China Day 1: Travel

As some of you already know, Molly and I have been on a two week trip to China. Since China blocks Blogspot (and Facebook and most of Google and Dear Abby and….) I posted my trip on Molly’s old adoption website. I want to repost the trip here because I periodically turn this blog into keepsake books for Molly. If you have already seen these posts, my apologies. If you haven’t, I  hope you enjoy following out journey to China!

Welcome! Pull up a chair for the new few weeks because we are heading to China.

Taking a four year old on a trip to China involves more than 26 straight hours of travel on four planes with more luggage and carry-on than you can possibly manage, stops in various airports in three different countries, bus rides with no child safety seats, and waiting in hotel lobbies where people randomly approach and speak to you in a foreign language. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it?

Actually, it was surprisingly smooth. No crying, no tantrums, and a minimum of whining. And Molly did great, too! Seriously, I was a little worried about carting my daughter to the other side of the world, but it couldn't have gone better. She was a trooper. So were all of the kids in our little group. Amazing.

After a looooooooooooooong day, we are safe and sound in China. Want to see what things looked like along the way?

Packed up and ready to leave. Flight 1: Home to Denver.

Flight 2 took us to Seattle, WA. Here are the kids waiting to board the plane. Wow. It was cloudy and raining in Seattle. Now there's a surprise!

Luke and Molly. The first of many pictures of this duo that you will see on this journey, I am sure.

Flight 3: Seattle to Tokyo. Yep. This was the long one.

Molly slept for 8 of the 11 hours. And I only gave her one Benadryl. Honest. The kid can sleep, I tell ya.

The stroller that we named "Sherpa 1." It hauled luggage for us through every single airport.

Waiting for our plane in Tokyo. The airport was so fun that we would love to go back and actually visit the city!

We all sampled a shrimp hamburger at the McDonalds in Tokyo because where else are you going to have a chance to eat a shrimp burger?

Flight 5: Tokyo to Beijing.

We had awesome seats on this flight! Gotta love an upgrade!

These two are like energizer bunnies when they are together. They just keep going and going and going and going.

The Ahern's with all of our luggage. There's a lot. Enough said.

Molly sneakin' and a peekin' with the Asia Games mascots in the Beijing airport.

Any guesses what this is? A toll booth. They make things very fancy here in China.

Ahhh, finally at our hotel room in Beijing.

And look, it even comes with portable gas masks in case you get caught in a fire. Those Chinese...they think of everything, don't they.

Now the fun begins. We are heading to bed at 1:30 am. We have to be dressed, fed and ready to tour by 8:00. Yes eight. In the morning. That gives us oooh, about 5 hours to sleep. That should be enough for a little kid, don't you think? Tomorrow may be ugly, but hey, we're in China, Baby!