I have to say that I find it kind of funny that the air in Beijing is getting so much attention now. Of all the things that the leadership of China wanted to have happen, great gobs of media arriving there and saying “holy mackeral, this air is disgusting!” is definitely NOT something they were looking for.

In the past I’ve written about how simply traveling and being exposed to different thoughts and experiences can really help us grow- and how the reverse is also true.

If you never go anywhere, that’s fine; that’s your call, and believe me as a small-town guy (and I might live in the heart of a bigger city but I’m definitely still a small-town guy) I know how attractive simply being in a spot you’re comfortable in can be. It’s reassuring and relaxing.

But if you don’t learn anything else, you risk seeming foolish at times- kind of like the Chinese air quality people. I suspect that a lot of them and a lot of the Chinese government seem so clueless about the air there because they’re so used to it; they’ve never been anywhere else and don’t realize how truly thick and sick the pollution in China, and in Beijing in particular, is.

It’s to the point now where some of the endurance athletes are afraid their lungs will be permanently damaged if they compete over there.

I do think that some of the comments from people there are awfully telling, though. One of the biggest arguments advanced here in the States against efforts to reduce carbon emissions and change our way of life is that it’ll be too damaging to our economy, that it’ll cost too much… that, in short, it’ll be too big a pain in the butt.

And then we go to China, and we see how truly gross the air is, and we shake our heads at those poor, ignorant souls. One guy bought a second car so he’d be able to continue driving (Beijing is allowing cars to drive every other day based on license number, so if you’ve got a plate ending in an even number and want to drive every day, buy a car with an odd number). In this story, Wang Hao is quoted as saying…

“Of course taking the subway is more environmentally friendly,” says Wang, a car salesman. “But it’s not convenient.”

Oops. Same argument that a lot of anti-Al-Gore types are making.

I’ve been to China, in late summer (August and September). Belive me- the air is horrible. I was in Beijing for several days and the skies were officially clear, but you couldn’t see the sun; the smog and pollution were too thick. I felt it when I had to spend lots of time outdoors, and I’m no athlete sucking in great volumes of air during an Olympic comptetion.

I hope they can get things cleared up there for the Olympics… but I hope more that they can get things under control for the future of their people. Unfortunately, the way things are over there, I doubt anything will get better in the near to mid future; it’ll only get worse and worse.

Even under perfect conditions I am not much of a morning person. Night owl, that’s me. Right now I am blogging at 2:13 am Pacific time, as our flight leaves JFK at 0600 and it is 0513 here in NYC.

Ouch.

Our cabbie from our hotel (the Rennaissance on Times Square) is apparently frustrated that he is not driving on the NASCAR circuit. We were doing 20+ mph over the speed limit almost all the way.

Then again, he was pretty pumped. A cabbie getting a fare to the airport at 4 am has wide open Manhattan streets-reason enough to open it up and let it rip- and is snagging a big fare plus he will be there to snag a good fare back into the city on the first round of arrivals.

JFK is the international airport for New York. Tons of big planes, every airline you can imagine.

I have plenty to wrote about and some pictures too but doing it in the iPhone is a bit tough so I’ll get back later. Right now I need to chant a little daimoku to catch a good seat so I can get some sleep across the country. I am supposed to work a 1600-2400 shift (Seattle time) tonight, ick.

One thing that I have come to believe, after years of travel to lots of destinations, is that pretty much all airports are the same. By that, I mean that the basic layout is very similar. The way you come to the airport, go through a ticket/baggage counter, go to the gates, load, unload, go to baggage claim, etc is usually pretty much laid out the same no matter where you go.

I’ve flown into two-gate airports in China and through the huge mega-aiports in Chicago and Amsterdam and Denver, and various sizes in between.

Well, I was wrong. They’re not all the SAME, exactly; some are obviously much better planned, cleaner, and overall operate better than others.

Sorry to report here that Heathrow Airport, west of London, England, is a terrible airport. And by “terrible”, I mean it sucks- at least from a transferring passenger’s point of view.

Most airports are laid out in such a way that if you’re sticking on one airline, they’re pretty easy to figure out. The gates are usually all in the same spot, and even if they’re not (say, for example, Seattle, where if you arrive on an international flight you must come into the South satellite terminal even though your airline’s “normal” domestic gates might well be at the north terminal) it’s still reasonably easy to move around.

And if you’re transferring from one airline to another, most airports are laid out and planned in such a manner that it’s still not much of an issue. You can stay “behind” security lines, so even if you have to switch from one terminal to another you don’t have to put up with the hassle of getting through the security screening checkpoints again.

Heathrow? It sucks. There’s five terminals there now, but only 1, 2, and 3 are “walkable”; if you need to go to 4 or 5 from 1/2/3, you have to take a train. The security in the UK is tighter than it is in the US (and not uniform- I got through security in Glasgow with some gels, toothpaste and hair gunk, in a plastic baggie but INSIDE of my rollaboard, not out- at LHR, they made me unpack my entire bag and searched it) and if you switch terminals you often have to go through security again.

