Yep, only place the VPN and Internet works...go figure! I'm going to try to make this short and sweet because we have a BIG day today so here it goes:
We did finally leave Chicago on Wednesday around 2pm CST...we had been delayed an hour for non other than maintenance. Seems to be our thing lately ;) So we got on our plane and started our trip. Well, about 9 hours into our ahem 14 hour flight, an announcement came over the loud speaker for any medical professional to push their call button for help with a situation. I was just about sleeping at this point, but something inside of me, (I don't know, like my guilty conscious,) told me to get up and push the light. I'm glad I did because not one single other person on the plane responded! Of course I can't disclose the full situation, but I was able to help this man, and we got him to a stable condition that was necessary for us to continue our trip. The flight attendants and mentioned to me that if his condition wouldn't have changed, that we would've had to have turned back around and landed in Alaska, which would've grounded us for another day...NOOOOOO!!!! My "patient" happened to be in the Economy Plus section of the plane, and they wanted me closer to him for the remainder of the flight, so they moved us into his section...the emergency exit row with LOTS of leg room for the mister.
Yesterday I was really thinking long and hard about our trip, and how we had had so many challenges getting out on time, etc., trying to see God's plan through it all. I've been really trying hard to focus on thanking God not only in the good times, but those times that I struggle and don't understand the plan. Well, I figured out the plan when I was on this flight. We were meant to be on that plane. If I hadn't been on that plane, there would've been no one else to help that man. Praise the Lord!
So when we landed in Beijing, we only had about an hour and a half to get through immigration, hopefully claim the one checked bag that we were told up until 5 minutes before boarding had not arrived to United yet from American. The bag that had 98% of everything we had packed for our little guy in it! We got to the baggage claim, not knowing how long to wait vs. go on to catch our domestic flight, and wouldn't you know, our bag pops out right away! Ahhh we were SO thankful! We met our guide, (who was super amazing and got us checked in for our domestic flight and to the right area of the terminal,) and then we were on our way to Zhangjiajie...the only on time flight we have had so far in our trip! Once again we were very blessed at the airport. The Beijing airport is MASSIVE, and has lots of terminals. We landed into terminal 3, and also left out of a different area of the terminal. The airline we flew domestically is the only one to go out of terminal 3, and our guide said that if we had to leave the terminal, it would've added on at least another 20 minutes, which would've made it challenging for us to make our flight. Yet another praise!
The flight to Zhangjiajie was awesome until the end. Just as we were about 10-20 feet from landing, the pilot all of the sudden pulls us back up into the sky. Seriously people, we were even with the airport building when we went back up! If you know me at all, you now know that I'm in complete freak out mode and on the verge of the biggest anxiety attack EVER! Oh and of course, Michael is seated two rows ahead of me, so I have no one to cling to in my moments of terror! We were re-routed on to a city called Changsha, which is actually the city where we will be meeting our little guy on Monday! At this point, I was seriously ready to get off there and just hibernate in our hotel room for the next three days. There was no way I wanted to try that again! But, the pilot got on the intercom, telling us that it was weather that had caused him to abruptly change his mind about landing, and that the weather issue had passed so we were going to try again. So at 11pm local time (which is also 11pm in the morning the next day in Ohio, after being up since 5am the previous day,) we were going to be headed back to our destination. We did successfully land in Zhangjiajie...the smallest airport I have been to so far in my life, and drove another 40 minutes to our hotel. We finally arrived at 1am. Yes, we were tired. :)
So that pretty much sums up the high points of our journey after leaving Chicago. It's been quite the adventure, that's for sure! Sorry for the book...there was lots to update on! As I'm writing this, we already are finishing up another day, so I will write another post for our first full day in China soon!
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