"Attention passengers, please meet Turbulence,,,"
Hi Turbulence, very nice to meet you,,,
"Turbulence will be staying with us for a while,,,"
Well I hope not too long, you know what they say about house guests and fish, they both go bad after three days,,,
"So please stay seated while the Fasten Seat Belt Sign is on and refrain from going to the bathroom,,,"
Gee, I hope I can control myself!

Such is the experience on a Chinese airline flight, clean plane, pleasant crew, poor translation.

Before I finish the story about my one day Chinese airline adventure, I would like to welcome myself back to the "Koogler Goes Global" blog. For anyone who was wondering, my wonderful wife Sabrina has been ghost writing the last month of blogs while I rested my typing fingers (right index,,, left index,,, it's the point and shoot method of typing, takes longer, but the result is the same). While Sabrina is a Koogler and currently with me in China, thus entitled to everything that entails both "Koogler" and "Global", I didn't feel right about leaving everyone hanging for so long without my personal take on the uniqueness of China.

Anyway, back to the story, but first, a brief explanation on why I was flying. Work, had a meeting in north China in a city called Tanggu (very near Beijing) at noon, and had to be back that evening so I could make an early appointment the next day in the office. So up and to the airport at 7AM on Wednesday to catch my Shanghai Air flight up to Tianjin (closest airport to Tanggu). I will admit, travel with a Chinese air carrier did make me a little nervous, not necessarily because of safety, but because I was unsure of the comfort level maintained in the cabin for the passengers. I've spent enough time in China to know that comfort of passengers doesn't always rank real high on the list of priorities for anyone operating a bus, taxi or rickshaw, so why should a plane be any different? Well lucky for me I was wrong. Both the flight up and the flight back found me in new, clean, well apportioned aircraft with a friendly flight crew who made every effort to ensure the comfort of the passengers. Of course, that says nothing of the skills of the pilot himself.

While the cabin itself was clean and the stewardesses pleasant, I believe Wednesdays must be training days for new pilots. I am not a nervous flier, and I was never worried on this day, but I'm pretty sure landings aren't supposed to go like the two I sat through. Long of the short is the standard Chinese landing approach is much lower and faster than what we are used to in the States. This low, fast approach resulted in two very enjoyable landing which went something like this:

Landing A) Airplane has held too much speed, thus maintaining a certain amount of lift once the plane touches down on the runway. This results in the place bouncing back into the air on touchdown, to which the pilot responds by forcing down the nose of the plane . This causes the plane to touch down again, and since the plane is still carrying enough speed, bounces one more time before being forced to the ground.

Landing B) Airplane has held too much speed, and to avoid bouncing the aircraft upon touchdown, the pilot simply forces the plane to the ground in what only can be described as a very near crash.

So there you have it, if you have ever wondered what it was like to fly on a Chinese airline, you now know. For those of you who like nice lists to sum things up, here it is, in condensed list form:

- Nice new clean plane.
- Friendly cabin crew (hey, they introduced me to Turbulence)
- Crash landings

I will wrap up by saying I'm glad to be back to the Blog and much thanks to Sabrina who has done a great job the past few weeks of sharing our experiences here in China.