Beijing to Xian

After landing in Xian, it takes 15 minutes to unload the aircraft.  I felt sorry for the person who had to clean the plane because people obviously lost interest in picking up after themselves.  I just about stopped and took a picture, but I was being forced off the plane and it just didn’t matter.  It was pretty smooth through to pick up our luggage.  After that, we were to wait in the baggage claim area for our two tour leaders who had to fly to Beijing from San Francisco.  Of course there plane was late.  One the groups of people from another state then thought they needed to go through customs and ended up outside the security clearance and couldn’t get back in.  Unfortunately, the rest of us didn’t see them leave the baggage area.  Our tour guides arrived an hour late only to find 2/3 of the party. At that time, we had about an hour to board the plane to Xian.  After some calls, the lost party was found but needed our guides’ assistance to get back in the security area.  Everyone was reunited about 5 minutes before we were supposed to board the plane.  We then ended up waiting about another hour before we boarded the plane.  After boarding the plane and backing up about 30 feet, the plane stopped and the captain told us we would be delayed 50 minutes from taking off because of air traffic in Xian.  That news didn’t go over well, but about 40 minutes later the captain said our delay was continued indefinitely.  It must have been a psychology ploy because we were in flight about 15 minutes later.  The rest was mostly uneventful except to realize I was on the ground of a foreign country.  I got to bed shortly after midnight and my 30 plus hours without sleep came to an end.