LOS ANGELES AIR LOOKS BETTER
By Bob Van Leer

  (GOLD BEACH, Nov. 2, 1991) - Saturday, Oct. 26, was the last day of our China tour and time to return home. We lost a day crossing the International Dateline on the way over so we gain the day back on the return. Because of this and time zone changes our schedule called for us to arrive in Los Angeles 15 minutes before we left Hong Kong.

  But you can't fool the body so we were pretty well bushed out when we arrived in Gold Beach with an elapsed time of about 26 hours from the time we left our hotel in Hong Kong.

  The flights were uneventful. At Hong Kong we boarded a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 for Tokyo's Narita airport, changed planes there to another JAL 747 for the long flight to Los Angeles. The return trip was faster, about 8.5 hours from Tokyo to Los Angeles.

  Our party started breaking up in Hong Kong. Five stayed over there to go to Macau. At Tokyo the group that came from Chicago had to lay over overnight while we proceeded on.

Still Using Chopsticks

  On the flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo we were served a meal and JAL included both chopsticks and western cutlery. It was interesting to note that most of our party used chopsticks. By now they were feeling comfortable. But meals have to be prepared for chopstick eating. You can't cut a T-bone steak with chopsticks.

  From Tokyo to Los Angeles we were racing toward the sun and it was a short night. It was getting dark as we left Tokyo and less than six hours later it was full light.
  The air quality in the Chinese cities we visited was not good. A lot of coal is burned. One of our party commented at the Los Angeles airport that he would never thought he would see the day when he was glad to get to LA because the air quality was better.

  From Los Angeles we took United Airlines flight to San Francisco and then Medford. In the three weeks we were traveling, we took 14 plane flights, six boat rides and two train trips. The tour of China was a fascinating trip. But after that amount of traveling it was good to get home again.