/br>China Southern Airlines A388(B-6138) Being Towed<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"China<\/a>

<\/br>China Southern Airlines A388(B-6138) At the Gate<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Delta<\/a>

<\/br>Delta Airlines B763 (N182DN) At the Gate<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

I was pretty confident with my time-management, that I didn\u2019t wait for long before boarding time.<\/p>\n

\"Boarding<\/a>

<\/br>Boarding Flight to Seattle<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Onboard<\/a>

<\/br>Onboard Delta Airlines B763 (N182DN) to Seattle<\/p><\/div>
\nWith so many posts, I don’t think I need to mention the fact that I modified the contrast of the following photos due to limited visibility.<\/span>
\n

\"Hainan<\/a>

<\/br>Hainan Airlines B788 (B-2722) At the Gate<\/p><\/div>
\nMiraculously, there\u2019s no air traffic control as we were able to push back on time.
\n

\"Hainan<\/a>

<\/br>Hainan Airlines Fleet at Beijing Airport Terminal 2<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"KLM<\/a>

<\/br>KLM B744 (PH-BFE) Taking Off<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Beijing<\/a>

<\/br>Beijing Airport Terminal 3C<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Xiamen<\/a>

<\/br>Xiamen Airlines B752 (B-2869) Taking Off<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Korean<\/a>

<\/br>Korean Air A333 (HL-7554) Taking Off<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"China<\/a>

<\/br>China Southern Airlines A388(B-6138) Taxiing<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"International<\/a>

<\/br>International Part of Beijing Airport Terminal 2<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"China<\/a>

<\/br>China Southern Fleet at Beijing Airport Terminal 2<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Overlooking<\/a>

<\/br>Overlooking Apron North of Beijing Airport Terminal 2<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Overlooking<\/a>

<\/br>Overlooking Apron North of Beijing Airport Terminal 2<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Overlooking<\/a>

<\/br>Overlooking Beijing Airport<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Awesome<\/a>

<\/br>Awesome Tail Wind<\/p><\/div>
\nNot long after takeoff the cabin crew began distributing refreshing towels and eye shades and earphones and arrival cards. To be honest, I\u2019m quite pleased with the quality of Delta eye shades, but that\u2019s the end of all the good things onboard this flight.
\n

\"Lake<\/a>

<\/br>Lake Da-Bu-Su(\u5927\u5e03\u82cf)<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Farmlands<\/a>

<\/br>Farmlands and Salt Lakes in North-East China<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Swamps<\/a>

<\/br>Swamps by Lake Chagan<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Lake<\/a>

<\/br>Lake Cha-Gan(\u67e5\u5e72) and Lake Xin-Miao-Pao(\u65b0\u5e99\u6ce1)<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"River<\/a>

<\/br>River Songhua Crossing Farmlands in Northeast China<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"River<\/a>

<\/br>River Songhua outside City of Harbin<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Meal<\/a>

<\/br>Meal Services<\/br>I picked fish, and to my disappointment, I found multiple bones in it.<\/span><\/p><\/div>
\nThe cabin crew on this flight seemed to be Tokyo based, as they were serving drinks with Japanese labels on them (while speaking not-so-good Mandarin).
\n

\"River<\/a>

<\/br>River Tang-Wang(\u6c64\u65fa) and Town of Hao-Liang-He(\u6d69\u826f\u6cb3)<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Villages<\/a>

<\/br>Villages by River Songhua<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Flying<\/a>

<\/br>Flying along Chinese Border with Russia<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Amur<\/a>

<\/br>Amur River Border<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Fire<\/a>

<\/br>Fire Burning in Russia Far-East<\/br>It\u2019s harvest season, and they are burning straw stubble.<\/span><\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Clouds<\/a>

<\/br>Clouds over Russia Far-East<\/p><\/div>
\nAfter I finished my meal and we entered Russian Airspace, I tried to catch a few naps. But since I already slept for a few hours on the night before (I know I shouldn\u2019t, though), none of those naps lasted long.
\nTo add to my sleep misery was the cabin crew, which hopefully didn\u2019t represent the best of Delta. I know I sat on a window seat, but I don\u2019t think that distance from the aisle justified the crew of “throwing” whatever they were required to serve onto my tray table, and waking me up, and that includes a bottle of water and a mid-flight snack package.
\n

