Day 1 – Beijing – The Silva’s have landed in China

We left this morning from SFO and arrived the next afternoon in Beijing. Overall our flight was very uneventful and dare I say relaxing…We were super lucky and were able to upgrade to Business class. Man oh Man…it was wonderful! We were all able to nap off and on and they feed us two meals and a snack. I think Jake will never want to fly coach again, at one point he said “Mom this is the best airplane ever! I love being able to lay down, this is the life.” Well, I must admit that I agree with him but, we are ALL in store for a rude awakening on the way home since all the airline miles are gone and it’s back to coach for us.

We arrived in Beijing a hour before our scheduled arrival time. The airport is huge and new. We went thru quarantine screening without a issue, actually they give you a form to fill out on the plane with your contact information and questions like do you or have you had the flu in the past 7 days and etc ( I answered no to everything)…You then pass thru this area which I assume scans your temp and hand a employee your form. Really no big deal... Next it was on to an area for entry where they checked our visas and passports, then to baggage claim and thru customs. All in all it was really simple. Once we were thru customs we met up with our guide Candy who got us to our hotel. Both Candy and the driver thought we have way too much luggage and are worried that we have problems tomorrow since airlines in China only allow 1 checked piece person and it must be less than 44lbs. Well….we have 2 items each but I think we can carry-on at least 2. Now, the
weight will be a issue but, I am not going to worry about it till tomorrow.

Candy and the driver both made fun of John for wearing shorts and told him he needed to wear pants or else he “might catch the swine flu” John took it in stride and said okay “Tomorrow, I will wear pants” John and I both laughed about it in the room especially since it sounds like something my grandma would say!

After settling into our room we decided to go explore downtown Beijing. Overall the city seems really clean however, everyone spits on the street and it just grosses me out!! (EWWWW!!!) We ended up at six story mall area and found a McDonald's to eat at. It tasted just like home (we all played it safe w/chicken nuggets) We walked around the mall and since it was sooo cold outside Jake decided that he need a hat to keep his head warm. He ended up buying a wolf head hat, so that he can be just like his uncle (for those that don’t know, my brother bought a tiger head hat in Hong Kong that he loves!) People were already staring at Jake (I suppose it’s a combo of his glasses and being American) but after he put on the hat well, people were stopping staring and laughing! Luckily Jake is just like his uncle and could have cared less. Jake also “talked” us into buying him a Star Wars toy w/a couple of figures at the mall, which is fine with us because he
has been an outstanding kid today! He has been very flexible, not worrying and has being trying to go with the flow, plus he has not made any rude comments and has done amazingly well with the smells, he didn’t even comment about how bad the van we got in reeked and it did reek! Now we are back at the hotel and now are getting ready for bed. Both John & I are very proud of how he is embracing this adventure!

We also got reemed at the hotel when he bought bottle water..we had more for 3, 8oz bottle waters than we did for our Mcdonalds dinner. They are charging $6 bucks USA per each bottle?! But what choice do we have??? John is still miffed!! :)

Tomorrow we head for the airport at 5:30am and our flight heads to Xining at 7:45am. We will land at around 11am and sometime that afternoon we will meet Madison. Overall the experience is still very surreal for me (& John too!). Knock on wood that the rest of our trip will go as well as today did!