By Eileen Jeanette, VP of Artistic and Orchestra Operations
Deb and I met at LAX and sat at the airport restaurant chatting until about 8:50. The Air China gate was supposed to open at 9 but it was 9:30 before they opened. By then there was quite a line of people. It was organized chaos as most things in China (in my experience). The buses left the office at 9pm on the dot and they were were barreling to LAX at a fast pace, but then they hit snaggy traffic and didn't arrive until 10:20pm. I was actually grateful as it meant Deb and I had a chance to figure out our game plan. We met the buses, got them unloaded and got the kids in line.
Staff members take a selfie while waiting to board.
The only tricky thing was all of the instruments that we had. The cellos, horns, some trombones were declared "oversized" so we had to drag them to another part of the terminal for delivery while our suitcases were piled onto luggage carts. It took quite a while to get all 116 through. The patron tour folks went through a different line so they were super fast. They wouldn't allow us to request specific seat assignments so that
was a bit nerve-wracking, but ultimately everyone ended up where they needed to be because people just claimed seats on the plane. There was one moment where one young woman was told she had to put her violin under the plane. Deb stood her ground so we ultimately took it with us. It didn't seem like they were used to having so many instruments at one time, but I was grateful it worked out. The biggest blessing is that we weren't charge oversized luggage fees except for the tuba. That cost us $110. :-). They assured us that TSA wouldn't inspect the instruments and we had to trust that was true and let them go without being able to hand-walk them through to the gate.
We waited in a long security line and everyone was chatting, a bit tired, and hungry. We got through everything and arrived at our gate at about 11:40pm. We allowed the kids some freedom and announced a 12:30 meeting time to be back at the gate. Most people went to find food or just sat around at the gate. We boarded the plane at 1:10am and took off on time At 1:40.
They gave us each a small pillow and blanket and the cabin was quite warm so anything more than a t-shirt was unnecessary. They fed us "lunch" at around 3am. After a while they came around selling cartons of cigarettes to people who wanted them. I learned, after the fact, that the sales were for people to take advantage of the duty free pricing since we were in international air space. Also, cigarettes are expensive in China so people like that they are cheaper and load up on planes. There was a second meal served closer to our landing and we could tell more students were chatting by then, anxious to get off the plane and stretch their legs after the 13 hour flight.
Once we did get off the plane, we began the crazy process of going through customs and collecting all of our stuff from baggage claim. It was pretty intense, but in the end we hadn't lost any luggage or any students so we considered our day a success. The kids seem super excited to be on this trip!
After we checked into the hotel, we headed straight to The Forbidden City! More pictures and blog posts to come soon!
The Forbidden City
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