I still find inflight Wi-Fi to be amazing. Of course, United Airlines doesn’t tell you that the moment you reach China’s airspace, you’re off. When you’re paying USD 20.99 for a flight’s worth of connectivity, that would be helpful to know. Especially when, I don’t know, you plan to make your Talking Travel column deadline by using said Wi-Fi, and then miss said deadline when your Internet mysteriously cuts out about two and a half hours before landing in Beijing.

Every time I fly between China and the United States, my seatmate is exactly the same (I always sit in the window seat). He is always a middle-aged Chinese male who speaks no English (I know this because he does not understand the beverage or meal choices offered by English-speaking flight attendants), and comes aboard with neither media device or reading material. To me, it seems like this is the father of a son or daughter who is studying or working in the US and has gone on or returning from a visit. It’s a bit sad that said son or daughter doesn’t think enough of their dad to check him in online before his flight – who else sits in a middle seat these days? My seatmate is never traveling with the person on the aisle, so it’s not a question of sitting together. I dare not let on to him that I speak a word of Chinese, lest I suddenly become the entertainment, engaged in an 11-hour, trans-Pacific rendition of the taxi driver dialogue that would run the gamut from my dexterity with chopsticks to why I haven’t procreated. I feel sorry for the guy, but not that sorry.

California is a wonderful place to visit. It’s got it all: beaches, wildlife, nightlife, international-class cities, highways, and national parks. Los Angeles is like Beijing, if Beijing were more diverse, even larger, more confusing, and a place that people around the world aspired to live. San Francisco is a spectacular setting with its own iteration of a zombie apocalypse, with all of the homeless people there. At least they aren’t aggressive or abusive like beggars in Beijing are. I’d go back to Monterey in a heartbeat. There’s a lot of California travel information out there, so I won’t repeat it here.

If you’re planning a ski holiday, now would be a good time to book it. More on that in Thursday’s Talking Travel.

Photo: Steven Schwankert/the Beijinger