We were originally scheduled to travel to China in December 2003, on a 10-day trip returning before Christmas (the US State Department discourages Americans from traveling to China between Christmas and New Year's Day). Due to some difficulties with financing, and wanting to spend a few extra days in Beijing, we elected to go with a smaller group in January. We found out later that a smaller group meant much smaller, two families.
We flew out of Philadelphia on December 31, 2003, about 9:00 am, flew to Los Angeles, where we made a quick connection, and arrived in Beijing on January 1, 2004, having no idea where we were when they year turned over, or even if it had since we had crossed the International Date Line. One complication in the flight turned into an insignificant worry. We were told when we arrived at the gate that the plane was overbooked, and we might not get on the flight. Immediate reaction was "they can't do this to us! this is an important trip" - and then I realized that it was just as important to everyone else on that plane too. I excuse myself to go to the bathroom down the hall, and used that time as an opportunity to do a discrete prayer vigil. "God, please get us there on time". Immediately, in my "mind's ear", I heard a response which was almost as clear as if I heard it from another person: "everything's taken care of - don't worry about your trip, don't worry about the adoption. Your trip will be successful". The strength of what I heard surprised me. I returned to the waiting area where I told Amy of my yet-to-be answered prayer, and we waited. They called all the rows. We were still waiting. They shut the doors to the jetway. Again still waiting. There are a lot of people bumped from this flight, us among them. We wait a long time, but the plane is not leaving. Suddenly they call our name, open the doors, and tell us, "hurry - get on, you've got a seat" I think there were just about four people let on after they reopened the doors.
We made our connection in Los Angeles on time, though it was a little stressful in that we had to move fast to get our next boarding pass and to another terminal in time. We made it just prior to boarding. No problems with overbooking this time. We were overcome with the size of the plane, it was huge! And almost all the people on board the plane were Chinese, and many of them spoke little or no English. We were fortunate to be seated behind an American woman, her Chinese husband, and two children, who were returning to their home in Beijing after visiting her family here in America for Christmas.
The flight was very long, it seemed like it took forever (actually we were in the air for twelve hours - and the time from arriving at the Philadelphia to arriving at the Beijing airport was 24 hours). We arrived in Beijing on January 1, 6pm, local time. One thing interesting about China: it has only one time zone, even though the country is wide enough to accomodate about four of them. Anyone living way out west in China has a very late sunrise and sunset, about the equivalent of someone living in California having their clock set to the Eastern time zone.