Introduction

Time flies. It has already been more than half a year since Lizi last contributed to US Credit Card 101 with “A Tax Filing Guide for Chinese International Students: Resident Alien plus Article 20 (c) Treaty (1040+8833).” The lack of posts can only be blamed on one reason—after all, I’m no longer a student like I was back then, and I don’t have much free time. Sometimes when I sit down and think about it, I really wish I could be a dozen years younger and go back to the golden time of my student days!

All right, after that opening, let’s get to the main topic. This time Lizi is posting a trip report from returning to China in early September on Hong Kong Airlines economy class, plus visiting the Plaza Premium Lounge during a Hong Kong connection. Please take your time reading—mixing photos and text is Lizi’s signature posting style!

Departure

On the morning of September 1, I took supershuttle to LAX Terminal B very early, only to find that I had arrived too early and the counter was not open yet. I quickly threw my luggage onto an unattended scale to weigh it—checked bag 23kg, carry-on suitcase 7kg. There was no requirement for the personal backpack, so Lizi stuffed the backpack until it was extremely overweight. This is exactly how you have to game the baggage rules—leave no openings for the opponent or the referee!

After waiting two hours, the counter finally opened. I checked in my luggage and went through security. To be honest, LAX Terminal B is quite cramped, and with dozens of airlines sharing it, it feels very crowded.

I first went to the KAL Lounge to try my luck, and the result was obvious—before noon, using a PPS card, they 100% would not let me in. Nothing I could do; as a non-paying freebie basic member, PPS priority is just very low.

Since I couldn’t get into the lounge, I went to take photos of planes. First I saw Singapore Airlines’ 77W. Nowadays Singapore Airlines no longer flies the A380 to LAX.

Then I saw Delta’s newly acquired A350XWB. As soon as Lizi saw it, I suddenly remembered a story—last year, someone in a group saw that Delta had bought the A350XWB and said, “Good news, Delta has finally replaced its ancient 772 with the A350.” Lizi heard that and immediately replied, “My goodness! How is that good news? This is clearly terrible news! Don’t worry, I’ll bet you that after they switch to the A350, you definitely won’t be able to redeem PVG-LAX with 80,000 DL miles anymore; otherwise it wouldn’t be Delta!” A few months later, that person tagged me: “Lizi, your mouth really is cursed!”

Actually, this really wasn’t my mouth being cursed; it was the inevitable outcome! These days, changes generally only make things worse. Back when Lizi was a train enthusiast, I had already experienced far too many stories like this—ordinary express trains being rebranded as fast trains to grab more money, with higher prices and even slower speeds; the best-value Tianjin-Shanghai direct Z41/2 being discontinued outright, and so on… examples like this are countless!

All right, Lizi’s ride has arrived: a Hong Kong Airlines A350XWB. Same livery as Hainan Airlines, just with different wording. That is pretty much expected, because Hong Kong Airlines is Hainan Airlines’ little brother.

When boarding time came, I took a photo of the seat pitch.

These days, exterior cameras on aircraft are basically standard equipment, right?

Delay!

As I waited on the plane, something felt off. At the scheduled departure time, there was no tug pushing the plane back, and the engines had not been started either.

Before long, an announcement began—the aircraft had a malfunction and needed to be inspected, and it would take about an hour to determine whether it could take off. Lizi thought to myself: you’d better not be able to take off; just break down completely here at LAX. Otherwise, if we take off an hour later, I definitely won’t make that day’s flight from HKG to TSN!

After roughly forty-plus minutes, Lizi noticed that the cargo door outside the window had been opened, and I immediately shouted, “Great!” The passengers next to me all looked over and asked whether we could take off. I said obviously not—the luggage was being pulled back out, so clearly we couldn’t depart and the flight would be canceled, exactly what I wanted! That passenger looked at me with a completely speechless expression.

About another five minutes later, the onboard announcement finally said that due to a mechanical issue, the flight had to be canceled, with the departure time TBA. That said, my information was still faster—once I saw the cargo door open and the bags start coming out, I knew the flight had been canceled!

We got off the plane, left the gate area, went to the counter to line up and wait for arrangements, and then went to Baggage Claim to retrieve our luggage.