\"Sunset<\/a>

<\/br>Sunset and Clouds over Sea of Okhotsk<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Sunset<\/a>

<\/br>Sunset and Clouds over Sea of Okhotsk<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Sunset<\/a>

<\/br>Sunset and Clouds over Sea of Okhotsk<\/p><\/div>
\nOh, one more thing not so pleasant about Delta. After waking up from the naps, I attempted to catch a few movies from Delta\u2019s personal entertainment pad. (No, Delta didn\u2019t fit all the 767 seats with power outlets, which was bad already.) To my great disappointment, Delta thought the best way to display a 21:9 movie on a 16:9 screen was to cut the margins off, rather than the common sense of leaving portions of the screen black to fit the entire content in. No, I won\u2019t watch 16\/21 portions of a movie while being reminded that the content was presented by some lunatic from Delta\u2019s tech department.
\n

\"Kitchen<\/a>

<\/br>Kitchen onboard Delta B763<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Bathroom<\/a>

<\/br>Bathroom onboard Delta B763<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Delta<\/a>

<\/br>Delta Airlines B763 Cabin<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Some<\/a>

<\/br>Some Head Winds over Alaska<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Snacks<\/a>

<\/br>Snacks Served before Landing<\/br>Delta called this \u201clight breakfast\u201d, I called it \u201ca very basic snack\u201d.<\/span><\/p><\/div>
\nOn flights of similar durations, other airlines (including AA three months ago<\/a>) would try to make their second \u201clight meal\u201d services look more like a meal than just snacks, but I was pretty sure this is not the case for Delta.<\/p>\n

On final approach, the clouds were thick and I only got glimpses of Seattle just before landing.
\n

\"Buildings<\/a>

<\/br>Buildings and Lights along Washington State Route 99<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Buildings<\/a>

<\/br>Buildings and Lights along Washington State Route 99 and Interstate 5<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Lake<\/a>

<\/br>Lake Forest Park Neighborhood and Shorelines of Lake Washington<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Inglewood-Finn<\/a>

<\/br>Inglewood-Finn Hill Neighborhood across Lake Washington<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Flying<\/a>

<\/br>Flying over North Seattle Suburb<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Evergreen<\/a>

<\/br>Evergreen Point Bridge across Lake Washington<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Downtown<\/a>

<\/br>Downtown Bellevue in the Distance<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Lacey<\/a>

<\/br>Lacey V Murrow Bridge across Lake Washington<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Flying<\/a>

<\/br>Flying over South Seattle<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Flying<\/a>

<\/br>Flying over South Seattle<\/br>I didn\u2019t realized that we were directly above a Boeing airfield, with Interstate 5 winding around it.<\/span><\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Flying<\/a>

<\/br>Flying over Boeing Airfield<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Parking<\/a>

<\/br>Parking Lot North of Seattle Airport<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Landing<\/a>

<\/br>Landing at Seattle Airport<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Runway<\/a>

<\/br>Runway 16L of Seattle Airport<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Southwest<\/a>

<\/br>Southwest Fleet at Terminal B of Seattle Airport<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Delta<\/a>

<\/br>Delta Airlines Fleet at Seattle Airport Terminal A<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Hawaiian<\/a>

<\/br>Hawaiian Airlines A332 (N384HA) In the Hanger<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Ground<\/a>

<\/br>Ground Crew at Seattle Airport<\/p><\/div>
\nFlight DL4940 will be on the next post.
\nEND<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wasn\u2019t expecting to go back to the States so soon. No, I wasn\u2019t, but somehow I messed a crucial part of the application process, and only way I could remedy that mess was to make a visit… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174,2],"tags":[176,175,177],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2094"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2183,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094\/revisions\/2183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.huangyizhou.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}