January 28: Travel to China day 1

We tried to go to bed early the night before, but it just didn’t happen.  There was last minute packing to finish up and instructions to give.  I thought I might be too excited/nervous to sleep, but that really wasn’t the case.  Still, it was a short night.  We got up at 3:30am and were out the door an hour later.

Here we come, China!  The plane took off at about 6:30am after a short delay for de-icing.

Good morning, Chicago!  We arrived in Chicago on time at about 7am.  Yes, a very short flight!

After arriving in Chicago, we found the gate for our next flight and then got some snacks.  We had a few hours to kill but mainly just sat at the gate and entertained ourselves with our phones.  We ended up meeting 2 of the other families in our travel group while waiting.  (A 3rd family in our group was also on our flight.  We just didn’t meet them until later.)

Chicago to Beijing!  Are we ready for a 13.5 hr flight?!  Our flight took off at 12:30pm.

We quickly figured out that we had outlets underneath our seats, despite info to the contrary from various sources (including seat guru online)!  Yay!

A view of the inside of our 747.  We were in the economy plus section, which gave us a little more leg room.  I would definitely do that again, if given the opportunity.  We did not have individual screens for this flight but the screens up in front of us were plenty sufficient.  We really didn’t have any trouble keeping ourselves entertained.  They fed us lunch at 1:30pm or so, a “light snack” (bag supper) at 7pm and breakfast at midnight.  We thought a lot about how much harder it was going to be on the return flight with a toddler!  EEK!