VacAsian Days Three and Four (Monday and Tuesday, 5 and 6 May, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Beijing)

We started the day with breakfast at the hotel, joined by Huey's dear friend and client, the phenomenally talented actor-comedian-hip hop artist ("... windsurfer, investment banker,...") Andre Meadows (remember that name!), who moved to LA from Austin almost two years ago to pursue his dream. We departed for the airport after breakfast, checked in, and began the loooooong wait leading up to our 12:55 PM PDT flight.

We boarded and left LAX on time, then we flew... and flew... and flew... and flew some more. 11 1/2 hours to Tokyo, where we were met by an airline representative who escorted us to our connecting flight to Beijing. The Tokyo to Beijing leg was a much more reasonable 3 1/2 hours, and we were able to stretch out a bit more as it was a practically empty flight.

Upon arriving in Beijing, we were again met at the end of the jetway my a representative who escorted us through Immigration, baggage claim, and customs to a waiting Audi sedan. On our drive from the airport, we were impressed with how not only modern Beijing is, but also how Western the city is. Having grown up in New York City, Huey commented that the architecture and industry is as modern, and in some cases moreso, in Beijing as in The Big Apple. When combined with the traditional and the historic, both of which are abundant and prominent in Beijing, the city has an undeniable cosmopolitan flair. Our aggressive (that's putting it mildly - at one point, he passed someone on the right shoulder) driver whisked us to the front door of our hotel, the immaculate Grand Hyatt Beijing.

Despite some mixup at check-in (the hotel was reserved and paid for through the Texas Executive MBA Program (from which Robin just graduated and the reason for this leg of our trip), but we were to pay for the first night ourselves because we arrived earlier than the rest of the group; our reservations were separate, even though we're sharing a room, and the front desk seemed confused about how to handle that), we were in our room by 9:30 PM on Tuesday, Beijing time (8:30 AM on Tuesday, Austin time). As much as we slept on the two flights we took to get here, it was bed time and we needed it!

You might also imagine that after roughly 24 hours in the same clothes, hustling through three different international airports and sleeping in aluminum tubes while breathing recycled air, we were a smidge "aromatic." We showered, then slept like babies... or logs... OK, baby logs.