Graciously the Lord has brought us through 30 plus hours of flight time and layovers safely to our destination of Guiyang City. We left St. Louis on Friday at 8:00 am, and arrived here Saturday at 11:00 pm. Somewhere at 35,000 ft. we lost about a half a day. So I guess this is really the end of day 2 of our journey. Or, what I like to call the 30 hour day. We are thanking and praising God for guiding us through the airport mazes of securtity checkpoints, customs, and immigration stations without any issues or getting lost.
We had a 3 hour layover in Chicago so we had plenty of time to eat and find our gate for our international flight to Beijing. We got to see our plane pull into the boarding gate and its nose was just huge! It is just amazing something that large could even get off the ground!
We just happend to choose to sit in the waiting area at the front by the checkin counter. When the flight agents arrived at the counter I went up to ask them if there was any way Trish and I could sit together on the flight. Our seats were a row and 2 seats apart. About this same time they told everyone to get in a single line so that they could start checking passports, visas, and tickets. So, I managed to be 2nd in a very long line. Coincidence? I don't think so! Anyway, we were able to board the flight shortly after that, and a nice young lady traded seats with Trish so we could sit together.
The 13 hour flight was uneventful, but very very long. We watched 3 or 4 movies, talked, slept (but not much), and read to pass the time on the flight. Trish spent some time talking to a young couple who sat next to us. The husband was American and his wife was from China. They had gotten married on 08/08/08 during the Olympics and were on their way to visit the wife's family in a province north of Beijing.
When we arrived in Beijing it was just as we had remembered it the first time we were there 5 years ago. Very hot, humid, and lots of Smog. I have to say though, that the new Beijing airport was very nice and a state of the art airport. It was very easy to find our way through it as there were clear signs that had both Chinese and English. We found our bags and made it through security to our gate just fine. Although, we thought they were going to confiscate the miniature pair of scissors from Trish's sewing kit. :) Our layover was for 5 hours, so we just kind of walked around and Trish has some TCBY yougurt.
When we were finally able to board our flight to Guiyang we were the only non-Chinese people on the flight. That was a little intimidating, but we survived. We slept most of the 3 hour flight, and arrived at Guiyang about 11:15 pm Saturday. We were extremely relieved and very thankful to see our guide Michael standing there holding a sign with our name on it. Michael is very nice and speaks very good English.
It wasn't until we reached the hotel that we hit our first snafu. Our voltage converters would not work for some reason and we have phones and cameras to charge, and our laptop to run. Michael asked at the front desk if they had a converter and they brought us up an extension cord with multiple outlets. I wasn't sure what to do with that.... By that time it was about 2:00 am so we decided to call it a night and go to bed. BTW, the beds are like "Fred Flinston Beds", as hard as bedrock.
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