Off We Go!

Well, off we go is right. When we got to LA we had no idea that we would have to leave the airport, take a certain bus to the China Air terminal and then check in there. Everything went quite smoothly except for the lack of knowledge so having to ask and ask again about things. We got there about 15 minutes before the Halladays although they left SLC an hour after us.

As we were standing, waiting for the bus I spoke to a young man next to me and asked if he was waiting for the same bus. He was. He is going to another city in China to do an internship with a program he is a part of at the Univ. of Hawaii. Somehow I mentioned that we were from BYU and he said that he had graduated from the Y. He has a wife and 3 children that he was leaving home because his 5-year-old has asthma and the pollution in Qhangzhou is so bad he didn't think it would be good for her. I pulled out my China Teacher's book and gave him the names of 4 couples who would be teaching there. His response was, "Isn't it amazing how you can feel so lonely and then you feel like you have family. One more time I was so grateful for my membership in the Church.

We were very blessed on our China Air flight. We had a whole row of 5 seats between the 2 of us. I slept on 4 of them and Mike leaned back on the other. It was a pretty good night. The food was Chinese--fried rice for one meal and a noodle dish for the other. As we got to Beijing we had quite a scare. The wheels came down, he hit the runway and bounced and jerked and then took off again. Mike said, "I think he is doing a touch and go." Sure enough he was. The attendant came on and said that because of the weather conditions we were told to circle until notified. It was just a few minutes until we came in again and this time the landing was smooth. Because we were late, had to go through medical and the other loops we were pushing it for time to catch our plane here. We got into the customs line and they announced that the scales were broken so we would need to go up to the 4th floor. We got up there and a guy helped us to get out of there on time. He pushed his way into the line and sent our bags on without going though customs at all. He wanted more money from each of us than we gave him but he did well for the few minutes he helped us and we certainly wouldn't have made it without him.

We were met at the Qingdao airport by our Waiban, Shirley and a bus and driver. They were so very warm and welcoming.

I'll write tomorrow and send pictures of our apartment, etc.

Love to all, Mom