To be honest, Lizi did not really have any complaints about how Hong Kong Airlines handled it. Meal vouchers and lodging are the standard way to handle a flight delay caused by a mechanical issue. It’s just that the processing speed was really a bit, well, :arrow:

Fortunately, Lizi had a secret weapon—classic Chinese-level endurance :mrgreen: Fine, I’ll just stay here and grind it out in this line today! I started lining up at 2 p.m., waited four hours, and only got the meal voucher and hotel voucher at 6 p.m.… I nearly spat blood onto the screen! With this speed, someone with a shorter temper probably would have exploded long ago.

I took the shuttle to the hotel and checked in with the voucher.

After entering the room, I casually took a photo… But… that said, I was clearly traveling alone, so why give me this room type? What a waste! As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I immediately slapped myself in the face mentally—what don’t Americans waste? Other than lives, everything else is wasted quite generously!

At check-in, they gave me a 30 dinner voucher, but since I had already eaten dinner at LAX, my stomach really couldn’t fit anything more.

The most useless thing was probably the breakfast voucher—I had to get up at 5 a.m. the next morning to take the shuttle for an 8 a.m. flight, so this thing was completely unusable!

I set an alarm, got up at 4:30 the next morning, checked out, took the shuttle back to LAX Terminal B, and checked in again. After one day, I was back in the same old place—Hu Hansan has returned!

At check-in they gave me another 20 meal voucher. HX did at least keep people fed, so thinking about it that way, it was still not bad (upper-left photo).

But because I arrived too early, most of the restaurants inside LAX were not open yet, so I had to randomly find a shop that was already open, order something, and take it onto the plane to eat slowly (upper-right photo).

Los Angeles-Hong Kong LAX-HKG

After a delay of nearly one day, Hong Kong Airlines’ A350XWB finally took off at 9:00 on the morning of September 2 (upper-left and upper-right photos).

The A350XWB economy-class cabin layout is 3-3-3 (upper middle-left photo). I wonder whether some pioneer of squeezing people in will eventually learn from the 777 and create a sneaky 3-4-3 economy layout. Here’s a story—according to heated discussions among aviation fans, the pioneer of the 3-4-3 seating arrangement in 777 economy was Emirates. So when everyone sees the so-called deep-pocketed airline Emirates in the future, please be sure to remember: it is actually a very sneaky airline! It installs luxurious Suites for rich people, while squeezing economy class hard for people without money! The worst part of doing this is that once you have one pioneer, others will follow—other airlines also learned, “Oh, so the 777 can fit 10 people in a row? We’ve learned the trick! We’ll do it too! :grin: ” After that, various airlines gradually converted their 2-5-2 and 3-3-3 777s into 3-4-3. Nowadays, there are really fewer and fewer airlines that still stick to nine seats per row in 777 economy.

PS: Emirates has now retired that first non-ER 777-300 with the 3-4-3 economy layout, perhaps so everyone can forget this part of the story :mrgreen: (They are loaded, so they can just retire it and not care :grin:)

Not long after takeoff, I ate the sandwich I had brought with me. About two hours later, the first meal finally arrived (upper middle-right photo). It looked and tasted decent enough—not some inedible nightmare meal. Everything in life is like this: keep your expectations low, and you will not be shocked. Conversely, the higher the hopes, the greater the disappointment.

When the flight attendant gave Lizi a small amenity kit (lower middle-left photo), I realized I had been upgraded to Economy Plus. I immediately crossed my legs to test the seat pitch, and sure enough, that was the case (lower-right photo). I guess this delay caused quite a few people to change or cancel their flights, so my seat was moved forward and I got a small upgrade.

Since we were flying west, the sun never really set. After I slept for a while, they served the second meal (lower-left photo).

The Hong Kong Airlines A350 really can fly high. It actually went above 40000ft and reached 43000ft; at first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Not long after the second meal, we were almost at HKG and began descending (upper-left photo). The landing process could be seen from the camera (upper-right photo).

After arriving at HKG and turning off airplane mode, I received a text message from Deutsche Telekom: unlimited data at 2G speed. It was slow, but at least I was not completely disconnected. Sending text messages on WeChat was no problem; for photos, if I applied Lizi’s true secret technique of squeezing things out slowly with Chinese-style patience, they could eventually be sent too (lower-right photo).

Parked to our right was an A330 that was about to fly to PEK. We landed at HKG at 14:30PM on September 3, and my flight to TSN would not depart until after 8 p.m., another six hours later, so there was no rush.

