{China #1} Plan A...to Plan D

Wednesday morning, Jeff and I got up at 5…knowing to be prepared for flight cancelations because of the snow.  The original plan was to fly out of Peoria to Chicago and then from Chicago directly to Beijing.  As we were getting ready that morning, we kept on checking flight status, but it wasn’t until 7am, that our Peoria flight was canceled.  My Dad was our back up and we called him to notify him that we needed to drive to Chicago and try to make our flight.

We quickly packed up, scooped the snow off the driveway, kissed Aubs and Abram goodbye and drove to Bloomington to pick up my Dad.  Driving conditions were pretty bad, averaging 40 miles an hour.  We made it to the O’hare airport just 30 minutes before our flight took off, knowing that we wouldn’t make our flight unless it was delayed.  Jumping out of the van, grabbing all of our luggage, we ran in to the airport to check in, as my Dad drove our van back home.  But it was too late and they wouldn’t let us check in – our flight was one of the few that was not delayed.  ☹

They were able to change our flights, so that we would be flying out in 1 hour, to Hong Kong, instead, then an hour layover and fly to Beijing.  With that, we ran through the airport, security and to our gate.  When we boarded the plane, we knew that the flight had been delayed for 30 minutes…but as we sat on the plane, waiting for take off, we waited, and waited…for almost 2 hours before the plane took off.  They had to de-ice the plane a couple of times and supposedly were waiting on a big group that still needed to board the plane.  

The flight seemed forever long, 15.5 hours in the air and no way to get comfortable and get good sleep.  We knew that we would miss our connecting flight to Beijing and prayed that plan D would be clear.

{Watching 1 of many movies on our 16-hour flight}

When we got off the plane (8:30 pm Thursday, local time…6:30am Thursday our time), we were immediately told that there were no more flights to Beijing that night and they put us up in a hotel for the night.  Chase was ecstatic to be spending the night in Hong Kong and thought that was so cool!  While waiting for our boarding passes to print, we met a missionary couple from California heading back to India after a short furlough.  It was a neat time of fellowship.  

{At our Hotel in Hong Kong}

Friday morning we were shuttled back to the airport and flew out at 8am.  We arrived in Beijing at 11:30am…to snow.  It was their first real snow of the season (I’d say about a whopping 1”).  We met our tour guide, Angela, who we’ve gotten to know via email prior to the trip.  We drove to a local Chinese restaurant where they served us “family style” and we were able to sample Roasted Peking Duck (which Beijing is famous for), Kung Pao chicken, fried green beans, fried pumpkin sticks (similar in size to French fries), fried rice (are we sensing a theme by now??).  It was really nice to have someone order our food who knew what Americans could handle, but yet have us sample some specialty dishes. We were proud of Chase for trying almost everything and enjoying it! 

{Roasted Duck}

{Fried pumpkin, Kung Pao Chicken, Fried Green Beans}

We then drove to the Great Wall – beautiful scenery/area, especially with the fresh coating of snow.  We took a chair lift up to the Wall, then walked along it for a while, going through several guard tours and up and down slippery steps and inclines due to the snow.  It was surreal to actually be seeing it first hand.  Normally, we would have taken a toboggan back down the hill (think Alpine slide), but due to the snow, it was closed.  Bummer.  Instead the somewhat tipsy/drunk attendant at the top demanded a tip from Jeff after Chelby & Angela had already gotten on the previous chair to head back down.  This was the same guy who asked what the English word was for his two-way radio.  When we said Walkie-Talkie, he burst out laughing.  And the same guy who offered all 3 of us a sampling of his strong alcoholic beverage (yes, even Chase!...he was kidding, at least I think so!) 

{Great Wall of China}

We then drove two hours back to Beijing to get checked into our hotel.  Chase (who had previously gotten 6 hours of sleep over the course of 2 nights…he usually gets 11 hours/night) fell into a comatose type sleep on the ride back, skipped supper and went straight to bed around 7:30 as soon as we got into our room.  

Tomorrow will be a packed day of sightseeing around the city.  On Sunday we will travel and meet Emerson around 5pm!

Jeff, Chelby & Chase