Got to the airport at 5am for our 7:45am flight, and was met with a bit of a scare when they told me I had no reservation....at 5am, this sort of thing is really to much...Turns out, Keith has made the reservation under the wrong name, and they went ahead, after some explanation and gave me my ticket. (This was MUCH more interesting once we reached China.) The morning flights were uneventful, our first to Seattle with a 4 hour layover, followed by the dreaded 11 hour flight to Beijing! It really wasn't as bad as expected. I lucked out with 2 seats alone on the side, so I was able to kind of lay down in a ball and sleep part of the way. We had personalized televisions just like first class, though the selection was mainly Chinese hits with some random American hits peppered in like "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Crash"...It was your typical, long flight with minor changes like beef & noodles for lunch, Chinese flight attendants and English translations. When we got within an hour of China things started to get a little weird...Along with our customs forms we had health forms to fill out with questions like "have you come into contact with a sick person in the last week?" and "check any that applies" next to symptoms like runny nose, aches, headache, etc--all fairly common in travelers. This seemed strange but no big deal. And then they came to take our temperature. Yes, you read that right. They scanned us, which was not as invasive, but equally weird. They then announced "all passengers cover nose & mouth" and sprayed down the cabin to disinfect it.... We all kept looking at each other like "are they for real?!" Once we got off the plane, we had to walk through infra-red body scanners that were trying to detect "too high" of body heat. There were signs everywhere for quarantine rooms and all employees wore masks. As we went through to get our passports stamped and turn in our forms, I heard Joey say "just from the plane--I have allergies" and then he was whisked off. Apparently he had made the fatal mistake of trying to be honest and marked the box "runny nose". He was inspected and detained for about 20 minutes, after checking him out they demanded to see his medicine and one man came out triumphantly with NyQuil to show his senior officer. They finally let him go, but Joey had to suffer our teasing the rest of the day. Moral of the story---China is scarier then you thought. (some people can be detained indefinitely) We had a 5 hour layover in Beijing and were able to get something to eat in the airport and explore before our 8:30pm flight. When we went to check in we got yet another surprise, out of the 16 of us, only 7 showed up with reservations and the flight was oversold...We had to wait on the floor in front of check in for an hour and a half before they were able to let us know how many seats showed up available. Luckily we all got on, but we had a serious problem with me. On my passport I'm listed as Kaitlin Owens, middle names Marie O'Connell, but on my tickets Keith had put me as Kaitlin OConnellOwens. Finally after many attempts on my part to explain, the gentlemen said "you Owens?!" Finally! He understood! He smiled, and handed me a printed boarding pass with my name, "Owens, Kaitle". *sigh* Security was also interesting, a scan and then a full body rub down, not the pat down like the US---in China it was grabbing and touching everywhere you never wanted to be grabbed or touched...by the time we got to the gate, we were all half dead and laying on the cold tile in wait. Our last flight was only 2 hours long, though one of the scariest I have ever-EVER been on with awful turbulence. We landed at midnight and had officially been traveling for 30 hours.
When we came out of the airport we were stunned by the dark silence. There are no city lights except what's on the buildings or coming from the houses. There isn't a single street light or street sign unless you're in the center of downtown--even then they're really seen as suggestions and while you are supposed to drive on the right side of the road, it's not seen as a requirement. Some roads are VERY poorly kept but paved, while the rest are half-gutted dirt roads. We made our frightful way to the Manna Guest House where we'll be for several days. After being up for nearly a whole day before traveling for 32, plus a 14 hour time difference, all I could manage to do was a quick hot shower before sinking into bed. Day 2 we will be heading out to the feeding centers to play with the kids, help serve lunch and get a chance to talk with those who work for Manna.
This was horrible bottled water in Bejiing that was flavored, we didn't see the English name until after purchase...
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