After taking one last photo of Lizi’s ride (upper-left photo), I started heading toward the PPS Lounge (upper-right photo).

Only after looking at the map did I realize I was in a satellite concourse and still needed to take the APM train (photo below).

HKG Plaza Premium Lounge

Following the map and signs, I finally found the Plaza Premium Lounge at HKG (upper-left and upper-right photos). Lizi only had the PPS from the CSR, not the AMEX Platinum, so the AMEX Centurion Lounge was not an option.

PS: Back when the AMEX Plat 100,000 link came out, Lizi was still wondering whether there might be a 150,000 or 200,000 offer. Haha, I am definitely the greediest! Then, after patiently waiting and waiting... the 100,000 was gone :lol: But luck always balances out. Although Lizi did not get the AMEX Plat 100,000, he did get the Chase Sapphire Reserve 100,000 and the BofA Amtrak 30,000 :oops:

After going in, I took some interior shots (middle and lower photos).

Now for the important part: the food. Honestly, the food at the HKG PPS is countless times better than what you get in the U.S. So many lounges in the U.S. serve meals that make you feel like you are about to turn into a rabbit after eating them!

There was still plenty of time, so I opened CGSS to do some gacha pulls and see whether I could get lucky. I had long heard there was a certain mysticism to mobile-game gacha, and that changing IP addresses might bring a miracle. This time I would use the HKG lounge IP and see whether anything good would drop.

It was the CGSS third-anniversary celebration, so there was a free 10-pull every day. (In the upper-left photo, you can see Lizi did not have a single paid Star Jewel! The essence of gaming is free-to-play freeloading!) After a loading bar, I saw rainbow paper! Something dropped! Time to show off!

One SSR Minami Nitta card. This really is mystical! Change the IP and something drops!

Hong Kong-Tianjin (HKG-TSN)

When it was about time, I took the APM train to catch the next flight (upper-left photo). Gate 216 (upper-right, lower-left, and lower-right photos).

The last time I took an A330 was back in 2014 when flying to Hawaii. Time really flies!

Boarding began, and once I entered the cabin, it proved an old truth: comparisons can be brutal. Compared with the A350, the A330 looked much older (upper-left photo). Hong Kong Airlines’ A330 still had a very standard 2-4-2 economy layout—of course, these days, the only airline bold enough to cram an A330 into a sneaky 3-3-3 economy layout is probably AirAsia.

Since the flight was not long, they only served one meal. Of course it was not as good as what was served on LAX-HKG, but it still did not qualify as nightmare food (upper-right photo).

After four hours of flying, accompanied by the rising waning crescent moon, HX362 landed at Tianjin Binhai International Airport (lower-left photo).

The immigration line at TSN was very short, and Lizi reached the front in less than two minutes. Holding two passports, Lizi handed them to the immigration officer and said in standard Tianjin dialect, “The exit stamp is in the previous passport” (I had renewed my passport in Los Angeles, and the 2012 exit stamp was still in the old passport). The officer looked through them for quite a while—probably because it is rare to see someone who has not returned to China for six years—and after verifying my identity, stamped an entry stamp into Lizi’s new passport with a thud. I was home!

After picking up the luggage, every suitcase had to go through an X-ray inspection, but there were no issues. By the time I left the airport, it was already the early hours of September 4 (lower-right photo).

I was home. This is my hometown! It had been a full six years since Lizi last came here. That time was in summer 2012, flying Shanghai Airlines from SHA to TSN.

A Twisty Visa Journey

As an epilogue, after arriving in Tianjin, I rested for a day and a half. On the afternoon of September 5, I took the train to Beijing one day early so I could attend my visa appointment the next morning. Because Lizi had not returned to China for a long time, his Chinese ID card had long expired, so he had to go to the staffed counter and use his passport to buy the train ticket.

After entering Tianjin Railway Station, I found that everything had changed: the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway was already being served by Fuxing trains (upper-left and upper-right photos). All I want to say is: where did the original “Rabbit” CRH3C trains go? Where did you all disappear to?

I measured the speed with GPS: 350km/h, the speed of the flagship service (middle photo). It reached Beijing in half an hour. As an old railfan, Lizi will say something fair: 350km/h shows its advantage on long-distance routes, but because the distance from Tianjin to Beijing is very short, running at 310 versus 350 does not make a huge difference in travel time.

