Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 7:01 a.m.
By Terry R. Cassreino
BEIJING – Here are a few notes and observations from the first two days of our adoption trip.
Quiet airport
We arrived in Beijing on Tuesday night to a eerily vacant airport.
I think we were one of two or three flights that arrived about 9 p.m. to the airport. Nevertheless, most of the retail stores there were closed, leaving travelers with few options to buy a Coke or bottled water.
We also had a little trouble finding our representative from Lotus Travel, who was supposed to take us to Hotel Kunlun. That, however, was my problem: I forgot to pack the tags from Lotus we were supposed to wear on arrival, which would have made it easier to spot us.
We found here and arrived safe.
But it was the airport that struck me, especially after stopping in the extremely busy Tokyo and Detroit airports. In fact, the Tokyo airport was so busy Pam and I found it difficult to navigate.
Freeway ride
Traffic on the freeway from the airport to the hotel was heavy.
That didn't come as much of a surprise to me, though. A gentleman who sat next to me on the Tokyo-Beijing flight is an American who lives in China. He told me the traffic can be so bad that a trip from downtown Beijing to the airport can sometimes take two hours. Two hours. To put that in perspective, the airport is no farther from downtown than the New Orleans International is to the French Quarter.
Our drive from the airport wasn't quite that long. But I was surprised by the heavy traffic.
Nice hotel
The Hotel Kunlun so far is nice.
We were told our rooms in China would be smaller than those in the United States. But based on the Hotel Kunlun, I disagree. Pam and I have a nice size room with a king-sized bed, a desk, Internet access and a color television.
Reception, by the way, is nice.
We can get CNN, a movie channel caled Star, the Chinese version of HBO (with movies in English and subtitles in Chinese) and several Chinese stations. We likely won't get "The Spranos" and "American Idol," so we'll have to play catch-up when we return.
We haven't tried the food. But the hotel has several restaurants (including Chinese,Korean and Indian cuisine). I understand the breakfast buffet fatures Chinese, Japanese and Korean dishes. We'll find out soon enough.
No adoption news
No news yet on the adoption front.
We did ride back to the hotel with another couple from Portland, Ore., who is adopting through Holt (although through another province and not Jiangxi like we are). And I ran into another family this morning in the hotel lobby who are adopting through Holt.
As the families begin arriving, I'm sure Pam and I will meet more of them. Apparently, Holt may have as many as 30 families here this week.
Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino
A little about Mississippi, a little about Louisiana, a little about New Orleans and A LOT about our adoption story. This blog and our adoption story is dedicated to Camryn and Matthew Cassreino so that you both will know. Copyright 2021 by Terry R. Cassreino
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
24-hour plus trip ends with Beijing arrival
Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 11:55 p.m.
By Terry R. Cassreino
BEIJING – We made it.
After a long, tiring 24-plus hour trip that began at 9 a.m. Central Time on Monday (well, actually 5 a.m. when we left Hattiesburg) we arrived in Beijing and checked into our hotel, Hotel Kunlun, at about 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Here's where the concept of time gets tricky, so bear with me.
Beijing is 14 hours ahead of Central Time. So while Pam and I arrived at 9 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, it actually was 11 p.m. Tuesday Beijing time. That's correct: We lost a full 14 hours on the trip over.
Pam and I are tired, drained, exhausted and full from all that airplane food. We were in such a hurry to get to the hotel to sleep that we didn't even have time to take photos marking our arrival.
The photo you see on the left was taken at about 3 a.m. CDT in the Tokyo airport. We had just arrived from Detroit and were waiting in the stifling heat (I guess the air conditioner was out at the airport) for our connecting flight to Beijing.
As you can tell, Pam's already exhausted.
The thing is I couldn't tell if she was tired from sitting; tired from trying to recline in an unreclinable chair between Detroit and Tokyo; or tired from counting the number of endless, prefabricated airplane meals the flight attendants (who weren't that friendly, I might add) passed out every 30 minutes.
