At 3:35 on Sunday
our plane flying from Boise to Seattle took off—we were fresh and excited about
the novelty of flying, especially Kaleb—our first time flyer. We made it to Seattle quickly, found our
connecting flight easily and boarded the big one headed for Beijing! Easily more than half of the passengers were
Asian and all the flight announcements were given first in English and then in
Mandarin. Our favorite thing about this
flight was the personal touch screens on every seat back allowing you to pass
the 11 hours watching TV episodes/movies, playing games, listening to music, or
following flight details. We would have
been fine without having packed books, notebooks, and little toys to keep the
kids busy. The snacks we packed were not
so necessary as we thought either as we were served drinks, snacks and two
meals during the flight. Next time we will
know better. The time really did pass
quickly though I wish more of us would have spent more time sleeping. We arrived in Beijing around 9 local time,
very tired and then started the waiting.
We had to wait at the ramp for them to look for our stroller that we had
gate checked so that we could roll Klarese through the airport. It was not found, they said check at the
baggage claim. Well all of our other
baggage came through (15 pieces of checked baggage that couldn’t be checked all
the way to our final destination—we had to store it at the airport, not cheap
but worth it to us) but no stroller. Then
it was time to figure out how to call our hotel? And what a blessing that as we were waiting
in line to store our luggage a Chinese girl asked if we need a translator! She called the hotel for us and a driver
happened to be there already so we were quickly taken to the parking garage and
loaded in a van where we waited while they got a few more people—it was quite a
long wait for 6 tired kids (and for Matt and I). But we got there and waited while I got all
the details sorted out with the front desk and we went to our rooms and found
they were too far apart for us to be comfortable with and so we waited while
Matt took care of it. And finally we
slept!
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| Beijing Airport, we waited to long at the plane exit that most of the other passengers had left, it was so full and crowded but in this picture it looks like it is just us. |
The following day
we spent in Beijing. And what the kids
remember about Beijing is that it was stinky and we had to wait around a
lot. The hotel breakfast was quite a
Chinese buffet. Not like and American
Chinese buffet—many dishes that we did not recognize. No cereal, no toast, no milk. Most of us enjoyed trying the new
dishes. We didn’t need to head to the
airport until 4 so we decided to see if we could make it to Tiananmen Square
and the Forbidden City. We talked to the
hotel people about a ride and it took us a while to get it all figured out,
first they told us a taxi price, then they said no—we need two taxis then they
told us a bigger price, then they said they could get us a van for an even
bigger price. Matt haggled with them on
a price and we thought we were settled.
The van arrived and we went out, then the hotel guy talked to the van
guy before we got in, then the hotel guy went into the hotel, then he came back
out and they talked some more, then they hotel guy went in again and we were
just standing there and then the van guy drove away and the hotel guy never
came out. So we took a walk with six
tired kids through the hotel/industrial part of Beijing. We went back and had lunch at the hotel
restaurant, ordered a dish for everyone which ended up being way to much food
as they were dishes meant for a family style meal. And then we lounged around in the hotel lobby
for a few hours until it was time to head to the airport. We are planning to go back to Beijing when
Kendra’s friend’s family comes at the beginning of next year to adopt a little
Chinese girl—I am sure we will have a better image of Beijing after that.
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| outside our Beijing hotel |
Kaleb thought this looked just like the statue on Mulan, it was outside a bank on our walk in Beijing.
Back to the
airport! We arrived pretty early and
found a spot for Matt and the kids to sit while I went to find out about the
stroller. It took a little running
around but the stroller was found. Then
we picked up our luggage. What a
spectacle we were 8 people, 3 huge luggage carts, a baby stroller,
Americans! It was a bit of an ordeal
getting through security, they were a little more thorough this time and they
made Matt go to a different line with his medical supplies. So it was me and the kids, I had to match all
the passports up with the boarding passes and make each person stand in front
of the camera, the little ones had to be held up to be high enough and Klarese
was already not happy so getting her out of the stroller for the camera making
her walk through the security scanner thing without me while she watched us all
get checked with the wand and then putting her back in the stroller! No way she said. Luckily there was a little inside playground
not too far past the security check and she and the other kids loved that and
mom and dad regrouped. Whew!
The flight from
Beijing to Hangzhou was just a couple of hours.
This time we were among very few foreigners, all announcements were given in Mandarin
first and then English. Most of us slept
for most of the flight (perhaps thanks to the Dramamine) some even missing the
meal. We arrived with a few kids still
half asleep and somehow managed to drag everyone (China really doesn’t know how
to do the gate check thing, stroller was again not waiting for us as we got off
the plane and we had to carry Klarese which wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t
overplanned on the carryon items) to baggage claim and out to meet our friend
Jane from the school where I will be teaching.
She took us to a van and we all slept for the one hour drive to our new
home in Wukang (which is actually a town in Huzhou City I guess, can’t remember
how Deqing fits in there but it is somewhere).
Our van could only go to the reception area of the apartment complex so
we had to go through the reception hall, across the courtyard, and up two
flights of stairs with kids first to put them on beds and then with all the
luggage—and there was a lot! We didn’t
look around much that night but I did notice an IKEA as we were driving from
Hangzhou to Huzhou!
Wednesday we
started unpacking. Then we stopped
unpacking and cleaned. It was tidy but
needed some wiping down. Anyway, we
started settling in. The apartment is
just fine. It has everything we need and
is close to a supermarket (called century21 market) and close to our school and
Kaleb’s kindergarten. We have internet
connection and somekind of cable TV but we can’t figure out how to get to the
English channels. We all walked to the
market yesterday and all along the way as we walked by people we would notice
them getting out their phones and I would turn around and see them taking
pictures of us as we went by! It was
kind of funny to hear them counting (in Chinese of course) all the people in
our family and many people like to say hi to Klarese.
Street side view of our apartment, we are the first level above the gutted out concrete shop that they are renovating. You can see our laundry hanging, on our back porch, the middle ones.
Courtyard view of our apartment complex.
We found a fun
little exercise station in our apartment complex courtyard and Krista found
tadpoles in the fountain area. The first
night the big girls had a good cry, overly tired, overwhelmed, missing everyone
and everything back home. As we get a
routine going it gets better. I think it
also helped when they realized their texting app still worked too!
We miss you all and
thanks for all the well wishes and help and fun the last few weeks as we
prepared for this!
