First stop: China

May 30, 2012

Today we began our next adventure...our trip to Asia. Now, we have been to Asia before, and when we returned from our trip to China in 2010 we were glad to have gone and seen what we saw...but we also swore we would not be returning anytime soon. This was not because we did not enjoy the experience and everything we saw and learned, but it was because the modern-day Chinese experience is for the most part a loud, crowded, push-and-shove, rude, unsmiling kind of thing. There were the occasional bright spots, like when school children would smile and wave and say hello, but overall it was not a warm and welcoming feeling that we got from China. More on this later...

So, having sworn not to return anytime soon, we found ourselves on the flights today that will eventually leave us in Chengdu, a city of 11million people on the edge of the high western plateaus of China. We flew out midday on Asiana Airlines and were two of probably no more than 20 westerners on the Airbus A330.

Security is still fun! And maybe it's because we're traveling for pleasure that we noticed the little things...

It is always exciting to be embarking on an adventurous trip, and the plane that would take us to our stopover in Seoul was a very new (and very nice) plane. The seat cushions still had some cushioning, and the carpet was clean.

0 miles traveled...let's light this candle and get going!

We lifted off and captured some great photos from the plane...Patty is learning how to use our new travel camera and is taking photos of everything!

On board the plane, each passenger has his or her own entertainment center with an amazing array of on-demand options...movies, music, games, and even seat-to-seat calling! Of course that requires a handset that has more buttons on it than we though possible to put on a controller so small...

Patty was in 22A and placed a call to me in 22B...it was a local call...

So, we caught up on some movies...so many to choose from...Luckily, we've got some time on our hands...

Patty watched Iron Lady, The Descendents, and Larry Crowne...Michael watched MI3, Hugo and The Three Musketeers, as well as a documentary on the Elephant Gathering in Sri Lanka...

The bathrooms were large and clean (and well-stocked with amenities, because the flight attendants were in there several times during the flight cleaning and re-stocking...Patty said that would never work at United!).

We also had amenities at our seats...look, slippers!

We were served two meals and a snack, all of which were pretty good. And the flight attendants seemed to constantly roam the aisles with orange juice and water throughout the flight. Here's the first meal...

Now, after three movies, two meals and a snack, (and sitting on our rear ends for almost half of a day) we need to make sure we stay fit and feeling good...and they have exercise and self-massage videos to help us with that!

We keep an eye on our progress. What!? We're only halfway there?! Guess we'll play around with the entertainment system a little more...

Finally, after 11.5 hours of flying, we touched down in Seoul, Korea, where it was warm and foggy (?!). The airport is nice, new and pretty large. We walked around to get the blood flowing in our legs and to check out the concourse.

Even though we had cleared security before we got on the flight, and walked through a controlled area in the Seoul airport, we still had to pass through security again before transferring to our flight to Chengdu.

The flight from Seoul to Chengdu was approximately four hours, and boy did we start to feel it as we approached 24 hours without sleep, and 16 hours of flying. On this flight we were not so lucky in terms of the airplane and amenities, and honestly, we were the only non-Asian passengers on the entire plane...talk about feeling a little self-conscious!

We landed in Chengdu after 11:00pm local time...which is 15 hours ahead of the time at home...we'll let you do the math. It is raining hard, and we are so anxious to get to our hotel and get some sleep. By the time we clear Chinese immigration and customs, meet our transfer agent, and get to our hotel, it is after midnight. We get to our room in the Jin Jiang Hotel, which used to the be the former U.S. guest house and also housed the U.S. consulate...so it's an old hotel...and within minutes we are in bed.

Good night Chengdu!