Back in the States.

Here is how I feel: bleahbleahbleahbleahbleah. A twelve-hour flight preceded by a four-hour airport experience will do that, I guess.

Two days ago, I was seriously planning on spending the night at Beijing airport. My argument went like this: I'm going to get back from Hong Kong late at night on Tuesday, and there's no point in paying a bunch of money for a hotel room that I'll only be able to stay in for six hours or so. (I was assuming, here, that any hotel I would want to stay at was at least 30 or 45 minutes away from the airport.) This would've meant 12 hours or so spent in the lobby of Beijing airport. I was thinking that it would be a good idea since after staying up all night on Tuesday I would definitely for sure be able to sleep on my flight all the way back to the States.

Ha.

When I got off the flight from Hong Kong I sort of booked a hotel room at the airport without really realizing what I was doing. So tired. I was so tired I said this to the poor airport hotel reservation lady: "Are there any airports near the hotel?" She got very confused.

I ended up paying around US$60 for a tiny room in the "Beijing Olympic Airportel", which to its credit was clean and cheap and very close to the hotel. I mean the airport. Two comments:

1) The Beijing Olympic Airportel was obviously converted from a trashy apartment building. The room had a balcony, but the balcony was walled off and I would've had to kick out the window screen to get to it. (See first photo.)

2) The Beijing Olympic Airportel was so small that there wasn't room for a shower stall/bathtub. (See second photo.)

The flight itself went smoothly but now I'm sleepy. I'm sleepy and in Santa Cruz with Anaïs and I'm glad to be home.