Curious about plane food? Well, here's a sample of what we dined on.
Besides the food, the sound system was out the entire 13-hour flight from Detroit to Tokyo -- which meant that we couldn't watch and enjoy such top-notch films as “Pride and Prejudice” and that Dennis Quaid hit “Yours, Mine and Ours” (all of which were pan-and-scanned anyway).
One thing of note: Pam did watch “Walt Disney’s Chicken Little” on the flight from Tokyo to Beijing . She gives the film a big thumbs up. Now that was a nice flight. We each had our own television monitor mounted on the seat in front of us. Along with that, we had access to our own video-on-demand system (I watched part of “Rent”).
Well, at least we are in Beijing. And on tap for today: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm drained from traveling. I need to rejuvenate. Pam needs to rejuvenate. And we need to get ready for the big moment of the week: Gotcha Day on Monday, April 3.
On my next post later today, look for more photos.
It’s 11:51 p.m. Tuesday. And I’m going to sleep.
Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino
By Terry R. Cassreino
BEIJING – We made it.
After a long, tiring 24-plus hour trip that began at 9 a.m. Central Time on Monday (well, actually 5 a.m. when we left Hattiesburg) we arrived in Beijing and checked into our hotel, Hotel Kunlun, at about 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Here's where the concept of time gets tricky, so bear with me.Beijing is 14 hours ahead of Central Time. So while Pam and I arrived at 9 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, it actually was 11 p.m. Tuesday Beijing time. That's correct: We lost a full 14 hours on the trip over.
Pam and I are tired, drained, exhausted and full from all that airplane food. We were in such a hurry to get to the hotel to sleep that we didn't even have time to take photos marking our arrival.
The photo you see on the left was taken at about 3 a.m. CDT in the Tokyo airport. We had just arrived from Detroit and were waiting in the stifling heat (I guess the air conditioner was out at the airport) for our connecting flight to Beijing.
As you can tell, Pam's already exhausted.
The thing is I couldn't tell if she was tired from sitting; tired from trying to recline in an unreclinable chair between Detroit and Tokyo; or tired from counting the number of endless, prefabricated airplane meals the flight attendants (who weren't that friendly, I might add) passed out every 30 minutes.
Curious about plane food? Well, here's a sample of what we dined on.
- A snack on the 9 a.m. on the Northwest flight to Detroit.
- A diet drink and pretzels 45 minutes after our 12:45 p.m. flight left Detroit.
- Dinner at about 1:30 p.m., featuring terriyaki chicken with white rice, green beans and rubbery chocolate cake.
- Snack time at about 7 p.m. featuring a turkey sandwhich and a Diet Coke.
- Breakfast at about midnight (which actually was late morning Tokyo time) featuring chicken fried rice (don't ask me why they served fried rice for breakfast).
- Snack time at about 6:30 p.m. (Beijing time) on the flight from Tokyo to Beijing.
- Dinner at about 7 p.m. featuring chicken noodles, a salad and another slice of rubbery cake.
Besides the food, the sound system was out the entire 13-hour flight from Detroit to Tokyo -- which meant that we couldn't watch and enjoy such top-notch films as “Pride and Prejudice” and that Dennis Quaid hit “Yours, Mine and Ours” (all of which were pan-and-scanned anyway).
One thing of note: Pam did watch “Walt Disney’s Chicken Little” on the flight from Tokyo to Beijing . She gives the film a big thumbs up. Now that was a nice flight. We each had our own television monitor mounted on the seat in front of us. Along with that, we had access to our own video-on-demand system (I watched part of “Rent”).
Well, at least we are in Beijing. And on tap for today: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm drained from traveling. I need to rejuvenate. Pam needs to rejuvenate. And we need to get ready for the big moment of the week: Gotcha Day on Monday, April 3.
On my next post later today, look for more photos.
It’s 11:51 p.m. Tuesday. And I’m going to sleep.
Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino
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