As an escape to the grueling task of grad school application, I searched online for destinations (and air tickets) that could be my winter getaway. It’s a luxurious 5-week holiday that could possibly be my last.
And I bumped into Xiamen Airline’s offer of round trip to Kuala Lumpur from Hangzhou at a little bit more than CNY1300, with a stop at Fuzhou(福州). The only restriction was that I needed make the return trip on the morning of Chinese New Year’s Day, which wasn’t that much problem for me since I’m reluctant to identify myself as Chinese.
Then, since my last and only exam of the semester was on Jan 12th, and 2 weeks of Malaysia seemed too much for me, I decided to arrange the visit of another country in Southeast Asia during that time. The decision was easy, as Kuala Lumpur is the headquarter of Asia’s budget airlines, and Cambodia, the bureaucracy and corruption in which resulted in unusually high air fares and fees compared with its neighboring countries, is just a short strait away from Malaysia. So my plan of the day was to take Xiamen Airlines flight MF877 to Kuala Lumpur on January 14th, spend the night in Kuala Lumpur Airport trying to get some sleep, and take Air Asia Flight AK536 on the next morning to Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.
I only stayed in Wuhan(武汉) for one night before rushing back to Beijing.
Wuhan Railway Station Exterior
My trip back begins at Wuhan(武汉) Railway Station, where I took the subway to Hankou(汉口) Railway Station, then Hankou-Xiaogan(孝感) Intercity Railway to Wuhan Tianhe Airport.
I was suddenly informed by my parents that I needed to go to the city of Wuhan(武汉) to sort out some family matters, and that was one day before my trip. Immediately I went online searching for tickets, and found tickets for overnight sleeper trains were sold out (apart from the ones that arrive at 4 in the morning), yet airlines were still quoting around 300+CNY for morning flights to Wuhan. So with little hesitation I booked China Southern’s morning flight to Wuhan.
This post follows on the previous ones about flight DL129 from Los Angeles to Seattle.
Since the previous flight from Los Angeles departed pretty much on time, we arrived at Seattle half an hour early, which meant plenty of time to go just from one terminal to another by tram.
This post follows on the previous one of flight DL128 from Beijing to Seattle.
Learning the experience last time of flight AA186 to Chicago, this time I wasted no time after getting off the plane, race-walked my way to the customs.
My previous flight GS7648 was pretty much on time, so I got nearly four hours of connection time to kill in Lanzhou(兰州) Airport.
Flight GS7648 parked in the old terminal of Lanzhou Airport, and I passed along a transit counter after I got off the plane. Since Tianjin Airlines has some strict rules banning luggage bags as carry-on items, so I checked that bag on the previous leg. But it's common truth to any intellectual being that checked bags don't get to belts in Beijing Capital Airport at speed, specially it's domestic flight into Terminal 2 at night (Yes it's China Eastern on a flight from Shanghai Hongqiao that taught me this), so I decided to bring that luggage bag onboard on the flight to Beijing. Since I need to collect that bag first, I didn't pay any attention to that transit counter.
Time to head back to Beijing.
Since I didn’t want to miss to many lectures for this trip to Xinjiang, I chose to fly back on Tuesday so that I won’t miss the lecture on Wednesday.
During planning, one major reason, apart from the scenery and appropriate distance (by train) from Urumqi, that I chose to spend two days at Zhangye(张掖) (rather than Dunhuang(敦煌)) before heading back was the cheap flight from Zhangye to Lanzhou(兰州) at 120CNY, which would be the cheapest air ticket I’ve ever purchased.
We arrived in Zhangye relatively early from the half-day trip to Ma-Ti Temple, so after lunch I had got plenty of time to make my way to the airport for the 1635 departure. By the tour guide to Ma-Ti Temple, Zhangye Airport had cancelled it’s passenger shuttle bus, which left a three-times daily "employee" shuttle bus that didn't fit my schedule. So under her advice I spent 22CNY for a shared ride on the Didi app to Airport.
By the way, compared with Datong(大同) Airport that I've been to earlier this year, with (I guess) similar passenger volume, Datong Airport was able to provide passenger shuttle bus based on arrival and departure times of its flights. (But if one consider Datong as a city, Zhangye was a county in every aspect but name, so no surprise.)
Zhangye Airport Avenue Traffic was sparse on this airport avenue, with golden leaves lining its side.
This post follows the previous one on Qatar Airways flight 246.
Midnight seemed to be a higher peak for transits at Doha Airport than early morning, as we waited longer at transit screening this time.
Also, compared to the invigorating bustle of the airport morning we witnessed on our outbound flight, this time the whole airport seemed quieter, even somewhat gloomy to me. Thank God there were people for overnight flights to keep the whole building from degrading into a ghost town.
Time to head back home.
It seemed that everything was expedited for the last day, I finished my tour of Eyup and Golden Horn ahead of schedule, my parents finished their visit of Grand Bazaar ahead of schedule, then all the gift shopping and currency exchange was done without a hitch.
So the result was that, we arrived at the airport four hours before our scheduled departure.
