September 14 - 15, 2006 Travel from Chicago to Beijing
We had a direct flight from Chicago to Beijing leaving at 12:03 pm Thursday arriving at 2:45 pm Bejing time on Friday. The flight was almost 14 hours with an 11 hour time difference. For those geography lovers the plane travels a polar route and heads out from Chicago going north almost directly toward Green Bay Wisconsin. After crossing the Arctic Ocean you cross land in Siberia and then south into Beijing.
Travel went well and we were able to get some sleep/naps on the flight. The only incident was one piece of lost luggage that we hope arrives on Saturday. The key things we are out now are related one set of toiletries a hair brush and hair dryer ... we can survive this. Of course Aliyah will be missing out on several fine outfits and sleepwear.
Our first impressions of China are. Haze, lots of new building and road construction, plenty of bikes going with and against traffic, how little Chinese we know, and John has a good vantage point (height wise).
We have already met several families that we will be traveling with and the coordination of our trip by AWAA along with our guides appears to be great. Saturday we have a packed day of touring in Beijing which we look forward to; we just hope that we get over the jet lag quickly. Things look good now, regarding the jet lag, so a thanks to all our friends for their advice and strategy. It is working.
We are so excited to be here to adopt our daughter and thrilled that we have these first days of this trip in Beijing to learn about one part of the wonderful Chinese culture.
