Travelogue: Spring Break 2009 - Beijing

[Peter Green]

9:50 in the morning, and I've been slowly going deaf for the last three hours in what may be the most and least impressive of business lounges.

I'm sitting in Dubai right now, in Emirates lounge. Like much of this city, they've taken massive as their model, and have put together a lobby that, if not for the food, drink, chairs, and games, would be a carbon copy of the concourse.

Man, it's loud here.

The food suffers, too. I'll try to edit in pictures later, once I've a decent connect. What could be a very good kitchen has, by the sheer size of the operation, been turned into a canteen. There's a decent enough selection of Indian food (chickpeas, parattha, sambal, and some other bits), and good Western food (croquettes, you gotta love croquettes...and salmon bagels), but the scale of the operation makes you feel like you're back at university in the dining hall.

But that's merely a preface.

I should, if all goes well, arrive in Beijing sometime before midnight tonight, and then get to my apartment in the wee hours of the day.

Very wee.

It strikes me now (sleep deprivation hits me hard) that this whole trip is a massive recap of past studies. Thailand is a constant, but Laos, Korea, and China have all been redone, and done this time with no sense of urgency or need. A repeated trilogy of food, if you would.

I'll try to focus upon that, the tastes I've had before, and the ones that are new.

For now, I'd better get to my gate.

[lilyhotel]

no photo, no truth.