Days 1 & 2 (Leaving Home)

So let's call Day 1 "The Day of Waiting." First, we showed up 3 hours early for our 6:20 flight as suggested by the airline. One problem - no airline employees got there until 4:00! So we waited 30 minutes. Then our flight got delayed 45 minutes. So we waited about 2.5 hours. Then we flew to
Newark and waited about 3+ hours to connect. Then we flew 13 hours to Beijing. Then we waited for 5 hours to connect. Then we flew to Changchun. A lot of waiting!

Then we rode 40 minutesto the hotel. It was an unspeakable riding experience, because green/red lights are merely suggestions). We got in our room about 9:30pm, chiseled the day's grime off, did Face Time with our girls, took melatonin, and fell asleep around 10:15. It was our first real sleep in 32 hours!!

Day 2 has been all about settling in. We couldn't sleep as late as we wanted and hit the breakfast buffet about 7:30 There is a slight chance I may gone overboard. I may or may not have eaten eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, fried mushrooms, won tons, noodles, a fried apple slice, spring rolls, French toast casserole, a muffin, a cherry Danish, snow peas, orange juice, watermelon juice, and coffee. Back tomorrow? OKAY!!

After breakfast, we finally went outside to start experiencing this country. So, naturally, we went to Walmart (complete with a Walmart greeter!). Pretty confusing, though (that's the excuse we'll give for having to check out 3 times). We bought a bunch of stuff including local snack cakes and other sweets (uh, for Lacey). Stuff is pretty cheap here. I bought two cold drinks at the checkout for less than $1. Even the escalators are cool. Some of them are sloped sidewalks that grip the wheels of the cart to keep it from sliding.

Took the stuff back to the hotel and met with our guide at 2:00. She outlined the week ahead, gave us some updated info on Lacey, and 6 new photos! The best part of the info was the all important fact that her favorite foods include sweets and all kinds of snacks! We'll get along just fine!!

Then we hit the street to walk around. We stopped in a few mall type shops which were horrendously expensive (I saw a pair of jeans for $474)! Then we had dinner at a food court type place which led to some comedy while trying to decide what to eat. We had some kind of spicy beef on a bowl that was on top of a flame. Pretty nice stuff! Then we got frozen yogurt. Remember that place I Can't Believe It's Yogurt? I believed it was yogurt. It literally tasted like frozen yogurt. Then we walked around some more and came back to the hotel.

Just got back from the pool. Very nice! They also had spa rooms for men and women. I went into a (no joke) 190 degree sauna and lasted 10 minutes. I lasted 1 minute in the 52 degree pool, and Cindy couldn't get past her toes in the 108 degree hot tub!

And that's it! Sorry for the length. Really looking forward to the morning when we won't have to rely on pictures anymore!

Thanks for reading,
Daniel