Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Not an Easy Flight July 1, 2013

We were scheduled to leave Calgary at 1:45 pm on July 1st and true to form we went early just to "make sure we weren't caught in traffic, etc".

We did enjoy a nice breakfast in the Maple Leaf Lounge which is only for Business and First Class travellers.  We eventually left Calgary almost two hours late, which was not a good thing considering we only had a two hour layover in Tokyo.

We promised ourselves years ago that whenever we travelled to Asia we would use our Aeroplan miles for Business Class, which is what we did again this time. It makes the flight that much less tiring, but it does leave us with zero points for future travel....I guess all I can do is increase my Visa use!

Love those pods and the lounges, in which we should be able to await our next flight. "Should be" are the key words here. We had resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to stay overnight in Tokyo so when we saw a Japan Airlines representative waiting for us (with a name sign and all) at the plane exit we thought maybe we had a chance!

She told us we had ten minutes to get to the bus that would take us to the next plane. She ran us through the airport, jumped line ups and took us through two security checks in record time. The only way to get through those long boring line ups!

We made it! We were hot and sweaty, but we were on the plane to Beijing, which left as soon as we got seated.

Alice met us at the Crown Plaza so as soon as we checked and showered we took a stroll to find an outdoor eating area for our first Chinese beer...it was great.

We couldn't stay awake anymore so had to cut the evening short. We did make plans for tomorrow - get ready feet!