The pilot’s voice came over the intercom, breaking the silence.
“Please put your seats and tray tables in their upright position and prepare for our descent. Welcome to Beijing.”
Twelve hours of sitting had made us restless for our honeymoon to start. But we were not there yet. Once landed, we would have four hours in Beijing before our connecting flight to Chengdu departed.
“Think we’ll have enough time to exit the airport and explore the city?” I asked my new wife. “Wanna try? Even if it’s only for an hour?”
It started as a whisper, but the closer our plane flew to the sprawling orange city glowing outside our windows, the more we loved the idea.
By the time we landed, we had nothing else on our minds.
~
We raced the crowds exiting the plane, ran through the corridors, and made it to passport control ahead of the crowd. Then, we followed signs to the train linking this airport to its host city. It was three terminals away.
Stairs, shuttles, and ticket counters past in a blur of metal, glass, and fluorescent light—I had eyes only for the signs overhead and my wife next to me. We ran, always forward, and then, briefly, we stopped.
There, waiting on the moving walkway somewhere within the airport maze, I looked around. To my side, I saw photographs of Beijing’s famous sights strung together like snapshots—Temple of Heaven, the Drum Towers, the Forbidden City. Temple of Heaven, Bell and Drum Towers, Forbidden City, and Summer Palaces.
Dani and I would visit these places when we returned to Beijing, but those adventures still hung weeks away. Tonight was only a glimpse.
At the airport subway station entrance, the security guard introduced us to the ticket machines and how to navigate the underground system. Then, Dani and I climbed aboard to Beijing’s financial district.
An onslaught of cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and auto-rickshaws confronted us, zipping between the glowing downtown skyscrapers. Welders worked from scaffolding, cars drove on the sidewalks and cut through the parks, and people went everywhere, pulsing through the streets.
We just stood there—two shadows among the lights, two people among the crowds—motionless, braced against the cold, and looking only at each other.