Last lounge...

Well I was well annoyed that according to Amex and Priority Pass, all the lounges in Beijing were closed at 10pm. We did immigration with relatively no problems and found ourselves in the right area at not too long after midnight with nowhere to wait. But I did a little recce and found a lounge, but they didn't accept Amex, but pointed me to another one. I followed their instructions (in Chinese) and found it but it was bloody closed as expected. I was out of hope but walked around and happened upon another lounge, and with no expectations I asked if they accepted Priority Pass. "对", she said, and with that I found the kids and nearly dragged them upstairs. I asked them what time they closed and they said 3 or 3.30am. 

Last lounge

To be fair the kids weren't that excited. But I was, and went to the bar and asked the lady for a G&T, and she said it was "self-service". I appreciated that but didn't want to speak English so was happy that she spoke to me in Mandarin after that. I hope she was ok with that, though understand if she would have preferred to speak English. But it was my last couple of hours here.

Jeez, it was 47% gin and after two months of mostly 2.5% beer it took its toll, and I was more pissed than I'd been for years. I didn't want to go for the flight so early but the kids suggested I should and we got on last for not the first time. Sorry kids. For a 10.5 hour flight I woke up with 2h48 to go so that's a bonus.

And that was it. We landed safely after a bit of turbulence that by now when tired I don't care about. I'm no longer sad to be back. It's more like waking up from a good dream, or going to sleep. Gosh I will miss it like anything and will try to find excuses to get back. But now my priorities are getting Leilei to uni and Xixi to 6th form. They are so independent now...I wonder if I'll get the chance to be independent in China again. I really hope so.