Super Angie...China report 1--arriving in Beijing

Like Rick already reported, our flight from SLC to LAX was delayed because the cockpit window was leaky. Too bad half the flight passengers had to sit on the plane for 30 minutes before they decided to switch planes. Lucky for me and most of our traveling group, we were still in the concourse and not on the plane.

I made fast friends with Dave and Joan...talk about sweet, honest and down to earth people. I seriously could hang out with them all day, every day. Very genuine and sweet. Throughout the trip, many people noticed the great amount of Charity they had---giving money to homeless, sharing cookies with the rest of the group and of course...sharing a smile or a hug! Simply the best type of people.

As we were touching down in LAX, one of our ladies, Shirleen, realized her passport was missing. Turns out it was left at TSA in SLC. Alicia Richmond (our tour guide) took very good care of Shirleen. Her passport would arrive the next morning in LA and Shirleen would fly out later that day. TSA at LAX sucked. Seriously! That airport needs some help. The lady making sure we had our papers in line before we could enter TSA yelled, "get in two lines!" so we did. But only 5 feet later, those two lines merged into one...so what was the point of the yelling? Then the lines twisted and turned and went here and there...and finally, running to the gate, we mostly all made it on the bus to the plane. As the doors were shutting, I heard one lady on our tour yell, "WAIT! OPEN THE DOORS!" but no one did, and so the other half of her party had to wait for another bus.

We made it out to our 777. OH CRAPO! They gave me a window seat. This would have been fine when I was 18, but now, I get serious jitters when placed by a window. Of course the two chinese speaking men in the middle and aisle wouldn't budge, so there I was...freaking out! I started crying and madly texted Rick. How would I survive? Okay, so looking back, it was pretty silly, but in the moment...oh man. I can't handle the window seat. I feel trapped. Thats when I realized, the group Shirleen was a part of (4 ladies) had an extra seat empty. They were so kind to move seats a bit, so I could take one of their aisle seats. WHAT A MIRACLE. And what a darling sweetheart!

The flight from LAX to Seoul is 13 hours long. My seat had a phone with it, so I checked the insane rates and made a quick call to Rick. I was already homesick. I also sent him a few text messages and he sent me some too. That was fun. :)

We landed in Seoul before Sunrise and as we were waiting for our next flight, we all enjoyed watching it. So pretty. Everyone took laps of the airport--getting in a morning workout. We also bought water from a bar. I used someone's cell phone, which was fun. NOTE: next time I go, I will change providers to T-Mobile and take my phone with me. Luckily there were some very generous and nice people who let me use their phones.

The flight attendants for Asiana Airlines are so dang cute. (Check out the link for some HOT deals from Seattle to China!!!). Actually all the flight attendants we saw for different Asian airlines were gorgeous. Its no wonder my dad used to have calenders from all those airlines. Can you imagine having Southwest or United make up Calenders of all their flight attendants? Not gonna happen. But these Asian girls...so beautiful and sweet. I didn't have a single flight attendant with a bad attitude. :) (after re-reading this post...I wanted to make it clear that these calenders my dad had were not "girly" calenders in the fashion of "Maxim" or other magazines. They were free calenders the airlines sent him because he worked with the Asian airlines for their customer service of the 747 400 planes. ) LOL

We arrived in Beijing around 8 or 9am on Thursday. I left SLC on Tuesday...whatever happened to Wednesday? I guess it simply didn't exist! lol

The Beijing airport was half modern (getting ready for the Olympics) and half run down (Communist). Passport control and Immigrations went really fast (Maybe LAX and JFK need to visit Beijing and learn how airport customs and TSA are supposed to be!). There were really nice floral displays in the airport, as well as lots of posters of famous Chinese athletes (like that Basketball player) doing adds for the Olympics and VISA. Coming out of the luggage and customs area (just like Munich was set up) we saw our first Chinese site... KFC and STARBUCKS! LOL LOL LOL A few of our tribe ran to starbucks and emerged with a drink and a smile. Ahhh...a bit of home.

We met our Chinese Guide, Tom and headed to the bus. Tom is so awesome. Talk about a passion for Chinese culture and his city. We could all tell Tom has a love for Beijing and enjoys showing others his city.

Leaving the airport reminded me very much of the Moscow airport.

We drove out and saw lots of billboards for Olympic stuff, plus beauitiful flower gardens that spelled out things like "Welcome" etc. We also passed under a really cool Chinese gate (but Tom laughed and said, "Oh thats not even close to being the prettiest one. You wait and see!"). We were all camera happy..taking pictures of anything we could.

We headed first to Lunch at a great resturant--as you drive around in China, you suddenly feel like your in China town in Seattle or San Fransico or someplace. Its really surreal and the resturant felt the same way. Our servers were so dang cute...had to take a picture of them. We enjoyed our first meal and proceeded to the bathroom...a squater.

Okay, so WHY on earth, do most places outside the USA believe in NOT having toilets. I felt like I was hiking or something. Except, when you are hiking, your not wearing nice clothes. Try squating while wearing heels, or designer jeans or new shoes...just not fun.

** totally random side note... I bought Rick a t-shirt in China...really cool black with a red dragon thing and writing etc. Anyway, I remember Tom talking about t-shirts about how you have to be careful about the quality because you'll end up with a 3rd Generation shirt--meaning, you wash it, it shrinks down to fit your grandkids.
Well...sorry Honey...your new shirt was dried and it apparently wasn't a 3rd Generation Shirt, but a Wife shirt...now fits me. SO...If you get a shirt from China, DO NOT DRY IT IN THE DRIER! EVER! Unless you were wanting it to fit someone other then you.

Okay, back on topic. (ABOUT THE PHOTOS: 1st: sunrise in Seoul. 2nd. Dave and Joan. 3rd. Asiana Airline poster--cuteness! 4th. Asiana Airline Flight Attendants. 5th. Me standing infront of the KFC and STARBUCKS sign at the Beijing Airport. 6th Tom and Alicia speaking at the front of the bus...I always sat next to Connie (from Rexburg) in the second row --behind Alicia and her husband Evan. 7th. The cute Chinese Gate that Tom laughed about. 8th. At the resturant with the waitstaff...cute girls!)

This is getting pretty long...so I will stop for now and start a new post about the rest of Day 1.

--Super Angie