We arrived safe and sound in China.
We left San Francisco on Saturday at noon. Our flight was supposed to leave at 11 but we had a one hour delay (on the plane...oh no!). We were in the air about 13 hours and still managed to arrive to Beijing on time. The flight was a long one and it took a lot to keep us entertained while in the air. Ken and I managed to watch 4 of the movies they were showing. We saw Step Brothers, Wall-E, Swing Vote and Get Smart. Thankfully we were sitting next to a nice old cowboy who owned a Dairy Farm in CA who didn't mind getting up so we could walk around often. One of Ken's co-workers was on the same flight and was in a seat by the standing room area so we would walk over there and hang out for a while. I also read a ton on the flight and even had a chance to organize some pictures on the laptop.
We finally landed in Beijing and grabbed our bags and hurried off the plane. It felt sooo good to get off the plane and stretch and have a ton of room to move around. We went through Immigration next. It was funny standing in the line that said Foreigners for my first time ever. Once we got through to the other side we had to go collect our bags and make our transfer. There are a ton of stores in the Beijing airport. Gucci, Prada, Cartier, etc. I was relieved to see that in Beijing all of the signs have both Chinese and English so I didn't feel as lost as I thought I would. There is also still a lot of Olympic stuff around. We made our way over to our gate and laid down on some of the lounge chairs they had in the waiting area. There were only about 10 of the laying down chairs so it is good we got there early because we had a 4.5 hour wait and we got to nap for a good part of it. Our flight to Dalian was a pretty short one. It was only about 2 hours. The plane was a lot smaller then our first so we were all packed in there pretty tight. I think Ken and I were two of like three or four non-Asian people on the flight. Everyone was speaking Mandarin but thankfully they gave instructions in both languages when we took off.
We arrived in Dalian at about 10:00. We collected our bags and were met by the relocation people who drove us to our Hotel. It was pretty cold when we got here. It was about 33 degrees and they were shocked that Ken was not wearing a jacket. They gave us some pamphlets that had info on our tours and the city. We checked into our hotel and came upstairs to a very pretty room. We were so beat that we pretty much just tossed our bags on a table and went straight to bed. Our first full day in China is tomorrow and we have that day off from tours to recover from the trip. We are just going to wander the area and see what we see. =-)
Ken in his lounger:
Me after 16 hours of travel:
Me crashed out in Beijing:
Our pretty room:
Mikayla with her Thanksgiving Dinner. Her favorite were also the Sweet Potatoes.
Grandma and all her Grandbabies.
The munchkins:
Mikayla with her Toy Daddy brought her from China:
