One Year Ago . . . January 8th-9th

Because of the time change (China is 14 hours ahead of us) and the long flight, the day and night got all mixed up and these two days essentially felt like one very long day, so I am blogging about them together.

My dad and I got up around 3 AM that morning, gathered our things, and left for the airport. This is January in the midwest, and snow was in the forecast, so we hoping not to be delayed by weather.

Waiting in the airport - EARLY in the morning

Our first short flight to Detroit went smoothly. We had breakfast there in the airport and settled in to wait for our next flight - the 13-hour one to Beijing. I was able to talk to my family (well, Daddy and Pooh) because it was indeed snowing heavily at home and Daddy had not had to go in to work. Now we were hoping to get out of Detroit before the snow reached us there. We boarded our flight on time and then sat and sat and sat. Finally we were told to get OFF the plane so they could deal with a maintenance issue. Yikes. If there anything you don't want to hear before a 13-hour plane ride, it's that the plane has maintenance issues. However, the delay did give me a chance to check in with my family again, and I learned that Rabbit and Tigger had been dismissed from school early because of the weather also. My family was cosy and snug at home.

Eventually, we were allowed back onto the plane and took off about two hours later than planned. Luckily, just ahead of the snow. The flight was long. Wow, 13+ hours in a seat, no matter how comfortable, is just a LONG time. I dozed on and off, watched a few movies, etc.

As tired as I was, it was so exciting to land in Beijing. China! I was in CHINA!! It felt surreal. I'm not really much a traveler and I could hardly believe I had managed to do this. It was now Friday evening China time (January 9th). I was again grateful for my dad's knowledge of airports as he guided us through the appropriate lines and baggage pick-up, plus he immediately thought of getting some Chinese currency right there in the airport, which came in handy.

Beijing airport

Our guide met us in the airport and escorted us to a car which drove us to our hotel. It was amazing driving through the streets of Beijing, which looked very much like any other big city except for the glaring difference that many of the signs and such were in Chinese characters (there was plenty of English too). And there were people everywhere!

The hotel lobby was huge and stunning. We checked in without any issues and headed up to our rooms. Our rooms were on the same floor but a hallway apart. There were nice, but one feature of the bathrooms made us giggle a bit.

Yep, I'm in the bathroom, fully visible from the bedroom. (There was a curtain you could pull to give you privacy.)

Bottled water was provided in the hotel rooms, which we were grateful for because you cannot drink the tap water in China without risking illness. EVERYONE drinks bottled water. We would learn that it is very cheap and easy to buy large bottles of water just about anywhere.

I also learned that another defining feature of China hotels is that the beds are hard. It seemed that instead of a mattress, it was more like a thin pad on top of a hard board. My first thought was that it was very uncomfortable, but I quickly realized that I was tired enough to sleep just about anywhere, and I slept well that first night in China.

Stay tuned for the next day's adventures . . .