Holding Pattern

I wish there were a way to make this long story short, but there’s not; we had another bad travel day. When our morning flight from Hangzhou to Xi’an was delayed because of mechanical problems, we were taken by bus from the airport back to a hotel for lunch and to await word on our fate. We later learned that the flight had been cancelled and we were sentenced to a day in the hotel room, re-scheduled to leave at 10 p.m.

One of our activities was looking down from 16 floors above and watching the chaotic intersections. No accidents to report but many close calls.

With “Ben” no longer with us and the International Hotel much less accommodating to westerners than the places we had been staying, we were essentially on our own. We decided to take a short walk through the crowded market area where the hotel was located. On our way back, we were approached by a girl who looked to be about 9 or 10 but was actually a half-year older than Leah. Lu Guang Shu was a delight. She was intent on somehow communicating with us. We followed her to a bookstore where she borrowed an electronic translator and managed to exchange names and phone numbers with Leah.

Back at the hotel, we made it through dinner using only chopsticks, although we didn’t contribute much to the dinnertime conversation as the only English speakers among our table of infrequent fliers.

We finally left the International around 10 p.m., made the 20-minute bus ride to the airport and boarded our 11:20 flight—only to sit on the runway for two hours because, we learned later, a passenger became belligerent. The end of this story is we checked into to our hotel in Xi’an around 5 a.m.—just in time to see the sun rise.