Late It's Early

It’s five twenty two in the morning.  It’s so late it’s early.  Ornery, marching past customs.  Ornery taking my place in line at the cab queue.  Aint got nothing nice for no one this morning.  I’m stewing, and tired.  Rehearsing snappy rejoinders just in case my cab driver starts in with a lot of complaining.  You’ve been waiting a long time?  Really?

We head off without a word, which is a good omen. I was supposed to be in a cab like this nine hours ago. “The plane is delayed, due to air traffic delay.” I rushed out of a meeting and sailed over to the airport express station in Kowloon.  ‘Gei Cheng Fa Shee, Joe Long.’ I can still say it in Cantonese.  But his reply, a detailed Cantonese question of uncertain syntax, was indecipherable.  Well then, shall we switch to Mandarin or English?  Ah yes, the classic Hong Kong cab question, I should have known.  “I’ll take you all the way out to the airport for only . . . it all be quicker. Whatdya say?”  No it won’t.  No thanks.  I don’t have enough HKD anyway

In town check-in said you couldn’t check in here.  Talk to them at the airport.  That was the first cloud.  Sure enough, the kid with the fat face and the bored-with-it-all air of someone who has to explain something unpleasant over and over, at the airport's Air China counter said the plane hadn’t left Beijing yet.  The earliest it would get in, therefore would be 8:30PM.  Should I go back into the city? Should I kill time at some restaurant around here?  I wandered around without much of a purpose for a while and called it exercise. 

After longer then it should have taken I began to consider other carriers.  Dragon’s sold out.  Cathy?  No flights.  Hong Kong Air has a flight at 7:30PM. But as soon as I get serious about buying it, they start in with: “It will probably be late.”  Is it here?  Yes, its’ here, but there is a storm in nearby Guangzhou.  Really? It’s a clear day outside. “I thought the storm was in Beijing.”  Nope.  Storm here too.  Check back, if I were you.

We pulled out after midnight on Air China.  Got into Beijing in a blur at 4:30AM.  Now driving along Tian Bei Lv, the sun has started to light the sky. Almost time to wake everyone for school, before I head to bed.