Oct 13? I think. After 24 hours of travel yesterday I'm not really sure what day it is. The 6 hour layover in Chicago was pretty bad. Don't ever try it with small children along. Cari and I about went nuts, thankfully we had books etc. Finally we had our flight called at gate K-19. I had called Xiaoqing to let her know that the projected arrival time was supposedly 1030 now. That was an hour later than we were originally told. I didn't want our guide to get tired of waiting on us and leave! We had seats in the 3rd to last row in the plane…the back is for the stewardesses to rest and behind us was a guy that loved to talk and I don't think he slept the entire trip. But the noise of the plane pretty much drowned him out. We thought that our seats were not going to be beside each other but they ended up that way after all . Then the man next to me noticed two seats along the windows that were empty. He moved over there and Cari and I had 3 seats for our use. The flight is a mind over matter thing. You just know you have to do it and you try to put your mind in "hibernate". I did read the Readers Digest, but tried to sleep as much as possible. This time I didn't get disturbed by little people needing the bathroom or wanting to watch movies that weren't for little kids. This time the movie selection was not very good at all…only Madagascar 3 in the line of cartoons. Toward the end of the trip the Chinese man that moved over, struck up a conversation and asked why we were going to China. He was amazed that someone would choose to have 7 children. They have 2 and "that is too much".
I also saw a sort of amazing site. While we were waiting at the airport a younger Chinese lady came with a older lady (her mother) and she looked around a bit, then introduced herself and her mother to a Chinese man (40's maybe) then after awhile the young lady after some tears left the mother in charge of this Chinese man. I eavesdropped a bit and from what I could gather of their conversation they did not know each other at all and the young lady had used the knowledge of the Chinese respect to infringe on that mans trip…he took good care of the "ni-ni" for the rest of the trip. I caught sight of him taking her to her seat, stowing her carry-on and after the flight he helped her find her luggage. We chatted while in line for the plane. He is flying to Wuhan too on Sun night…wonder if we will see him again. I caught myself wondering what the lady saw that made her know to trust that man.
Anyway. We had a fairly smooth ride…I think we hit a few more pockets of "Hershey Park" than some of the other times, but at 35,000 feet you are definitely in God's hands so I went back to sleep. We found our luggage after a short train ride again to the luggage area in Beijing. Found Sylvia waiting for us and off we went on our first car ride in China. We never all fit in a car before. He was a very good driver. I think it was a VW Jetta…stick shift anyway…I will check for sure in the daylight today.
We did sleep pretty good….until 3 AM, then somehow our "nap" was over and we just snoozed until 5:30 till I decided to get up for devotions and some tea. The verse I found today in Psalms 146: 9...The Lord preserveth he strangers he relieve the the fatherless and widow; but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
hello every one!!
this is Cari and i decided to add alittle to this email so some of this stuff will over lap what Chris said. well what do you know we made it to China like the other side of the world!! It feels like we traveled that far tho. Does anyone want to guess how LONG 6hr is in a airport???=) I slept most of our 13hr plan ride(if you could call it sleeping) it was more like dozing, but by the time we made it to the hotel i was pretty wide awake not really ready to sleep again. but i did a little. Now we wanna go eat breakfast then meet our guide Sylvia to go to the great wall. there are some little shops right around our hotel to shop at and a few restaurants to eat at so well be good=) Anyway i'll let you all go. Keep us in your prayers. Thanks=)
I also saw a sort of amazing site. While we were waiting at the airport a younger Chinese lady came with a older lady (her mother) and she looked around a bit, then introduced herself and her mother to a Chinese man (40's maybe) then after awhile the young lady after some tears left the mother in charge of this Chinese man. I eavesdropped a bit and from what I could gather of their conversation they did not know each other at all and the young lady had used the knowledge of the Chinese respect to infringe on that mans trip…he took good care of the "ni-ni" for the rest of the trip. I caught sight of him taking her to her seat, stowing her carry-on and after the flight he helped her find her luggage. We chatted while in line for the plane. He is flying to Wuhan too on Sun night…wonder if we will see him again. I caught myself wondering what the lady saw that made her know to trust that man.
Anyway. We had a fairly smooth ride…I think we hit a few more pockets of "Hershey Park" than some of the other times, but at 35,000 feet you are definitely in God's hands so I went back to sleep. We found our luggage after a short train ride again to the luggage area in Beijing. Found Sylvia waiting for us and off we went on our first car ride in China. We never all fit in a car before. He was a very good driver. I think it was a VW Jetta…stick shift anyway…I will check for sure in the daylight today.
We did sleep pretty good….until 3 AM, then somehow our "nap" was over and we just snoozed until 5:30 till I decided to get up for devotions and some tea. The verse I found today in Psalms 146: 9...The Lord preserveth he strangers he relieve the the fatherless and widow; but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
hello every one!!
this is Cari and i decided to add alittle to this email so some of this stuff will over lap what Chris said. well what do you know we made it to China like the other side of the world!! It feels like we traveled that far tho. Does anyone want to guess how LONG 6hr is in a airport???=) I slept most of our 13hr plan ride(if you could call it sleeping) it was more like dozing, but by the time we made it to the hotel i was pretty wide awake not really ready to sleep again. but i did a little. Now we wanna go eat breakfast then meet our guide Sylvia to go to the great wall. there are some little shops right around our hotel to shop at and a few restaurants to eat at so well be good=) Anyway i'll let you all go. Keep us in your prayers. Thanks=)
It was nice hearing from you.Hope the rest of your stay in China goes well.Sorry,I didn't get to pick my purse.I'll wait till your back and settled in before attempting a pick-up again. :)
ReplyDeleteSo glad you made it my treasured friend!!!
ReplyDeleteglad you made it safe and sound...yes that flight is not for the faint of heart...we had an 8 hr layover in Detroit the first time we went. not fun!
ReplyDelete