We did it! All
clothes have been treated with mosquito repellent that stays in the clothes for
up to 6 washes (thank you Corey!) and we managed to each pack for our nearly 5
week experience with a backpack each. We have large packing bags to role up the clothes to keep them separated and compact. Super cool!
We were able to get a direct flight from Chicago to Beijing –
just under 14 hours. The flight seemed to
pass quickly and was uneventful except for Lily getting sick towards the end –
in the bathroom, and then in the aisle when the bathrooms were full ‘_’ She is such a trooper. I think the lack of sleep was making her
nauseous.
Many movies were watched and attempted sleep :)
As the plane landed the flight attendants directed us three
times to turn off our phones. I managed
to snap a quick photo as we exited to the fingerprinting zone. You had to get prints of all 10 fingers. So – we are well documented!
While waiting in the long line to have our passports checked
Lily started feeling nauseous again so decided to sit just outside of the roped
lane to wait and I stayed with her. As Corey
and the kids snaked further away from us, a woman staff member approached and
asked what we were doing. I explained
that Lily had a stomachache from the plan ride, with exaggerated gestures of
rubbing my stomach to be sure she understood we did not have some strange
illness we were bringing in from the US.
The language barrier made me nervous.
She then said, “Come this way.”
I said we were with our family and she asked how many. I told her there were 5 of us, and she told it was too many, and and just the two of us needed to follow her. We anxiously followed her over to a passport line for diplomats. The man working the counter seemed more than a little annoyed to review our documents, but he let us through. We then sat on the other side of the passport checkpoint waiting for Corey, Caden and Gia to come through, worried we would miss them. After about 15 minutes, an American woman came up to us and told us that our family was coming soon and that they were all worried where we ended up. Just not sure if we have seen too many movies or heard too many sensationalized stories, but the fewer people speak English than we expected, so just a bit anxious.
On our way to the exit, Lily got sick again on the train. Poor girl. She was so discreet. She just threw up, wiped her mouth, and moved along.
Yi, a student from Tsinghua where Corey is giving a talk this week, met us at the airport with a minivan and a driver to take us to our hotel an hour away. So kind! There was so much to take in along the way!
We checked in, and Corey, Caden, Gia and Yi headed to dinner. I stayed in with Lily. She took a bath in the beautiful large bathtub and we lounged about eating watermelon and playing Spot-It.
Corey and the kids brought us back some food. Luckily they did not bring back the sea cucumber, steamed turtle or griddled bullfrog dishes. No joke. The dumplings were phenomenal, the "chicken soup" to help Lily feel better did not get eaten. Looking at the marrow had the exact opposite of the intended effect.
Once the girls settled into to the "girls room" (a family size of 5 is virtually unheard of, so we have two rooms), we watched Chinese TV where we made up our own dialogue :) We managed to stay awake until 8:30 PM! Sadly we awoke at 3. The time difference is 12-hours. Ugh!
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