empty terminal in SFO international at 8:20am, we were plenty early!
We left San Francisco on Friday morning, getting to the airport 3 hours early, it was early and no lines at the checkin or security, so it was a quick 10 minutes before we were off to wait at the terminal. I took a photo of the empty terminal area as the start of our trip! Oh well, it's better than having to fight the crowds and wait in long lines.
The flight left pretty much on time, and we landed in Beijing about 2:15pm. Just before getting to Beijing, we were looking out the window (left side of the airplane), and I said to Kevin, look for the Great Wall on top of some of those ridges below, and sure enough, the pilot came on the speaker and told us that we could see the Great Wall below! I am not sure if it was Simatai, but it sure looked similar, very knife-edged ridges below with the Great Wall on the top of the ridge, and many watch towers on top. That was great!
An hour later, we were done with customs and immigration and picked up our luggage. Usually I think it would have taken less than 1 hour. And off the the big city we went!