Only after getting off at Beijing South did I realize: wait, it is you? The legendary CR400BF-5034 (railfans all know that 5033 and 5034 had problems with axle-temperature overheat alarms on long-distance runs, so now they are only used on the short Beijing-Tianjin route)!

For lodging, I chose the cheap Home Inn near the U.S. Embassy. What I did not expect was that security checks were very strict because of the China-Africa conference. There was a problem at check-in: Chinese citizens could not check in with a Chinese passport and had to use a Chinese ID card! Since Lizi’s ID card had expired, he had to go to a nearby police station to get a certificate.

The visa appointment was the next morning. The visa officer took one look and instantly put the case into Check... All right, I handed over all the documents directly to the visa officer to help speed up the clearance process, then went back to Tianjin to wait for updates.

Even worse: my passport had been taken away, so Lizi was completely undocumented! To buy a train ticket, I now had to wait until I got to the station and have a certificate issued on the spot!

A Nostalgic Journey on Conventional Trains

On the way back to Tianjin, I decided to take a conventional-speed train for nostalgia’s sake, so I took a bus to the old Beijing Railway Station (upper-left photo). I had originally wanted to take a four-digit, non-air-conditioned green-liveried ordinary fast train in the 44XX series, or an ordinary slow train in the 6XXX series, and slowly stop my way to Tianjin for the full “every station is fun” experience. But I discovered that history no longer gave me that chance... A wave of melancholy hit me...

I checked, and the old-school express T39 still had tickets. That would be the one! After booking the ticket with the 12306 mobile App, I first went to get a temporary ID certificate, then used that certificate at a staffed window to pick up the ticket, and entered the station through a staffed ticket-check window to wait for the train (upper-right and middle-left photos). History is full of coincidences like this: one month later, Lizi rode K349 from Beijing to Jiamusi! Of course, that is a story for later!

I entered the station (middle-right photo). Here is a quick primer on conventional-speed passenger rolling stock: these days, domestic conventional-speed passenger cars are all painted in the “high-resistance green” livery, so you can no longer distinguish car types by the old method of looking at the color. The current method is: count the bars — how many green bars are on the yellow stripe in the middle! On the far right is a 25G with four bars, speed-limited to 120 and run at 110 (ordinary fast or K-series fast train); in the middle, the T39 that Lizi was taking has six bars and uses 25K coaches, speed-limited to 140 and run at 130 (T-series express); on the far left, the one yellow stripe with no bars is 25T, speed-limited to 160 and run at 150 (Z-series direct express). It was exactly the 20 km/h speed gap between each level that created the grand spectacle of trains yielding to the “pig herd” on the Beijing–Shanghai line ten years ago.

The sight of everyone rushing for their trains felt so familiar that Lizi felt as if he had returned to his college days ten years earlier (lower-left photo)... Finally, as usual, I snapped a photo of the destination board before boarding (lower-right photo)! Here Lizi wants to complain a little: can we be a bit more serious? The destination board color is wrong. For an express train, the pinyin background should be dark blue!

Because the old Beijing–Shanghai line takes a relatively winding route, plus the 130 km/h speed limit, it ultimately took an hour and a half to get back to Tianjin. There was also a small episode during the trip: when the train passed Fengtai, Lizi looked outside and said, “Oh my god, the Fengtai Locomotive Depot has been demolished!” Then I noticed the crew member looking at me strangely, probably thinking: are you from Mars?

After arriving in Tianjin, the first thing I did was rush to the very front to verify my guess: based on the sound of the train accelerating and its horn, I had inferred that it was being hauled by a Shaoshan 9G electric locomotive (SS9G). A picture is proof — Lizi’s deduction was correct! Although I had been in the United States for more than six years without returning to China, the instincts of an old railfan were still sharp (upper-left photo)!

