China: Pre-Departure

First off, let me preface with some background. When I was living in San Diego county, I was a member of the San Diego Youth Symphony organization from 1999-2007, in addition to the one year around 1995 or so and an additional summer a year after I left. In other words, SDYS was a huge part of my teenage and young adult years and my musical growth. Since I held principal positions in all the groups I participated in the majority of the time, I was one of 18 alumni chosen to participate in the 70th anniversary tour to Beijing, Yantai and Shanghai, China. The last tour took place to Europe in 1998, so I barely missed it. Imagine my excitement when I was invited to join the group again to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime experience! The four rehearsals and Bon Voyage concert were held during the two weeks prior to departure. I left Idaho in early June and took 17 hours over three days to drive down to San Diego for rehearsals. The Bon Voyage concert was a free event held in Balboa Park on June 18th. We played about 2/3 of the program we prepared for China. The full repertoire consisted of Glazunov's Overture Solennelle, Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. A very heavy set! Prior to departure, the students, alumni, staff and chaperones were separated into three large groups. Most of the alumni were in group three, which meant we usually were last to everything, including flights. To leave for China, we met in Balboa Park and took a charter bus to LAX. Group one met Monday evening, June 22nd and the other two groups met Tuesday morning, June 23rd. Group three left Balboa Park at 7:30am and arrived at LAX 2 1/2 hours later. We checked in with our passports and visas and then took off at 12:30pm. The flight landed in Shanghai 13 hours later at 4:30pm on Wednesday. We then had the marvelous privilege *sarcasm* of hanging out at the airport for a five-hour layover, during which time I fell asleep on a bench while we waited, since I had gotten a headache on the previous flight. It was in the Shanghai airport that I made my first purchase in China, a water bottle. There are no drinking fountains there because the water is not drinkable, even for the natives. Our transfer flight to Beijing left at 9:30pm and we arrived at our final destination at 11:30pm. After gathering our luggage, we were met outside the terminal by a tour guide from Asia Getaway named Ling, or "Maggie." We boarded the bus and Maggie told us that the hotel was a 30-minute drive without a traffic jam. "A traffic jam at 1am?" I thought. Well, guess what? There was traffic. At 1:00 in the morning. Someone on the bus joked that it was "morning traffic." We finally arrived at the hotel at 2:15am. So, from start to finish, including bus rides, we traveled for a total of 28 hours. Add that to the 15-hour time difference from California and that is some major jet lag. I went to bed at 3:30am and woke up at 5:30, as if my body was saying, "Thanks for the nap!" Miaculously, I was able to fall back asleep a while later and was then awakened by an 8am wake-up call. More to come on day one in Beijing!