Saturday, January 3, 2009

We made it to Beijing after a 13.5 hours in a plane.  We left our home in Indianapolis on Friday, January 2 at 6am and we arrived at the airport in Beijing on Saturday, January 3 at 3:30pm.  The flight wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I was able to have an aisle seat and get up from time to time to stretch my legs.  The seat pattern on the plane was 2 - 5 - 2 (of course we were in the middle section).  

There was a television in each headrest, with GPS capabilities... so you could track the flight in real time as traveled (or watch movies).  I was surprised how much of an arch we made from Chicago to get to Beijing.  We flew almost straight north, close to the north pole, then over Siberia, and then down to Beijing.  The plane also had many movies for us to watch.  I watched a movie with Diane Lane and Richard Gere...very disappointing and then I watched "The Duchess" with Natalie Portman...very enjoyable; I highly recommend.  I was also able to get a good bit of sleep on the plane (a couple of hours) however Hayward was only able to sleep for about an hour.

The Beijing airport was amazing and HUGE!!  It was built specifically for the Olympics so as you can imagine they went all out. The city is very developed and safe.  We were both surprised to see many of the billboards feature western models rather Asian models.

We finally made it to the hotel and settled in.  We were tired but hungry so we decided to explore a little. It was 7:00pm Beijing time but 6 a.m. Indianapolis time. Instead of authentic cuisine we decided to have some American food for dinner so we went to Pizza Hut.  They don't put as much sauce on the pizza as we do in the US but still tasty. 

Hayward's friend Mr. Chen is going to take a train 10 hours from his Province (hometown) to visit with us on Tuesday. Mr. Chen and Hayward met when Mr. Chen lived in the Campus Apartments at IUPUI.  Mr. Chen was attending the IU School of Law for a special year and half program.  Mr. Chen went on the 1st Spring Break trip in 2006 to Waveland, Mississippi for Hurricane Katrina Recovery work.  Mr. Chen has many fond memories of IUPUI, Indianapolis, friends he met, and Waveland trip.  Mr. Chen will take us on Tuesday evening to a restaurant to have a "traditional Chinese dinner".   

Jaime & Hayward