The walking between terminals can take a long, long time. When you enter into Terminal 1, which is where United flies out of, after you get past the baggage/ticket counter there’s a big sign that says you should still allow 40- FORTY- minutes to get to your gate. 40 minutes? Once you’re past the baggage counter?

Well, security will gobble up a significant portion of that. And when you’re through with that, you have to walk through a duty-free shop; it reminded me of hotels in Vegas where you must go through the casino floor to get to the elevators to go to/from your rooms. (They’re just hoping you’ll stop along the way and lose some money.)

There doesn’t seem to be normal shuttle trains between terminals (note- I didn’t have to go to Terminal 5, their brand-new-this-year terminal) but instead there’s regular full-on trains that go from 4 to the 1/2/3 area. Unfortunately, instead of leaving a nice convenient every few minutes, it had 15 minutes between trains- which meant that since I got down there right after one left the station, I had to wait quite a while before moving to the other terminals.

In short, Heathrow sucks, and as if all this other stuff weren’t bad enough it’s hugely expensive. Most airports will charge anywhere from 5 to 25 bucks in facility fees/taxes; but if you depart Heathrow on an international flight, they soak you for a $180 fee! Adding that much to your ticket makes it a very expensive airport for international travelers.

My suggestion, if you can help it, is to avoid Heathrow. If you must fly through/in/out there, stick with British Airways; they use Terminal 5 extensively, so I assume it’s better being brand new. If you can at all help it, don’t set up a trip where you’ll have to change airlines, or if you do, set it up so that the airlines that you fly all use the same terminal.

I was actually pretty shocked that a major national capital’s airport- and one of the busiest airports in the world- would be so lousy. They need some serious upgrading there; Glasgow’s airport blew LHR away in about a million different ways.

Apologies for the screwy publishing times/dates- I basically wrote these a while ago but couldn’t get them to publish for technical reasons (like the fact that I screwed it up).

Glasgow has had a reputation for a long while as a pretty crappy spot in Scotland. There’s basically two big cities in Scotland; Glasgow and Edinburgh. Edinburgh is amazingly pretty (when it’s not foggy/drizzly/grey, of course- kind of like Seattle) and Glasgow is… not so much.

Glasgow has been undergoing a bit of a comeback lately, though. Scotland in general, in fact, has done well over the past several years. The last time I was in Glasgow was a couple of years ago for another quick soccer trip, to see a game between the two local teams, Rangers and Celtic. (Celtic won, those bastards.)

On this trip, I came away with a pretty decent impression of Glasgow. Granted, it was a very quick trip, without a lot of sightseeing (unless the sights include the insides of pubs and clubs) but the overall nature of things just seems better. There’s buildings going up, the airport is excellent, and the city- while still a big city and somewhat dirty- just seemed cleaner overall than when I was last there.

Of course, I was last there in February, and over this weekend we had weather you could actually take your jacket off in, so that’s something.

A bit about the airport. It’s really good. Clean, feels reasonably open, good signs showing you where to go and so forth. From a passenger’s perspective, it is excellent. They have a bus service into the city center that’s relatively cheap (16-20 pounds or so for a cab, 3 or 4 pounds for the bus) and has free WiFi on board.

The bus itself was spic and span clean, with a nice big luggage rack. (I compare this to Seattle’s bus system, Metro, which I took to and from Sea-Tac. While it was cheap- about half the price of Glasgow’s for the same length trip- Metro runs regular municipal buses on the route, with no luggage rack and of course no WiFi.) It runs every 15 minutes from around 7 in the morning until, I dunno, at least 5 in the evening. It’s just an overall superior deal.

For whatever reason, the extended group of friends I’ve made in Glasgow often hang out in a couple of clubs which are both located in converted churches. One is called “Cottier’s“, and the guys we hang with call it “HQ”. As in, we’ll meet up at HQ tonight around 8:30. It’s not as fancy as the other joint but it’s kind of a classic British thing, to have your local pub or drinking establishment that you meet your buddies at.

The other is called Oran Mor. It’s considerably fancier and glitzier, with a big art community that uses the building. You walk up into the church (and it’s unmistakably a church) and on the main floor is the big bar. On Fridays and Saturdays, anyway, it’s packed- at one point it was so full I was a bit worried about safety. Down in the basement is a dance club with a stage they use for plays, poetry, art events, and whatnot. The club is popular on weekend evenings.

The soccer match I was there to see was held at the “national stadium”, Hampden. Rangers won, beating Queen of the South 3-2. Rangers were up 2-0 at halftime and it looked grim but QotS scored two goals in about 8 minutes in the beginning of the second half, so that was a lot of fun. Eventually Rangers’ superior skills came through and they got the winning goal on a beauty of a header.

All in all, I had a good time. The Glaswegians are generally reasonably friendly; although the Scottish accent can be awfully hard to understand at times, they understand that we’re idiots who can’t hear them properly so they usually have patience with us Americans.