The Next Step...China: Our Looooong Flight to China!

Well the time has come for us to leave Costa Rica and head to China. After spending a fun 2 weeks with "The Days" we are now heading off to the airport for the next leg in this wonderful adventure called our life!

After leaving beautiful....and warm.....Costa Rica, we headed to Panama for a quick stop.........

...where we managed to pick up some more useless change to stick in the bottom of our dresser drawer with the rest of the change we will never be able to use again unless we go back to Costa Rica or Panama. After a brief layover...we boarded another plane and headed to Los Angeles to start our 31 hour layover. We had decided to ask for wheelchairs to get Bob through the airports quicker and we found out very quickly that it would be the best idea of our trip!

Once we left Panama, we had a very scenic flight to Los Angeles. We saw beautiful clouds, beautiful landscape, and amazing bits and pieces of moutains. Of course we arrived in Los Angeles at night so we didn't take any pictures. We decided to take pictures when we left.....in 31 hours....so you could see things better. We arrived in California and we were met by a very nice man who quickly loaded Bob up and carted him off to the bus for our journey from the plane to the other part of the airport terminal. We then walked outside, following Bob and his escort, and down to another terminal to wait for the airline to open at 5 am...hoping to catch an earlier flight. It was not to be...because we did not want to pay an additional 300.00 per person to get on that flight....so we went back to the main, and somewhat warmer, terminal to wait out the rest of our layover. We played MANY games of Rummy, walked around and around the terminal, napped in very uncomfortable chairs, dug out all of our American change to spend it since they don't exchange coins, and then finally settled in for another uncomfortable nights sleep back at the first terminal where the planewill take off from.

Jake cathcing some zzzzzz's which are few and far between when you are sleeping on a wooden bench in a cold terminal.

The time finally arrived for us to catch our flight to Canada in our next step of the journey. The flight there was not too long but we saw some beautiful landscape on that flight. We spent most of the time passing the camera back and forth so we could get shots from each of our windows.

Leaving Los Angeles, California

After we arrived in Canada, we went to wait at the next terminal for our flight to Beijing. The airport was really pretty! Jake and I both made a quick trip onto the computer. Jake so he could update everyone where we were since we had not been online since we left Costa Rica....and I got on to let my boss in China know where we were on our journey to meet them! Of course this is where I discovered that my computer battery is dying and my plug isn't working....please just let it be the plug!

The time finally arrived and we were off to Beijing! Jake got some good pictures of them de-icing our plane (and no, they weren't removing cake icing from a food fight...I wish!) and a few good pictures as we took off, leaving Vancouver behind!

Did I mention that this was a REALLY LONG flight? I did? Okay because if I didn't you should be able to see how tired we were in this picture! LOL!

Anyway, we had a wonderful flight attendant who gave us extra brownies....creamy, yummy chocolate brownies...we haven't had good chocolate since we left the States. All of the chocolate in Costa Rica.....brownies, cakes, cupcakes, and such, were very dry. She also gave us extra drinks to try to help keep us functioning.

We were totally exhausted by now but had reached the point where we were too tired to sleep. The flight to China was very interesting....we missed New Years Eve because of the International Date Line. One minute it was December 31st in the morning and the next....it was January 1st!! We also never saw the sun set that trip so we were definitely ready for bed once we arrived in China! The views were amazing and made the journey seem to not take so long.

The trip was finally over and we arrived in Beijing safe and sound. The airport was huge and beautiful and still decorated for Christmas.....who knew? We even took a few pictures inside the airport as we waited for our ride to arrive. It was very cold and we were all bundled up. First thing on our list is thermal underwear!

We were finally picked up by Sophia, and her friend, and whisked away to Jinsong: where we got 2 rooms in a hostile for the 1st month. The view from our rooms is amazing! They have a beautiful courtyard and every morning you will find people down in the courtyard at 7am practicing Tai Chi.