No, China hasn't invaded Taiwan yet (to my knowledge). But I did arrange my return flight to America yesterday.
I had contacted the people who helped me come here to see if they could get the return part of my NorthWest ticket lined up, but they e-mailed saying their travel agent couldn't get anything for June 27-July 1. They gave me the Beijing number for NW, so I called it.
The lady's English was excellent, and overall getting a seat was much easier than I had expected. I told her the dates I thought would work best. After a longish pause during which I could hear the clicking of a keyboard, she told me that all the flights on those days were full, but there was a seat available on June 25. Unfortunately, the way our school contracts have turned out and the amount of time it takes to get to Beijing, that couldn't work for me. Due to the oddly timed ending of the school year (my exams will be done on June 3), the school has decided that we can leave either on June 12 with a partial month's salary or on June 26 with the full month's salary (no one's quite sure what kind of work we'd be doing during those extra days); no matter what, we must be out of our apartments by July 1. While June 25 doesn't seem like a big deal, I didn't want to be the one who opened the can of worms by saying that I'd like to stay longer but can't quite do the whole time how much money will I get or lose with this alternate leaving date sorry Kate but that's the airlines for you.
Additionally, the airline lady told me that open-ended round trip tickets may not be used during the months of January, July or August. So that definitely shot any plans of staying a few days longer. Especially since my visa runs out on July 7.
I asked if they had anything for June 13 or sometime soon after. Following a shorter pause and some clicking, she said that there was a seat available on June 13. I went for it, figuring that even though it's two weeks earlier than I had wanted, I'd better just get a seat. So I'll be heading for Beijing on June 12 and staying in a hotel that night because the flight to America leaves too early to make it on a morning flight from Dalian. On Sunday, June 13, my plane leaves Beijing at 9:20am and arrives in Tokyo at 1:45pm. My next flight leaves Tokyo at 4:00pm and arrives in Detroit at 2:35pm the same day. And the flight to Wisconsin leaves Detroit at 5:04pm and arrives in Madison at 5:17pm.
That's not quite as good as my flight in January that arrived in Madison only one hour after leaving Beijing, even with a connection in Chicago.
Five weeks from tomorrow, China will be in my past, and I'll be home. Weird.
Posted by at May 8, 2004 8:17 AM