Arrival in Beijing

I wish I could say that our travel to Beijing was smooth, but it was far from it. We arrived at the airport at 5am and checked in our baggage. The lady at the checkin counter was very nice and said she was so excited to meet people that were moving to Beijing. The security line was very short. We ate breakfast at the airport and then found out that our flight was delayed 2 hours, due to the wildfires in California.

Because our flight was so late, we missed our connecting flight and had to be rerouted to Shanghai. We only had 1 hour to get to the gate to fly to Shanghai.

The United rep said that we were not in the system and had to go to customer service. They said we would not make it onto that flight. I started walking to customer service and then realized that the United app said we were confirmed on that flight. I then walked over to the counter and fought with the agent and they got me on the flight. I also confirmed that my baggage was on the flight. The flight to Shanghai was pretty smooth and we had a whole row to ourselves.

We watched movies, slept, and got fed meals. I saw some really good movies (John McCain Documentary, Mr Rogers, and Book Club). When we arrived in Shanghai, we had to go through customs. After we went through customs, I didn't know where to go. I looked for our luggage on the carousel and it wasn't there. Then, we had to go out of the terminal. Everything was in Chinese and I didn't know where to go. I couldn't communicate with anyone. I almost started crying. We were told that we needed to go back and get our luggage, which made us go back through security again. Our luggage still wasn't there. We then came back out and tried to figure out where to get our boarding pass. We had to ask about 5 people. We had to walk to the other end of the airport. We ended up in a long line and finally got our pass. After that, it was smooth and we ended up on a 2 ½ hour flight from Shanghai to Beijing. When we arrived at 12am, our baggage wasn't there and I had to try to explain this to people who did not speak English. We ended up filing a lost baggage claim and they walked me out to a representative from the school. He took us to our hotel and gave us 4,000 RMB and said another school representative would be there at 2pm the next day. Carly and I slept until 1:40pm and I had no clothes to wear. I ended up putting on Carly's leggings. Carly was in good spirits and the school bought us lunch and got me a phone, which took 2 hours. Then, Carly's teacher met us to help me shop for clothes and eat dinner.

She was very helpful. I loved the food, but could not find shoes that were big enough to fit my feet. All of the shirts and pants were too short. We came back and went to bed. Carly was supposed to go to school the next day and I was supposed to find apartments. We both woke up at 2:30am and I knew we were going to be exhausted, but Carly was super excited to go to school.

Her teacher met us at the bus stop and took her to school.

I then hopped on a scooter with an agent to look for apartments. The ride was a little nerve-racking. The first apartment looked pretty nice, but I didn't want to make a decision right away. The next 2 apartments were trashed, so I asked to see the 1st one again. I thought I would get it. But, after thinking for a while, I decided not to make a decision right away. This was very difficult to communicate because my agent and I were communicating through an app in her phone. She put me on a taxi to the school and when I arrived, Carly was crying. She was exhausted.

But, she had lots of little girls hanging around her. I looked around the whole school and she was only 1 of 3 white kids. I spent 4 hours getting my laptop, ID, and getting introduced to everyone. When school was over, Carly said she never wanted to go back. Everything was too hard and the teachers were too strict. We took a bus home and she fell asleep right when she hit the pillow. I fell asleep too and got woken up by the agent asked to show us more apartments. I had to wake Carly up, but she would not open her eyes. So, I had to carry her around looking at apartments. I found one that I REALLY like and it had lots of families and dogs in the courtyard. It was very clean and I got to talk to the man who was moving out. He spoke English. I knew this was the right one. We walked into the real estate office to sign many, many papers. Carly slept on the chair. When she woke up, she buckled over in pain. She said her stomach was hurting really bad. The agent took us to the store and got us medicine. It was a bunch of little black balls that you swallow with water. Carly said it tasted like frog food. We both slept good that night and Carly woke up in much better spirits. We ate breakfast and talked to family and spent the day shopping and visiting the park.

The grocery store had live fish moving around and Carly got grossed out. The park was beautiful and had huge fish for kids to feed. It was called Wanghe park.

We didn't see a single white person, but all of the Chinese kids and parents were very friendly. We enjoyed watching the locals playing with their children. We finally had a nice relaxing day and Carly said she loved China.

Carly and I have had many struggles and we know that will be many more. But, we knew things would be hard and we both love this wonderful country and know that we will come back much stronger and smarter. I am so glad that Carly is here with me and I am so proud of her for her strength and tenacity. At one point, I mentioned that I could take us back to the USA and she screamed, "NO!"