When we got to the airport, we noticed the flight was delayed to 8:10PM – we later found out, according to the pilot, the plane was late getting out of Shanghai due to weather.  This was fine as we could spend a bit more time in this great airport.

We eventually board the plane, but then the pilot gets on the intercom and tells us due to bad weather in Beijing, we’re not sure what time we can take off – we have to join some sort of “queue”.  Yes, I confirmed with some friends in Beijing that it was raining pretty hard.

An aside: my flight from Beijing to Hong Kong landed during a category T3 storm on wednesday, so I don’t know what all the commotion is!

Long story short (ok, there isn’t much more left to the story!), we finally took off around 10:15PM (2.75 hours late) and landed 1:20AM.  Then we had to endure the horrendously inefficient and horribly designed new-Terminal 3.

Weather Gods

It seems to me, and several of my other friends in Beijing, that it’s been raining a heck of a lot more this season than it has in the past years.  And, like automobile drivers, pilots and air traffic controls don’t seem to know what to do when it rains. (In fairness, rain in Beijing is a bit of an abnormal phenomenon, so it does catch us all off guard a bit).

Could it be the powers that be are causing it to rain a bit more than usual to help in the cleanup effort of the city before the Olympics?  Who knows. But it is something interesting to think about.

I have the best luck traveling

This is the 3rd time in as much as a month that my flight, TO Beijing, has been delayed due to Weather.

1. Shanghai Hongqiao to Beijing: Saturday, May 31- Original departure time: 9:55PM; actual ~11:15PM
2. Qingdao to Beijing: Friday, June 20 – Original departure time: 9:25PM; actual ~11:30PM
3. Hong Kong to Beijing: Monday, June 30 – Original departure time: 7:30PM; actual 10:15PM

My good friend, Dr. Bushwacker, was flying back from Shanghai Hongqiao last week, also an evening flight – his flight was delayed and delayed, until finally they canceled it and rescheduled him for the following day.

If you’re like me, you have a sidecar motorbike, you like to drive year round. And if you’re like me, it’s because you hate taxis for a multitude of reasons – those of which I will not go into now.

But, I have a small word of advice:

During the winter, check the damn weather report for current conditions before driving to work.

Today, I didn’t. Oh my god… Pain. Pain all over my body.

When I finally got to my office (lucky I didn’t freeze to death), I checked the weather on CNN’s website, and this is what I found:

New rule: no driving in below freezing with wind more than 5mph.