We're Here!

We arrived in China, safely, after starting our journey 31 hours before. Oi.

To say the flights were painful would be an understatement. Of course it didn't help that we left the house at 6am on Thursday and you all know how well I do mornings. Chris fared a little better than I did but was pretty exhausted as well. Luckily all of our flights were on time and no major turbulence. The 6 hour layover in Detroit was boring and the 12 hour flight from Detroit to Tokyo was kind of a killer. I was so tired, I just tried to sleep the whole way. I never even cracked a magazine or book, which for me is a shocker! The Tokyo flight was huge with 10 seats across the aisles. We were seated next to an older Chinese couple who didn't know much English. When we were served our dinner, I watched as they tried to figure out what the different condiments went to. I pointed at each and then pointed at the different food items and got my first thank you in Chinese! Later on Chris went and got some water for them and they were thankful then as well. We had a 3 hour layover in Tokyo and then on to Beijing. Luckily we had a window seat and an aisle to ourselves, but we circled Beijing for a while and also had to sit on the runway waiting to get to a terminal. We were met at the airport by our guide “Joy” who will be showing us the sites in Beijing on Saturday and Sunday. The 1am ride from the airport to the hotel reminded me of driving down the BQE from La Guardia airport to Manhattan. Having our driver not speak English completed my nostalgic memories of New York a bit as well!

Today is Friday and a free day for us (thankfully!). We got to sleep in a bit, hit the breakfast buffet and chat some more with Joy. We found out that the other families coming in all arrive today. We are so glad that we have today to just hang out before all of the touring begins. We walked to a grocery store and then took a long walk around the block. I have already had children comment on my hair and we have been stared at a lot! I feel so exotic! Part of the time I was carrying my Nikon with me and Chris started to worry that something would happen so we took it back to the room. I'm hoping to get some nicer photos later today when the light is a bit better and maybe the foot traffic slows down. Will try to post some photos later, we are off to dinner at a nearby restaurant that Joy recommended for us.