To get to Xian which we visited on Fall break, we caught a plane from Yentai, which is about an hour from Weihai. The train was a possibility, but it would have taken too long. At 1:30 Monday, a taxi picked us up at the university gate. I had made notes about flight departure when the reservation was made weeks ago. My notes said the departure time was 5:00 PM. But in the cab, I looked carefully at the tickets, something I should have done far sooner. According to the tickets, departure time was 14:30. I subtracted 12 from 14. Egad! 14:30 is 2:30. In other words, we were about to miss the plane.
I broke this to Joe. He shrugged, "maybe we'll make it. If not, we'll figure out what to do." Never before have I been so glad about my husband's passive fatalism. We arrived at the airport at 2:35. Obviously, we had missed the plane. You have to be on board 15 minutes before takeoff time. Right?
Wrong! It's China. Here, planes seldom leave when they're supposed to. The flight had been rescheduled to 5:00. I must have been aware of that at some point, and that was why my notebook said 5:00. As I reviewed the crossings out in my notebook, I remembered the flight times had changed several times after the printing of the tickets. But since the trip had been arranged weeks ago, I hadn't remembered this. Well, it worked out. This is China.
Incidentally, Xian is really interesting. Above: detail of wall from emperor's palace. Below: park by the emperor's burial mound.
2 comments:
beautiful.........
Wow, you are so lucky to make the plane in the end and I am now thinking about Joe's passive fatalism. I do not know a person who is passively fatal. Interesting. Joe might have to explain to me on Monday how he does it.
Post a Comment