Sunday, December 16, 2012

This day actually started out as Saturday, December 15, 2012 but ended up the evening of Sunday, December 16, 2012.

We left DFW early Saturday morning on a 6:00 am flight.  We made it to PHX uneventful and then on to LAX.  I had never been to LAX before and didn't know what to expect.  Of course there aren't many airports as easy to get around in as DFW.  At LAX nothing is connected so we had to go outside of security, find a bus and ride from terminal 1 to 7.  Once to terminal 7 we walked forever to find a door to go in.  We finally found one and it was baggage claim.  It seems we were supposed to have gone up the escalators outside.  We finally did find our way upstairs and the security line was short so that wasn't bad.  Once inside the secured side of the airport we then went to find the First Class Lounge.  We went in one and were told there was another one down the hall just for international departures so we went to that one.  It was nice but the elevator was broken so we had to walk upstairs.  The lady up there started giving us problems for not having a Chinese Visa.  You don't have to get one if you are in transit (which we are) but we had to explain it to every person we came in contact with.

The plane was completely sold out and they were late boarding.  Once they started boarding we were some of the first on board.  The only thing wrong with this picture is that we were on row 1 and they were boarding people from the front of the plane instead of the middle so it was heck getting our stuff in the overhead bins without people stepping all over us.

They told us we had to have everything stowed for take off an they showed us where there were some little bins next to our seat where we could put our things that we wanted to keep close by so we used those.  Right before closing the cabin doors Krista needed to get something out of her storage and it was broken and she couldn't get it open.  Well we were already late so what is a little bit more.  They had to get maintenance on the plane to fix it.  They told her she was good to go but she was afraid to use it anymore so she put her stuff on my side.

Pretty soon after we took off they served us lunch or dinner or whatever it was.  It seemed like they just kept on bringing the food.  It was all good.  For my entree I ordered some kind of steamed rice with shrimp, bell peppers and other stuff.  It was good but I was getting full so didn't eat it all.  The flight attendant wanted to know if it was any good and I told her it was.  She said I was the first person that had ever ordered it.  After dinner they came around with ice cream sundaes.  They looked delicious but there was no way I could eat anything else so I passed.

We had our own personal TV screen with a nice selection of movies, tv shows, games, etc.  I watched a couple of movies and some TV shows during the flight -- that was in between sleeping.

After one of my naps I woke up and I thought it said we still had 4 hours to go on the flight and they came around and started serving us breakfast.  We were actually only about an hour from Shanghai at that time.

Once we landed, we had to go through immigration and of course since we didn't have Chinese Visas we had to go talk to the supervisor to get things sorted out but they finally let us enter their country.  I will say that so far everyone here has been very nice to us.

Tomorrow morning a car is to pick us up again at 5:45 am to whisk us off to the airport for an 8:45 am flight.  We will fly to Bangkok and then transfer planes and on to Sydney.  That will be another long day and night.  We will get into Sydney the next morning around 7:00 am or so.  I am getting so confused as to the time and what day it is.........