Beijing - Day 1 - We Made It!

After 20+ hours of travelling, we FINALLY made it to Beijing this afternoon!

Our journey started with a smaller, prop plane flight to Seattle. I was not thrilled about this as it was the smallest plane I'd ever flown on, and as many of you know, I'm not a huge fan of flying anyway...but you do what you have to do when you want to go get your daughter!!! Anyway, the turbulence over the mountains was quite bumpy, but we arrived in one piece.

We then had a 5-hour layover in Seattle before catching our red-eye to Taipei. That flight was on a 777 and really smooth. We had an open seat on one side of us, so we had some extra room. We each were able to get short naps throughout the flight, and EVA Air had an pretty good selection of movies/TV to choose from. They fed us twice and the food was pretty decent (for airline food). One meal was a chicken stir-fry type "dinner" with rice, and once a "western-style" breakfast of scrambled eggs, tater tots (LOL), yogurt and a blueberry muffin. Being me, I took photos of all the food, and will upload those when I get a chance... When we finally arrived in Taipei is was 5:00 am local time.

So then we had a 5-hour layover in Taipei until our flight to Beijing. I'd heard from several people that the Taiwanese LOVE their "Hello Kitty", and I was not disappointed - she is everywhere! In fact the gate where we were to catch our next flight out to Beijing was a specially-decorated "Hello Kitty" gate with a big child play area (and of course, a giant Hello Kitty store) attached...photos to come... When the stores and restaurants finally opened around 6 am, we were able to grab a Coke, a bottled water, and a roll to tide us over until our 9:30 am flight.

The EVA Air flight from Taipei to Beijing was intense. It was 3 hours on another 777 but the plane was crowded and the seats were smaller. I was in the middle seat and Steve was on the aisle. The man on the window side of me was making every "bodily noise" possible, and it seemed that the plane's A/C did not work, or worked very little - so everyone was sweating. There were a couple times I thought I might pass out, either from sheer overheating or clausterphobia. So I fanned myself with the emergency exit card while we received our second serving of chicken stir-fry in 24 hours... Anyhow, we made it to Beijing around 12:30 pm - and WOW - what a big airport! You'd expect it to be big I guess, given it is the capitol city of the most-populated country in the world.

We made it thru Customs and found our agency rep holding a sign and waiting for us. He connected us to the driver that was taking us to our hotel, gave us some directions on how to find the nearest grocery store and restaurants to our hotel, and off we went! The driver didn't speak much English, so the ride was quiet while we took in the sights around us and relaxed in the car's A/C. It took about 40 minutes to get to our downtown hotel. Our room is nicely appointed - however very small - and the "King Bed" is more of a Full/Queen, but hey - the A/C works great - so I'm happy!  :)

Once we were checked in and exchanged some money, we decided to head out again right away and purchase some bottled water and snacks from the grocery store our rep told us about. It's located inside a giant indoor mall-type building about two blocks from our hotel. We found our way to the basement (where the grocery store is), and were able to find bottled water and a few other snacks. Let me tell you - the best part of the grocery store was the soundtrack! The entire 20 minutes we were there, a male Chinese singer was singing the first two verses of "Rhinestone Cowboy" over...and over...and over. Then the music would pause for a moment, and just when you thought something new would be starting up - it would start over again. Steve and I were punchy by this point anyway, but it was completely surreal and we were cracking up. We wished we'd had our video camera with us to capture the moment, but I do think Steve got a few seconds of it with his iPhone. It sounded like the guy was singing "Like a Winston Call-boy"...  :)

Back to the hotel for much-needed showers and a nap! We ended up "napping" for about three hours, took a walk around the hotel to locate tomorrow's breakfast buffet, and then decided we weren't really all that hungry for "dinner" - so we will load up on water and snacks tonight, and rest in our room. Tomorrow morning at 9 am we meet up with our rep and the other families to start touring Beijing.  We will be here touring a couple of days, before we fly to Xi'an on Sunday morning for LIA DAY! 

Believe me, Steve is taking tons of photos, which we will download and get some of them posted up here soon. We are just too tired tonight and trying to get over jet lag.  Soon - I promise!!!  :)