Saturday, June 15, 2013

We made it to Beijing!

Wednesday evening we began our trip to China, first stop was an overnight at the Newark airport. We were delivered to our hotel care of Jessica's parents and Megan and Matthew - saying good-bye to Megan and Matt for two weeks was really, really hard. We know they are in excellent care and are having fun with Grammy and Poppy!

We were wide awake and ready to go early (earlier than we needed to be - like 3:30 early!). We finally got ready, ate breakfast and were headed to the airport. We got our bags checked - one bag weighed exactly 50 lbs. and the other was 51 lbs - but they let it o through. We have been weighing the bags constantly and re-packing to get them to the 50 lb. mark - first goal met!

We then made our way through security - no problem except my moisturizer was too big for our checked luggage and got chucked. 

We boarded our plane at 11:00 and were in the air around noon. We hoped to sleep, but that didn't really happen - we each got about an hour total sleep over 3 or 4 naps. It was a long flight and we were definitely ready to get out of those seats. We made it through Immigration, baggage claim and customs with no problems (yay!). When you walk through customs, you then walk out into a main airport concourse where guides hold up signs with your group - we were relieved to find the America World guides quickly. We were the first of six families to arrive, so we headed down to Starbucks! It was very interesting to sit back and watch the people in the airport. Once all the other families arrived, we loaded into a tour bus and drove about 30-45 minutes to our hotel. When we made it to our room, we both collapsed on the bed and slept for 30 minutes. We attempted to walk down to get some food, but exhaustion won and we ordered a room service pizza. By 8:00, we were asleep in bed!

We made it to China!!! A few pictures for you...



A view from the plane


Our flight left NJ, went up over the North Pole, over Siberia to Beijing


The America World welcome sign


The lady in the flowered blouse is our guide in Beijing


The main concourse where arrivals come through customs


Outside our hotel room - classic Beijing smog


The view from our hotel






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