Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles. – Frank Lloyd Wright

I always find it interesting when crossing the international dateline with the fact that I can leave Asia or in this case Korea on Wednesday 4/29 at 5:50pm and arrive in Los Angeles 10-minutes later at 6pm on the same day! My flight route was with Air China (a fairly decent rating for an airline), but as a budget traveler I was more concerned with price, but it was good to read positive reviews, plus I've never flown with Air China. Fortunately, when I first booked my flight I was given the option of selecting my seat assignments for both flights and they originally showed that ONLY middle seats were available! Of course this is devastating to any traveler, especially for those that have experienced the long international flights, however, I've also learned that by arriving at the airport early to check-in you can often be one of the first to check-in for your flight and therefore be given the option of selecting your seat(s) because of this fact. In this case I was able to change my middle seats to aisle seats and it made a huge difference in my overall experience. I arrived at the Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) on flight (CA126) with about a two-hour layover, which sounds like plenty of time, however anyone that has flown through China, even without leaving the international transfer terminal you go through not just one, but two separate international transfer security check points that include metal detectors, which is annoying having to dig out my laptop and etc. I made it to my original gate and then there was a sudden announcement that we were to depart from gate E-51 (I think I remember that correctly), either way it was on the opposite side of the airport so everyone is walking at a speed-walkers pace to get there with about 15-minutes to spare. I arrived at LAX on time, just after 7pm and then waited at Terminal 3 for my friend Breean that I met in Peru almost 3-years ago and since she didn't get off work until 10pm (working at LAX), I had a few hours to kills, and even though LAX claims to have free Wi-Fi, of course this never worked for me, so I took a seat and next thing I knew I was completely passed out from exhaustion and woke to Breean poking me awake.