Home again, not quite un-lagged

Rush hour on Dong Chang'an Jie, Beijing

Been home for a bit over two days but still not back to this time zone. I'm falling asleep at 8pm and then wide awake by 2 to 4am.

The flight from Beijing took off at about sunset on Monday Oct 22 and landed in Newark 13 hours later at about sunset on ... Monday Oct 22! The route was northwest out of Beijing to the Mongolian border. Then turned north-northeast over Mongolia and Russia, up close to the pole, down over Canada to Newark.

The trip back was full of small annoyances.

• Late taking off from Beijing due to plane being late to arrive from Newark. On the plus side one of my colleagues on this trip had lounge access on his airline so I spent most of my waiting time in a comfortable chair with free food and drink.
  
• The boarding process was horribly mismanaged. Perhaps because they were trying to rush everyone on board, perhaps because Chinese people don't queue up, they jam in. There was just a total crush of people trying to board and the gate agents had jammed tables in the way to force two single file lines.
  
• Continental 777 layout sucks. Way too few restrooms in coach, no space to even pass by someone. I did manage to get a window seat with an empty seat next to me, which helped immensely.
  
• Customs in Newark was a mess. They routed a couple dozen of us from the U.S. citizens lines over to the foreign visitors lines. Problem was that about every third foreign visitor had fubared their paperwork and got escorted out to the little rooms in the back for processing. So I spent a good 45 minutes in line there.
  
• Rushed to my flight... well what I thought was my flight just in time to board. Only when I presented my boarding pass did I find that the agent in China had rebooked me onto a later flight. Everything going out of Newark was late so I really didn't want to wait. I managed to get on the original flight... but my luggage didn't.
  
• Arrived at Bush Terminal E. Baggage claim for domestic flights arriving at Terminal E is over at Terminal C. A solid 10 minute walk, just the thing after over 24 hours in transit.
  
• By the time I figured out that my baggage wasn't on my flight, the next one in from Newark was due in 30 minutes. So I waited. Got bags, left the airport about 90 minutes after landing.
  

It was really, really good to get home!