The trip started off with a dud. I sat at the Cincinnati airport for several hours because of a "slow down" at Chicago due to some bad weather. My flight connections were Cincy, Chicago, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Beijing. It was going to take forever to get there but the price was reasonable.
Now, however, I was going to miss the Chicago-San Fran connection. So, amid some chaos as a long line of other people assembled frustrated at missing their connections, I got the ticket agent's attention by saying I was going to Beijing. My bag was retrieved retagged and he put me on the Chicago to Beijing direct flight.
On the plus side, this cut something like 12 hours off my travel time. On the negative side, that put me in Beijing about 12 hours ahead of anyone else in the study abroad program. I didn't have a room and no one to meet me at the airport.
So, in Chicago, I got online and reserved a room where the group was staying the next night, the King's Joy Hotel, near the Forbidden City. The program had detailed instructions in case one arrived alone. So, I took a taxi, just pointing to an address on a sheet of paper to the cabbie. Soon, I was snoozing away like a joyful king.
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