The pilot came on the intercom and explained that we were going to be holding over San Francisco due to traffic and would be arriving approximately 20 minutes late. At our regularly scheduled landing time we began our descent. Anne and I were watching the GPS, which displays speed, position, and altitude. We were dropping altitude, dropping, dropping, dropping . . . no wait, rising sharply, rising, turning, rising, turning. Yup, another aborted landing! No explanation for this one though.
We eventually landed safely and Anne and I were the first ones to make it through immigration and customs. Our baggage came out on a different belt than the one we had been told, but our stuff, with its "priority luggage" tags were some of the first to arrive.
We had to check our bags back in, but fortunately there were no real lines. We grabbed a bagel and got near the gate when I heard my name being called over the PA system. "Not a good sign," I thought to myself. Apparently, one of my bags was leaking something. In fact, it was leaking snake wine, from one of the bottles that had broken. They brought the bag to the gate and I found the bottle that had cracked . . . Icck . . . and spilled snake wine all over my suitcase . . . double Icck. After sopping up the wine, and reapportioning my luggage into an American Airlines bag (my new carry-on), I tossed my old bag, which was on its last legs anyway. And thus ended our Chinese adventures.