getting closer to Ro

After 2 rather long travel days  and a very long day of killing time in Paris with a man that refused to leave the airport we finally arrived at Shanghai airport and had only a short amount of time to meet our connecting flight to Beijing. The customs area was jam packed and we slowly inched our way towards an inspector with time ticking furiously away. We got the inspector from hell. Every single question known to man: why are you here if you are going to Beijing? Why have you been to China before? ( uh Sparky do you not see our daughter?) Why are you going to Guangzhou? I don't recall what I said but I remember pulling our itinerary out of my bag and showing her and she just said, Oh, and stamped us in. By this time the customs area was EMPTY, honestly. It was a ghost town and we had to run to try and get to the gate for our next flight. As we headed towards, baggage claim, we saw only one elderly couple, again the place was deserted and then to our horror we realized the elderly coople were walking away with our luggage loaded on their cart. We accosted  talked to them in hand and arm gestures and retrieved our luggage and continued on at warped speed.

Our luggage cart was piled so high and we put Lily on top of it, told her to hang on and ran. Thankfully from her vantage point she could see where we were going and was able to spot the gate number before us. The airport was packed. Once we arrived at the gate no one was there, at all. We decided to walk through as it was our only chance of getting on the flight, or getting thrown in jail. Someone met us and ran us to the train. Now we had to take a train. Oh well we made it.

There were loads of soldiers on the train and an old lady (clothing police) who chastised me for the fact that in the frigid temperatures Lily was not wearing a jacket. (she had just taken it off because due to all the excitement and running she was sweating.)  As we were riding the train a 5 star general from the red army, who was flanked by his inferiors, summoned Lily to sit on his lap. It really really bothered me. Bizarre thoughts ran through my head, what if he is Chester Chester child molester, what is he decides to keep her, all these stupid thoughts. Obviously nothing happened and we made it on the connecting flight to Beijing.

Finally the last leg of that journey. We landed in Beijing just minutes before Andie arrived from England. Our guide, Jade, swooped us into a bus and then just as her and I were about to go look for Andie, she appeared. And with that Lily fell fast asleep and we made our way to the Novatel Peace Hotel.

We layed low for a couple of hours and then decided to head out and find some dinner. We lasted about 20 minutes in the cold cold temperatures and headed back o the room to order room service. 2008 had the coldest winter in over 100 yrs and we were lucky enough to be there then. We would see snow for sure.

Zonked. It must have been a long couple of days her socks were black and she had a complete costume change in Paris,

We had only been there a couple of hours and already the locals were showing up for photos with the weird looking people. 

Beijing was brightly decorated for not only Chinese New year but also the upcoming Olympics. Such a great time to travel.

I am so glad I have such an amazing memory as none of this stuff was written down in the original post.