Dec

3

Day 1, Travel day, 2 days until Gotcha Day

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The night before the trip was pure chaos. We didn’t pack anything ahead of time to see if we needed a bigger suitcase. We were trying to pack light or we wanted to. We had all of the carry-on bags packed with a change of clothes for us and all the important items like adoption paperwork, camera, video camera, snacks, etc. Becky finally made the decision around 2:00am that we needed a bigger suitcase so she called her Dad (Walter) to borrow some luggage. Walter was coming over around 4:00am anyway to take us to the airport. When we were finally packed, all of the snacks except the power bars along with some of the baby clothes and some over the counter drugs didn’t make it in the luggage. We figured that we could get it in China if we needed it. After about 2 or 3 hours of restless sleep we had to get up (around 3:00am). Our adventure was about to begin. We got the car loaded up for the 5-minute drive to the airport. We said good-by to the cats and left last minute instructions for Walter since he and Ruth (Mother-in-law) were going to watch the house and cats while we were gone. We arrived at the airport 2 hours early (5:00am) and that meant we had to wait for 2 hours so at around 6:00am I called my parents and then Becky called her parents to say “see ya in two weeks”. I think they appreciated that, even though it was early. The flight to Chicago was uneventful and to be honest neither of us even really remembers it. We were nervous about flying but after all the flying we did the next 2 weeks, we got more and more comfortable with it. When we reached Chicago, we had a little over an hour layover so we grabbed a terrible and expensive meal at an airport Chili’s. We won’t make that mistake again. Found the gate for our plane and even met one of the families in our group. Then we boarded a Boeing 777 and that was cool. All the seats had individual monitors. There was a map channel that showed where you were on a map, how far you’d traveled, etc. We were in the economy seats and I quickly learned that I’m not economy size. I had an isle seat but that just didn’t do it for me. The next time it will be economy-plus or business class. Back to the monitor, we had about 6 movies to chose from that continuously ran for 14 hours. My movie of choice was the Day after Tomorrow a disaster movie that had something to do with freezing the earth. After about 5 hours of watching that movie and getting up to stretch, I noticed on the map channel that we were 350 miles south of the North Pole and that the outside air temp was -87f. I sure didn’t want anything to happen to our plane at that point. The airplane food was actually pretty good and did I mention Free drinks (Beer/Wine/Liquor). The flight to China was long and painful. Understand, we were nervous, excited, anxious, etc. A lot of emotions were being felt at that time. The flight was just under 14 hours and we were glad to get off that plane. Once at the Beijing airport, we were herded through all the checkpoints, constantly checking that the $5,000 in $100 bills was with us. The race was on to get our luggage and to find our guide. It sounds much worse than it was. Our guides were sharp and seemed to know our faces so as we walked out of the luggage area we heard our names. We stood around for a few minutes checking out all the other families in our group. We all kind of had the weary thank God we are here look. Our guides ushered us outside to the busses that would take us to our hotel, the Sino-Swiss Hotel Beijing Airport. The bus ride was short but interesting. Did you know that the lines on the road mean almost nothing to Chinese drivers? Little did we know we were being broken in for bus and taxi rides for the next 2 weeks. We arrived at the hotel and were given some info about where we were and what was “safe”. Don’t Drink the Water!!! There was a grocery store just off hotel property across the street and the restaurants in the hotel were ok. Then we were given our key and told to eat and get some rest since we had a lot to do tomorrow. We quickly ran to our room and found it to be a very nice room. There were 2 double beds that were a little short but I am used to that. I liked the fact that the comforter and sheet were one. The TV had HBO and a lot of Chinese channels with Chinese subtitles (you get used to it). We grabbed about $100 US and had that converted to RMB (”People’s Currency”) at a rate of 8.2 Yuan to $1 US dollar. I was feeling pretty rich carrying around about 820 Yuan. We walked to the grocery store to buy some water and to start exploring. Did you know that they have employees dressed up in uniforms at almost every isle just to help you? I loved that, didn’t know what they were saying but they were very helpful. We purchased some water and Coke and went to the register. I was a bit concerned because we were using their money and I had some bills with 100, 50, 20, etc. and smaller bills with more similar numbers. I managed to look like I knew what I was doing while paying for our stuff and then I got coins back. I was really getting confused. We weren’t really hungry but were up for the adventure and went into the main hotel restaurant. I ordered fried rice and a beer and Becky got some noodles and hot tea. I was kind of expecting to get a choice of beer but they brought out a 32oz beer and at that point I needed it. We finished dinner and Becky looked at the receipt and noticed that the pot of tea was $10 or 80 Yuan; the beer was cheaper than the tea. That was a new one on us. Before we went to the room, we went to the hotel Business Center to post a message to everyone on our Yahoo Group to let them know we made it. As I was paying for the time on the internet, I quizzed the girl at the business center about the money. After flashing her the wad of bills and coins in my wallet she explained Chinese money to me. The coins were a mixture of what we would consider dollars and change. Turns out that it wasn’t all that hard after all. Leave it to two engineers to complicate things. After that, we went to bed. We had a long day and a busy one to look forward to.
Post #1 from China, We’re in China!
We survived the long flight here arriving at 3:40 pm China time in Beijing on Friday which is 2:40 am Friday morning there in Columbia. The fligh was 13 hours 1 minute long. Very cramped and packed. Anyone Pete’s size should definitely go businees class or better. We’ll try on the way back but the flights were full and we did not have much of an option with the late bookings. We flew 350 miles south of the North Pole but it was cloudy and dark when we got there so we saw nothing. The outside air temp was -85 degrees. We did get to see Hudson Bay frozen over. We did not have window seats so really did not see a lot. The food wasn’t too bad but sleeping was hard because the seats were cramped. We’ll sleep tonight! Beijing was really foggy when we arrived so we did not get to see what the city looks like so maybe we’ll buy a post card. We’ve already been hit up by street vendors for those. We are walking zombies right now. Trying to stay up as long as we can so we will sleep through until our wakeup call at 6:30 in the morning. We start the day running. We’ve met a lot of nice couples doing the same thing we are. It really is amazing. The traffic is absolutely a nightmare. Cars, buses, bikes, people and dogs all going in every direction at the same time and amazingly everyone/thing survives the madness. This is a great opportunity for the next bike conference. The bike/ped enthusiasts should feel lucky to have the room we provide them. They need to see how little space is provided here. It’s crazy. We’ve figured out the money, we think!! All we’ve bought so far is supper and bottled water. There’s always tomorrow! We’re off touring tomorrow so we hope to send pictures soon! It still doesn’t seem real that we are here even though we are the ones that stick out in the crowd!! This is all we have to say for now. We are hitting the showers and bed! Mary, tell mom and dad we made it. Calling cards will not work here or in Nanchang. We can buy them in Guangzhou and we will call at that time.
Love to all!
Pete and Becky
Weiry travelers!