When the Qantas Check In lady in Sydney curled her lip, asked for phone advice, then adjusted the painted smile to tell "Sir" that his bag would only be checked only to Shanghai - not Helsinki - the day became more interrresting. "Sir" would need to claim his bag in Shanghai and check in again on Lufthansa. Easy: non?
11 hours later, looking for the correct queue, I was directed to the electronic passport aisle. Loud BUZZ: not a Chinese passport.
I was then directed back to the bored "uniform" at the start of a manual passport queue.
Then: redirected further to a shortish, static, queue of about 20 people, all from Qantas, all looking for Lufthansa. In the 45 minutes standing around in this queue, each person was eyeballed in turn, waited while the black “uniforms” phoned up someone else for advice, then checked on multifarious computer pages, then eyeballed and questioned again, then was given a stamped 24 hour visa to "enter" China. All of this was done by one bored officer, supervised by two other bored "uniforms" (one of whom spent much of the time putting drops into his eyes so, presumably was too blinded to open his cubicle to clear the queue; only the officer with many metal stars on his uniform got to actually deal with the G. Public). By the time I reached the painted footprints on the floor to "Stand Here" to be next for the uniformed grilling, we Transit Passengers for Lufthansa had all become new best friends. How we were to fill in the extended 5 hours between flights no longer seemed a problem.
This was just the beginning.
We were directed to pick up bags. Following the large TRANSIT signs we queued again, shuffling towards the Big X Ray Machine to drop and scan our bags. The three officials sitting at the screens were all fascinated with another screen, a mobile phone, so were oblivious to the grunts and scrapes as bags were dumped on the conveyor belt then dragged off and carried to the next "uniform" at the escalators who checked our tickets and newly stamped passports.
"Wrong terminal Sir, you need to go back through Security, go out the doors to the terminal, go up escalators and find Terminal 2".
Breasting the doors into the milling crowd of welcomers and nameboard-holding couriers and taxi touts and crying children and anxious relatives wasn't just Christmas crowded, it was Chinese Overwhelmingly Christmas Crowded. In a handy scrum of 5 (the others being strapping Winter sportsmen keen to get to European ski fields, barging ahead with trolleys and snow boards to find anything Lufthansa) we elbowed, trod, cajoled and excused our way through the packed bodies to the distant escalator (broken down), elevator (huge queues) and second lot of distant escalators (working). Bundled on, we rode to the top, and pinioned left into a walkway so vast that the faster we trod, the more distant the destination sign to Terminal 2 appeared to be.
10 minutes: we reached the half way point, crossing over the city subway and MAGLEV stations, forging onward....
Terminal 2: less crowded. The Lufthansa desk was "CLOSED" for another 25 minutes. We cooled our heels in another friendly queue of Qantas arrivals not-yet-in-Transit. It was good to see a healthy queue also building from the roped off Business Class strip of carpet. Meanwhile, local touts attempted to interest is in purchasing very dodgy looking used iPhones... Those seeking airport wifi were curtly informed that they had to go to one of the airport gates to purchase a ticket first (another queue?). A distant shuffle suggested we were off, and after half an hour I was checked in, as a curious poker-machine-beeping noise and red flashing light came from the X Ray machine behind the ticketing clerk.
"You must go to office down the end before I can give boarding pass. You MUST. GO!"
I went.
And there was the familiar crowd of my new ex-Qantas best friends in another queue. Because we had been let in to "China" for about 75 minutes, we were all receiving a full bag search before we could be let out. The curt officer very pointedly washed and dried her hands after dealing with each bag/foreigner, pointing us back to Check In.
The next 2 hours were filled in with more jolly queueing for IMMIGRATION (to have our less-than-a-day-visa stamped CANCELLED in very Chinese red), then at SECURITY (hidden behind large hospital-frosted-glass barriers and a zig-zag ribbon line of more than a hundred shuffling travellers). The Chinese couple having a quiet marital dispute in front of us did add some entertainment to the snake-line of the sweaty, fecund crowd.
