I woke up around 6:00AM. I have to say, for that place being such a crappy hotel, I had one of the best sleeps ever on my trip so far. I must have been tired. The room finally didn’t smell like cigarette smoke though it was probably because I’d gotten used to it. There was no shower but there was hot water and cups for coffee. I had a coffee and did nothing, as there wasn’t anything to do. A free breakfast was offered and though I wasn’t hungry, I thought I best get some food in me before my 10:45AM flight.
I got to the airport early and couldn’t check in by the machine. I went to the lady behind the counter and she told me that my flight had been canceled … again. I wanted to cry.
She made me go over to the customer service counter and the girls tried getting me a flight. I was told there was a flight at 19:40 so I said I’d take it. The next thing I knew, the girl told me the next available flight was 22:40. Not sure what happened to the 19:40 but I suppose they would have a whole plane to re-book. I felt sick. It was just coming onto 9:00AM and I had no idea what I was going to do for the day.
The city of Lanzhou isn’t close to the airport and I didn’t think there was much to do there anyway except wander around. I didn’t want to go back to the crappy hotel from the night prior. The day before I did find some accommodations in the airport so I decided to go there to see if I could get a bed and take a shower. Nothing was available until about 1:00PM.
I plopped myself down in a chair and stared into space for at least an hour. I couldn’t believe I had to waste another day of doing nothing but waiting. I was already bored out of my head and I had thirteen hours more to wait. Sigh.
The weather in Beijing didn’t look like it was going to get any better any time soon. I feared waiting in the airport for thirteen hours only to find out the 22:40 flight was also canceled. I looked for trains. No luck. I looked for flights with other airlines. No luck. I looked for buses. No luck. I was stuck in Lanzhou.
I bought a coffee, changed seats and stared at the ceiling for another hour or so. I changed seats again and watched a few things on my computer. I didn’t see any charging stations at all, so I was afraid to use my devices. It felt like I was going to become a resident of the Lanzhou Airport. That was to be my new life.
Around 12:45PM, I decided to go back over to see if I could get a bed in the airport. They had showers there and a place for me to be on my own. I didn’t know what I would do if my flight that evening wasn’t going to go out. My game plan was to rent a room. It was 160RMB for the night. I told them I would stay there until about 8:00PM and then try to check in. If the flight got canceled again, I’d stay the night. If it wasn’t canceled, I’d go back and give them the key card. This seemed like the best option. That would guarantee me a bed for the night, if the flight was to cancel again.
The shower felt wonderful. After my shower, I had some noodles at the airport. I then went and hid away in my capsule sized room. Bored. The hours ticked by and finally it came close to 8:00PM.
I knew my ticket didn’t have my middle name and I assumed this was going to cause some problems so I wanted to check in early and get through security as soon as possible in case someone stopped me and gave me trouble.
I tried using the machine to check in but it only showed my flight from Beijing to Taiwan. I then went to the counter and asked the girls about my flight. They were the same girls from the day before. They looked at my passport and I heard the one girl say quietly to the other girl that she couldn’t find my name on the flight. I started to feel anxious about what was going to happen. This girl called someone else and I was sent to the place where they check you in and take your bag. This was a good sign. The lady I was dealing with seemed to be a manager of some sort yet she didn’t speak a word of English. One thing that whole experience taught me was that it’s exhausting having to deal with problems especially when you are not using your native language.
The lady said my middle name wasn’t on the ticket and that’s why the other girl couldn’t find it. She didn’t offer to add it, she just issued my boarding pass, tagged my bag and told me to wait. She then got another lady who took me to a room because my bag hadn’t passed the scanner part. I was wondering what was in my bag. The guy took a long look through the x-ray machine at my bag before clearing me and telling me I could go. My bag was sitting there as the lady from the airline ushered me out of the room. I worried a bit about my bag, hoping it would make it and hoping no one would put anything in it. One never can be too sure these days. As a Canadian with a permanent residency card in Taiwan, seemed like a double whammy and a good target. Ha!
The next step was getting through security. The lady from the airline told me that there wasn’t much to eat past the security area and recommended I eat before going through. She was quite incorrect to say that. I decided to go through security as soon as I could as I was still afraid that someone was going to say something about my middle name not being on my boarding card. Nothing was said and I was in.
The first thing I saw was Starbucks. I went to get a blueberry muffin which offered a comfort of home. I waited for my boarding call, got on the plane and I was finally on my way.
I arrived in Beijing around 12:45AM. Since I was already in China, I didn’t have to deal with any security. I just needed to pick up my bag and grab a taxi. It was 120RMB to get into the city. When I arrived at my hotel, the doors were closed and locked. For the second time that day, I almost cried. The taxi driver suggested I call the hotel, so I did. They said I needed to go around the corner and the door on that side was open. Phew. I thought I was going to have to sleep outside in the rain.
I checked in, took a shower and crawled into bed. It took a bit of time for sleep to come but I was happy to finally be in Beijing.
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