Travelogue 1: The New Beijing Airport is MASSIVE!

Holy cow! I'm no accomplished world traveler, but I've seen my share of airports around the world and Beijing's new Terminal 3 is - for lack of a better word - MASSIVE. Most airports have some sort of rail or bus system to transport passengers between the different terminals, but here it is so big that this one terminal alone has its own train system!

Ok, let me back up for just a moment before I get back to Beijing. We actually woke up this morning around 5:30am after a pleasant night on the town in Karamay. We had a farewell dinner with (from left to right) Dr. Best (the man who hired us), Nancy (an American Spanish instructor who came to teach the summer program), our two Filipino friends Verna & Cons, and finally Terry, an American student who also came to teach in the summer program in Karamay. We got to bed fairly late taking care of last minute details around the house. It's difficult to pack and prepare for a month and a half away from "home"!

Here we are at our first airport, bright and early, smiling because at this point airports are still a friendly sight. Once we hit airport #11 I don't expect those smiles to be as big! The flight went well and we basically walked off one flight and got onto another headed for Beijing.

Here is Beijing, airport #3 (we forgot to take a photo at Urumqi, airport #2). It's difficult to grasp the immensity of this airport from the picture, but just realize that all you see here is only the check-in area. There are a total of 3 more floors below us and more than a mile of gates that lie just a train ride away. If open space were a currency then Beijing is by far the riches airport I've ever seen. It's clean, inviting, and full of comforting Western food. Hello, Starbucks! Hello, Frappucino!

The only downside is that the direct train leading to the center of town still isn't running even though national news said it should be open this month. I've driven Tiff crazy trying to convince her we can take the new train when, in fact, we cannot. Airport shuttle it is, then.

Well, we're off in about 1 1/2 hours to Doha where we'll connect to London and finally get to rest. Catch ya'll later!