Thursday, November 19th

I couldn't access my blog while in China, so I "blogged" on my computer and saved my posts. Here's the start of my trip...

I woke up at 3:15am this morning and was out the door to head to the airport somewhere around 4:30am. My first flight from Nashville to Chicago took off at 6:10am, and here I am, sitting at my gate in the Beijing airport, 27 hours from when I woke up, waiting for my final flight to my destination...Qingdao, China. God bless Lisa that she does this more than once a year. I thought I was going to explode the last 3 hours of the Chicago to Seoul leg of the trip. Speaking of Seoul, that is by far the most amazing airport I’ve ever seen. I took a free hot shower in a seriously pimped out private bathroom in the Korean Air “rest lounge” level (although the sinks are really low to the ground – but you know, I’m not the average height for the country). The gate was the largest and most beautiful gate I’ve ever seen...I seriously need to take a picture of it (and I will on the way back), but I was way too tired to even think of pulling out my camera. I’m so so glad that I’m going to spend the rest of my time here with Lisa...because I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to not understand a lick of what you’re looking at when you’re trying to follow signage. I’m very grateful for the universal male/female sign for the restrooms – or I’d just have to take a gamble and go in one of them hoping I guessed right. I can’t say the people have been very helpful...to be honest, many have been borderline rude, but I’m also incredibly tired and probably can’t make the best judgment call on anything right now. It also doesn’t help that I’m that tourist that can’t even attempt to communicate in their language...so I definitely lose major points for that. Regardless, I’ve made all my connections, gone through customs multiple times, gone through security entirely too many times and although it looks like my final flight of the night is delayed 30minutes, overall it’s been a very smooth looooong day of flying. I hope my time here seems even longer than it actually is so that it doesn’t seem like I just turn around and do this all over again. Alright, well I’m falling asleep as I type this (I’m too old for all-nighters!), so I’m going to rest my eyes for a bit until the plane arrives. Almost there!!