Journeying to China by way of Newport Beach - Part 3 of 3

By the time we were in the air, it was around midnight Pacific Time, but 3:00 p.m. Beijing Time. We were served supper apparently according to Beijing Time not too long after the flight was underway. Rodney, Wayne and I did not seem ready to nap or sleep anyway, so we took in this meal. We mixed talking and watching movies on the in-flight entertainment for a while and after a few hours all of us were napping and dozing as we were able to. Rodney was doing as well as the rest of us, but he did require assistance getting to the bathroom every couple hours or so.

We had requested a seat with easy access to the bathroom when we checked in, but apparently easy access only meant an aisle seat for Rodney. The bathroom was a distance that Rodney could walk by holding on to the seats as he was walking, but it was at a distance that tested his endurance. After about the second time back and forth, he felt he had had enough. Fortunately, by this time, a flight attendant had noticed the effort that it was for Rodney to walk to the bathroom, and it was at this time that we were informed that they would assist us to help Rodney to the bathroom using an aisle chair, a chair similar to the that had been used to wheel Rodney from the aircraft door to his seat for this flight and the previous flight. The flight attendants were very gracious as far as coming to assist when Rodney needed to go to the bathroom, even if bathroom visits were more frequent at times.

After periods of watching in-flight entertainment, dozing, napping and snacking, hours had passed and about 3 hours before touchdown in Hong Kong, breakfast was served. At this time, it was about 3 or 4 in the morning Hong Kong time (which is the same as Beijing Time), or 2 in the afternoon Wisconsin time. We also noted that it had been dark the whole time we had been flying, perhaps the longest period of darkness any of the 3 of us had been through. This was due to flying through time zone after time zone, which resulted in extending nighttime for a very long time. In the process, we had also lost a day, as it was Tuesday morning.

By 6:00 a.m. or so, Beijing Time, we had arrived in Hong Kong. Rodney was wheeled and we were guided from the airport door, through this very unfamiliar airport, to the “transfer area” where we would check-in at the China Southern counter. There was about an hour wait for the counter to open, but the attendant informed us that they would be back when the counter opened. The attendant was back as promised, quickly guided us through the check-in counter and baggage screening and on to the gate. A short time later, Rodney was wheeled to the aircraft door, where he was assisted on to an aisle chair and then to his seat just behind the first class area. I was very impressed by this experience of seeing Rodney being wheeled through the airport with the attendant quickly guiding us from one area to the next and keeping us informed of the next step of the process, so much so, that at this point, it is my opinion that the Hong Kong airport does the best job of any airport of serving disabled wheelchair travelers. I haven’t been to other airports around the world, so this may not be a fair comparison, but it seems that Rodney was served far better than I have seen disabled passengers served at any US airport, at least as far as getting us from one airplane to the other. But there would be a complication which I will mention shortly.

Before we knew it, we were flying on China Southern aircraft towards Beijing. Reality was truly setting in. In Hong Kong, we hadn’t gone through customs, this would be done upon our arrival in Beijing. Our flight from LAX to Hong Kong was on Cathay Pacific, a Hong Kong based airline, but by nature closely tied to the US. In this case, we were on a Chinese owned airline, where the main language was Chinese. On this airline and at our various China destinations, the cuisine provided would be Chinese. Fortunately, the Chinese flight attendants spoke enough English to be able to take care of our basic needs and serve our meals. Announcements and safety briefings were conducted in both Chinese and English. The flight attendants were particularly kind to Rodney, even if he got frustrated at times due to a combination of the language barrier and his difficulty in hearing flight attendants that speak any language. Most significantly, upon being seated in this aircraft, we felt that we were truly arriving in China.