CHINA BOUND

Okay, before I start, let me say that I cannot actually "see" my own blog due to censorship issues. We are, however, able to make posts through a backdoor loophole.....   Hi everybody…Guess where we are????? That's right - CHINA! Okay, so as am I'm writing this, we are in fact NOT in China, but it will be posted once we are settled in the hotel. At present, we are in an area that does not have service. We are, in fact, flying directly over the Arctic (dead center of the North Pole)! We are seated within the interior aisle, so we had to take a peek out of an exit window. I have included a picture of the spectacular view! We only saw it briefly, so as not to block the way but MAN is this cool!  So far we are 3856 miles from Beijing. We have traveled a distance of  2896 miles since we departed from Chicago. We are flying at an altitude of 34500 ft.  It is a whopping  -56 degrees F outside and we are expecting to land at 2:37 p.m. (you're a.m.). So enough with the stats…on to the gossip. There is another family beside us from another agency. With them are their 17ish biological daughter and 6 year old Chinese daughter. I believe they are from Texas.? Well, anyway…their original flight was canceled so they were added to this flight. As it turns out, they were not able to be seated together…the wife was assigned a few rows back, the dad was in front of the girls, but sitting w/ someone else. Its hard to describe the scene. There was sooooo much drama. The parents insisted on sitting together without any regard for the Chinese gentleman that had purchased the pricier Economy Plus seating. (We were originally assigned to Econ too but were given a complimentary upgrade). The poor guy was stuck standing in the aisle w/ flight attendants doing their best to rectify the situation. The couple then became belligerent! The woman started crying and saying that she refused to move, she'd had a long day, and paid a lot of money for her seat. The husband stood up and started raising his voice. Arrogant, entitled little worm. He was asked to "step outside" by flight attendants, a marshal, and the Captain!!!! He refused to budge!!! They basically gave him his options…1) keep it up and be removed and heavily fined or 2) sit down, be quiet, and the wife needs to sit in HER seat. The poor kids never said a word - we were mortified for them. I mean, really, in this era of flight risks/security, he wants to throw a fit to get comp'd a couple bucks??? They nearly blew the entire family's plan and some child's hope for a family. I suspect that their children have and will witness many more parental tantrums trying to bully their way into getting needs met. Sad, sad. Once we took off, his bravado ended and it was a nice trip. Back to happy  thoughts. We still have another 6 hrs to go, but so far my back has held out despite all the sitting. The extra leg room is nice (we have a couple more inches of floor space than we were supposed to have). We napped for a few minutes, but it is pretty tricky to get comfortable enough to stay asleep. We had stayed up until about 12:30 finalizing everything at home and showering, etc. Unfortunately, even though I was exhausted, I couldn't't get my brain to stop (worrying that I missed something) and was never able to fall asleep. I ended up spending the next few hours cleaning and organizing more until it was time to leave. My eyes are very strained, but I don't feel tired. We'll need to stay awake when we land because it will be midday.  I imagine that this may become a very long post if I have the time and energy to write more after we are done sight seeing today. I still can't believe that we started the day in NH, went to Chicago, saw polar ice caps, and will be checking into the Marriott in Beijing and having dinner. That my friends, is a FULL day. What did you do today??   ...Okay, back again. It is about 10 pm. We are positively beat. I am posting some pictures of the flight, us/group at the Beijing Airport Terminal, and some buildings from the tour bus window as we drove to our hotel. We had dinner at a local noodle shop and returned to our room to set up the Internet.   The families within our group are great. It's definitely nice to have others to ask questions (in case one of us misses something.) Our Beijing guide, Rose, is very helpful and interesting. Tomorrow we will go to the Great Wall and do some serious steps (none of them are uniform and the rise is much higher than we are accustomed to using).  We will also visit the Olympic sights: The Birdnest and the Cube. If we are not too tired following this, we will attend an acrobatic performance or see a Chinese opera. Well, I am having to go back and fix several typos because I am too tired to see straight. I'm going to post some picts and hit the upholstered plywood...I mean mattress.  :) Good Night/Good Morning!  ....Okay I have been fighting w/ my computer to download the photos, but it isn't working and Rob passed out 290 minutes ago. I'll try again tomorrow when i can think straight. Bye!  -Beth