We got up early on Wed morning and woke the kids so they could come to the Airport with us. They were excited about seeing planes and coming with us, so that took a bit of the edge off of our goodbyes. I tried to stay strong for them and give lots of hugs and kisses- but once they walked around the corner I pretty much lost it. It is so hard to leave them...we already miss them so very much...thankful for amazing family to take care of them until we come home!
So the flying was an adventure :). I'm not a huge fan of air travel anyway...so take this with a grain of salt...but that flight was LONG. Like 'I wasn't sure if we would ever make it to China because we've been on this plane our entire lives' long. Still, we were incredibly thankful to be on it because we nearly missed it! Our conmecting flight to JFK was delayed for over 1.5 hours due to "fuse and engine problems". That was not inspiring confidence in us, lol. They had to call maintenance to come fix the issue and run tests, but thankfully we didn't need a new plane, so we were able to leave and they flew fast to make up for it.
We landed with over an hour to make our next flight, but ran into more issues. Our flight was is a different terminal and no one could tell us how to get there. We wasted 30 mins while the help desk tried to convince us that China Southern didn't fly out of JFK...uh yes they do! Basically- we had to exit the airport, take an air train to the new terminal, check in with our international flight, go BACK through security, and get to our departing gate.
When we finally made it to check in we were informed that we were the last two people on the plane and our seats weren't together. Thankfully, someone was moved and we did get to sit with eachother. We also were personally escorted through security to our gate by a China southern employee since we were cutting it so close. I'm not sure if we would have made it if they hadn't let us cut lines.
We got to the gate just in time to board and take off for China! We had a nice tailwind so the flight took 16 hours- we got maybe 1 hour of sleep, watched three movies, talked, walked the aisles, and ate three meals of fried rice and chicken. It was actually a very nice flight- just long and uncomfortable in those cramped seats. It was also our first experience being the minority as everyone on the plane was Chinese and only a few flight attendants understood English. We got to practice a bit of our limited mandarin and lots of gestures :)
When we landed we went through health security (temperature check), immigration, and customs. Then we met our guide and driver who took us to our hotel- which was 5 miles away but took over an hour to reach in the city traffic! Driving is crazy y'all...honking, swerving, slamming on breaks...quite an experience.
The hotel is gorgeous...comfy beds, cool A/C, amazing breakfast buffet.
Today we shop for personal items and explore the city. Tomorrow we meet up with the rest of the families flying in. Sunday is paperwork day and then Monday we get Zachary!!!
I'll share more later. Jet lag is hitting and off to sleep we go!
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