Every one of our 21 China Mojo’ers was at Vermont’s Burlington airport by 4:10 am on Friday morning, packed and ready to go, when co-pilot Kat Barnes and I arrived at the airport.
Insert applause track here.
China Mojo a go go!
But traveling to Planet China is never THAT easy.
By 4:25 am, as we tried to convince the lone Continental employee at check-in to get us our group on the plane, two logistical challenges immediately presented themselves via a phone call from our “In China” contact Steve Wilmarth.
CHINA MOJO ON THE GO THROUGH NEWARK AIRPORT.
First, the Wuhan tour money we had wired from Champlain College to Steve’s Bank of China account hadn’t actually appeared in his account – so, we scrambled our colleagues in Study Abroad and Finance (Xie xie, Catherine, Shelley, and David P!) and they put out a trace on the cash
Welcome to Planet China.
And we haven’t even left the Burlington airport.
Maybe Hu Jintao himself, Mojo’er Alex H. sardonically remarked later, pocketed our cash via the B of C?
Second, we learned that our Air China return flight from Wuhan to Bejing was scheduled to leave on Thursday afternoon before we would return by bus from the Three Gorges, so we had to re-book that flight for 21 travelers.
And (one more time) – we hadn’t even left the airport.
LOUNGING IN NEWARK BEFORE OUR EPIC FLIGHT TO BEIJING.
Never a dull moment.
A few “enroute” emails to our fabulous travel agent Geri Proccacini at Mad River Travel, and she rebooked us on an evening flight back to Beijing at a cost of 15 yuan per traveler (app. $2.50 U.S. dollars).
Say what you want about the Chinese owning the U.S. economy.
You still gotta love the US Dollar to RMB exchange rate.
EXCHANGING OUR US DOLLARS FOR CHINESE RMB/YUAN IN BEIJING.
And ALL of this went down before we left Newark Airport to fly to Beijing.
Just a friendly reminder that being flexible and adaptable is key when heading to the Middle Kingdom.
It also helps to have an organized support team looking out for you. (Thanks, Camp Champ and Geri P at Mad River Travel.)
Happily, when all was said and done, our Friday a.m. flight halfway around the world – Burlington to Newark to Beijing to Wuhan – proved a surprisingly smooth journey.
True, one of our Mojo students popped Zanex to sleep on the plane and conveniently forgot to tell anyone, so we had to carry his barely-awake 6 foot frame through the gate at Newark onto the trans-world flight, where he then spent the entire journey zonked out and drooling on his fellow Mojo’ers.
He shall remain nameless.
MEETING STEVE, LINDA AND LILY, OUR WUHAN TOUR GUIDES, AT THE WUHAN AIRPORT.
And yes, we almost left another Mojo’er in the Beijing airport on our way to Wuhan when he wandered off in search of a soda 10 minutes before we were boarding, and lost track of time.
He, too, shall remain nameless.
And OK, I’ll confess that our China Mojo co-pilot Kat “Moxie” Barnes beat me (by a narrow margin) in a game of Scrabble on the Beijing to Wuhan flight.
But other than ALL of that, we made it halfway across the world intact and in one piece.
ON OUR TOUR BUS AND HEADED TO OUR WUHAN HOTEL AFTER 2O PLUS HOURS OF TRAVEL.
Ni Hao, China.
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