That said, with large numbers of HXD1D, HXD3D, HXD3C, and other electric locomotives entering service, old guys like the Shaoshan 9G are slowly exiting the stage of history. These days, only a few old-school express trains like T39 are still hauled by this kind of “premium gear” in the eyes of railfans. Perhaps the next time Lizi returns to China, I will no longer be able to see an SS9G hauling an express train :sad:

I walked back toward the exit and casually glanced at the train parked to the left of T39. The display said K2386 bound for Changchun, but... something felt wrong. K2386’s coaches definitely were not that new (upper-right photo)! I looked at the destination board... and nearly burst into tears... My god, 1228, you are still alive. This is so moving (lower-left photo)! Still, after the emotional moment, Lizi has to complain again: the destination board color is wrong too. For an ordinary fast train, the pinyin background color should be green; red is for a K-series fast train :lol: But if you think about it another way, maybe 1228 is saying: we may have an ordinary-fast train number, but we run at fast-train speed! If that is really the case, then as an old railfan, Lizi approves!

1228 is one of the legendary slow beasts on the Beijing–Shanghai line, and it is also one of the few remaining old-school ordinary fast trains that has not been converted into a K-series train. Lizi personally watched this train go from non-air-conditioned green 25B coaches, to air-conditioned red 25G coaches, and then to being repainted in high-resistance green... In the blink of an eye... fifteen years have passed...

Sigh... my youth...

Back in the day, when 1228 headed north from Nanjing, it followed right behind the Beijing–Shanghai direct-express “pig herd” + T104 + T110 + T52 that were clearing the way ahead, with almost no need to yield. It was truly imposing! Ten years later, the Beijing–Shanghai direct-express pig herd had long since been discontinued, T104 had been discontinued, T52 had become Z42 (hey, hey, how did you steal the train number of the old Tianjin–Shanghai pig?), and T110 had fallen so low that on the Shanghai–Nanjing line it could no longer outrun 1228... Truly, the wheel of fortune turns!

Of course, Lizi had also experienced this train before. Rewind ten years: during Spring Festival in 2008, Lizi was returning from Nanjing to Tianjin and specifically chose a hard sleeper on 1228. At the time, I discovered that 1228 was only selling tickets to destinations beyond Tianjin. In a flash of inspiration, I asked the ticket-selling auntie at Nanjing West Station to issue my ticket one stop farther, to Tanggu, and the ticket was successfully issued. The purpose of taking this train back then was to see its stop at Tangguantun, the southern gateway of Tianjin. When the train passed Qing County in Hebei Province and began slowing down, Lizi waited by the door. As soon as the train stopped and the door opened, I rushed off to take photos. It turned out that although the stop was said to be one minute, in reality the train had been stationary for only a dozen seconds or so before the whistle sounded and it prepared to depart. I hurriedly pressed the shutter and captured the photo at the lower right. When I got home and looked at the picture, I realized that besides the train attendants, I was the only person who got off at that station... Why this train stopped there at the time remains unclear, because there seemed to be no passenger flow getting on or off, and there was no scheduled meet or overtake there either.

After that, Lizi never again had the chance to get off at Tangguantun, the southern gateway of Tianjin, to take photos. By the summer vacation of 2008, when Lizi was preparing to take 1228 home again, I found that the ticketing system had become craftier: the sales restriction had been changed to destinations beyond Shanhaiguan. But Shanhaiguan was no longer part of Tianjin, so I could not buy a student ticket. For a student back then, the extra fare of several dozen yuan was simply too high a price!

A few months later, 1228 stopped serving Tangguantun altogether. History did not give me a second chance...

Finally, Lizi wants to tell everyone: please cherish every opportunity in front of you... This is true for travel, and it is true for credit card applications too!

Life cannot withstand that many farewells... Sometimes... a simple goodbye really means never seeing each other again...

ymlulu’s Easter Egg

After reading Lizi’s article, I suddenly felt quite moved. In fact, much of the time, our travels are not all glamorous business class cabins and luxurious high-end hotels. Instead, they are like Lizi’s journey: full of hassle, surprises, and uncertainty. Looking at Lizi’s words and photos reminded me of my own exhausting trips back to China, and made me feel that this is the real life of ordinary international students like us. First class, business class, and luxury hotels are all wonderful, but I am merely a hurried passerby in those places. Rather than sit there nervously, afraid that someone will discover I do not truly belong, I would rather sit at a late-night food stall, order a few skewers of barbecue and a few beers, and chat freely with friends, enjoying life.

This blog also hopes to provide everyone with more information that is close to our real lives, and hopes that all of you on the other side of the ocean — where “the mountains are beautiful, the waters are beautiful, and the loneliness is beautiful too” — can live your own wonderful lives.