The reason for extended delays was behind the frosted security glass: a small stool with painted footprints following the electronic screening where one (EVERY one) stood, arms crucufix-wide, for the most thorough and intrusive public "patting down". This taciturn "Uniform" reeeeaaalllly enjoyed his job.... Clustered behind him around the stainless steel "Luggage Packing Table": "Beware of Collision": "No Climbing"... were previous victims repacking, re booting and rearranging themselves.
So, with 4 of our 5 hours of "TRANSIT" so thoroughly filled with Chinese Officialdom's occupational therapy, we went in search of alcohol, or at least a nice midnight cup of $20 specialist tea....
Sleep was thick and extended after so much excitement. I remember waking vaguely, and blearily looking down on a vast and snowy night landscape of broad rivers and clustered city lights.
This Lufthansa Airbus from Shanghai to Munich had a unique design. All of the toilets were "down stairs" from the galley in the middle of the economy section. “Below stairs” was a standing area: a kind of narrow foyer facing the rest room doors. There (with juice and nibbles) were blue floor-level grab poles for turbulence (yes: you lie on the floor according to the safety video: who knew?). Facing the dunny doors, and, at the top of the stairs were two plastic, swinging, waist-high, "Wild West" saloon doors. Nice!
Back to my seat: the airline map screen said "TOMSK". I remember thinking I'd be there in 2 weeks. Then dozed off into fitful, knotted sleep until the civilised 3.30am breakfast....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finnish(ed)
Following an extended wander and "lunch in Munich" so wisely suggested by my travel agent to occupy a 10 hour “transit” to the connecting flight (luggage thoughtfully transferred this time...), flying into Helsinki was rather more tense. The Lufthansa crew announced thick fog, an instrument landing, and a polite demand that all devices be switched off, followed by several more public, polite demands to individuals to "please turn off your device as the captain has requested...".... then the long and turbulent descent in a now very silent cabin by... and the sudden appearance of runway and snow as wheels collected tarmac in a perfect landing. "Klaus, your captain, Heinz your co pilot, and our Auto Pilot all thank you for flying Lufthansa and look forward to serving you again..."
Thirty five years ago, I spent one brief perfunctory night in Helsinki after travelling across the USSR, before travelling south on a Eurail Pass. This time I had three days to acclimatise (the cold is fine: it's the slow and milky daylight arriving around 10.30am, then drifting away before 3 that takes some getting used to...).
It's been warm museums, warm cafes and warm(ish) trams and cold architecture but it's a stylish and friendly place to acclimatise for what will come next. The immense achievements of the Finnish education system are very evident when every tram stop salesman and beggar speaks crisply perfect English. Russians did remind me later that “we built Helsinki” when it was a Russian colony…
The history leaflet for Suomenlinna fortress: constructed by Sweden (before the Russians took Finland from the Kingdom of Sweden after a couple of wars), attacked by the British during the Crimean War, annexed by Finland as part of the Finnish Civil/War... It's no wonder that most Finns dealing with "the public" listen to the language being spoken and (apparently) effortlessly tune into the correct language’s reply. A tram driver, asked for directions through the front door by a Chinese woman in halting English, had no trouble giving the advice she could follow.
Nearly all direction signs and destinations are in Finnish and Swedish. For tourist and museum signs: add English and, not so often, Russian. I'm not so sure that navigation will be quite so easy tomorrow when I enter Russia.
On one trip to a distant museum, it seems the further north you travel, the deeper the snow, and the more likely the station "kioska" will have racks of airport fiction in Russian translations.
So, (as I'm in Russian home stays for the next week with no promise of wifi), from the cheerful Helsinki Christmas Market in front of the white-domed Cathedral, and with the gold onion-domes of the Orthodox Cathedral in the distance, and crowded green trams rolling under starry electric-lit Christmas arches, with whisps of sleet in the icy air: it's cheers to you (with a cardboard cup of passably hot glu-wein)!
- Andrew
