On Saturday, we were stranded in Xi’an due to “the heaviest rain in six decades” to hit Beijing. In some places, rain was as high as 4 meters, and 37 people were killed. It is extremely fortuitous that I made a last-minute decision to cancel our overnight train tickets for plane tickets instead. Our flight was canceled after waiting at the airport for a few hours in Xi’an, which meant we were grounded for the night and avoided the crowd of 80,000 people stranded at Beijing airport and lack of transportation into the city. This was my first time experiencing a flight cancellation in China, so it was interesting to experience how they handled the situation. Many customers were really unhappy with the canceled flights, as you can see from the chaotic mass of people standing in front of the ticket counter. I only caught the last bit of people protesting, “Guo hang! 国航！” for Air China. For those wondering in case they find themselves in a similar situation, Air China booked us in a hotel in Xianyang, an hour south of the airport in the middle of nowhere. It was actually pretty nice, and they provided transportation to and from the hotel to the airport, as well as breakfast in the morning. Although at first they told us there were no available flights until July 24, we managed to get on a flight yesterday via standby (候补, a relatively uncommon concept in China, as most people make their flights) and came back to a wonderfully hot, blue-sky Beijing. All in all, it could have been worse, and I feel quite lucky I wasn’t stranded under water somewhere in Beijing on Saturday.
The amazing blue sky and weather in Beijing when I returned yesterday.
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