The Journey from Des Moines to Beijing

Well, the trip from Des Moines to Beijing was long and difficult, but here’s a quick summary of what happened:

We left Des Moines for Detroit on a teeny tiny plane with minimal difficulties, and had about two hours to spend at the Detroit airport. We took the opportunity to take a look around, as it was a pretty neat place. (And, at the time, the biggest airport I’d been in. That changed in Tokyo…) There was a beautiful fountain – you probably can’t tell in the picture, but the water’s actually running over the edge. When going from one part of the airport to another, there’s a long tunnel where you’re surrounded by lights changing colors and some weird music. No idea why it’s there, but it’s pretty cool. Just as Courtney, JoAnn and I were about to leave for our gate, we found a tree where people had signed the rocks around it, so we thought we’d leave our mark.

Then we boarded for the long flight (12 hours) for Tokyo. I didn’t get much sleep, and the sound for the movies wasn’t working (so I enjoyed silent versions of Music & Lyrics, Freedom Writers, and Happily N’ever After), but the people sitting around us were super nice. Next to Courtney was a college student who was going home after studying at a university in Boston, and there was a family in front of us with a very precocious 5-year old. Her mother was Chinese and her father was Algerian, and she was fluent in both Cantonese and English and so adorable.

After landing in Tokyo we were rushed through security (we had less than an hour before departure) and found our seats for what we thought was our four hours in the air! But after an hour of sitting on the runway, we were herded back into the airport, and told to come back to our gate in an hour. We used that hour frantically trying to get a hold of Lisa (BR intern program director). Shortly after we finally got a phone card to work, our flight was cancelled. Long story short, we ended up spending the night at the Tokyo Bay Hotel (after going through Japanese immigration) where we slept for about 3 ½ hours before leaving for the airport in the morning.

And that flight finally took us to Beijing!