China - Beijing 1

June 8: Flying ANA to Beijing
June 9-12: Beijing and my grandparents' house

June 8:

Flying ANA with SC. Check-in was exceedingly pleasant. Exceedingly. The stewardess on the plane was also really nice. SC asked for an apple juice, but they were out so she got an iced tea instead. A few minutes later, the stewardess came back with an apple juice!

The food is also nice: reminds me of my earliest memory of flying (which would have been 1992): it was a long transcontinental flight and I was super hungry, and my mom got me an extra serving of breakfast. Best eggs ever. It wasn't until I grew up and watched Jerry Seinfeld's standup that I learned airplane food is terrible.

Brief layover in Narita. Fish is not a letter:

There's also a free WiFi table sponsored by Google. For some reason, the WiFi only works when your device is on the table. The signal doesn't fall up until 10m or so, but I wasn't able to connect until I placed my iPhone physically on the table. The technology is mysterious, but the outcome is clear: a dozen people huddled around a nondescript table, each squeezing his laptop/smartphone onto a slice of the surface.

June 10:

Going around Beijing with my family. Saw this Groupon ad in the subway:

Also saw a girl playing Plants vs. Zombies. I guess all big cities exhibit some convergent evolution. It's somewhat comforting. When I'd come to Beijing in the early 2000's and earlier, I was a lot more self-conscious about standing out as not a local. I'm not so worried about it now.

June 11:

After a brief rain, the sky finally cleared. This is the first blue sky I've seen on this trip:

That's the view from my paternal grandparents' apartment. And from the other window, at dawn:

It's in the 石景山 district, between the 4th and 5th ring road. The neighborhood's not as clean as you see closer to the city center, but overall it's fairly pleasant. One particularly annoying form of advertising in the apartment building:

Yes, they appear to be rubber-stamped directly onto the wall.

The apartment isn't spacious, but is by no means cramped. The indoor space is very well-utilized. Here is a clothes-drying area that doubles as a cactus garden:

June 12:

Flying to Kunming tomorrow. Weather report says thunderstorms all week.