Shangri-La La La!

Hello everyone!

Here we are in China! Lucia keeps reminding us that "I am in China, I went on a BIG airplane." We are currently staying at the Shangri-La hotel in downtown Dalian, and it is VERY posh. We have a two bathroom suite (girls both conked out in the king size bed right now), with two rooms and in addition to the king, we have a pull-out cot for Lucia and a crib for Magdalena.

I wish I could post pics, but we can't find our camera adapter at the moment, and don't really feel like digging through all our luggage to look for it. :-) That will have to wait! Hopefully we brought it...!!!

First off - the flight. I was dreading the 24+ hours of travel start to finish, but things went much better than we could have hoped. My folks helped us check in on Tuesday morning in Portland - we all stayed at an airport hotel. So we got to PDX around 6:45 am for our 10:30 am flight, checked in all our checked luggage, then went back to the hotel for breakfast and relaxing before returning and going through the family security line around 9:15.

The first flight was a puddle-jump to Seattle - didn't even break out the digi-player on that one, and gate checked our two carseats. After a remarkably calm 2+ hour layover in Seattle (helped to have the double-decker stroller where the back folds down for Magdalena to sleep), we boarded our Korean Air flight for Seoul. This was the doozy - 10.5 hours. We got some help from the stewardesses to load up the carseats and since the plane was a 3-3-3 seat configuration, we had Magdalena at the window, me in the middle, Lucia on the aisle, and Alex on the aisle across from us. We had plenty (too much!) of food - didn't need to bring all the snacks I did - and Lucia watched the digi player, as well as Snow White on the seat back in front of her, for most of the flight. We did have one poop blow-out from Magdalena resulting in a major outfit change as well as a disposable drop cloth in her seat the rest of the flight (after scrubbing with my clean-wipes a few times) - but that was the worst of it. Magdalena basically nursed, slept, and giggled on my lap for the duration of the flight - did not cry even once believe it or not! Lucia was pretty good except for a few times when I tried to convince her to use the headset to listen to the movies she was watching and she didn't want to. Oh well!

In Seoul, we had to go through a Security check (not customs, and did not have to get our bags from checked status). This was the only meltdown Lucia had - she generally takes 10-15 minutes to "warm up" after a nap, and we had to wake her at the end of the flight - she basically fell asleep about 3 hours before landing (around 8 pm PST) and did NOT want to get up. So she kind of freaked out in front of the Korean officials who were already skeptical of us given that we did not have boarding passes to China yet as Korean Air in Seattle couldn't issue them, since we changed to a Chinese airline for that last leg to Dalian. Oh well, she got back to her usual self soon enough, and we had a great time in a Kids Playland area of the incredibly clean (despite the disgusting smoking rooms with sliding doors that allow foul-smelling cigarette smoke into the lobby in certain areas) Seoul Airport. I got some good shots of it, but there was a roller slide into a big pool of plastic balls. Lucia played with a few other kids there for a lot of our 4 hour layover in Seoul. Magdalena, aka Traveling Trooper, nursed and played with a toy, then slept again in the airport.

We had a slight scare before boarding the East China Air flight to Dalian where they were saying we could not gate check the double stroller. We realized this would be mayhem on our plans, as we had enough bags to not allow us to each carry a child in addition to taking the bags, and Lucia was exhausted and confused enough to not want to walk whenever we entered a new place. Fortunately there was an empty row and we were able to bring the stroller on the plane with us. We landed in Dalian with very little fanfare - and to our immense relief ALL 16 pieces of checked luggage plus the 2 carseats that we checked just for the last leg were present and accounted for. Alex had bought these bright orange (safety vest orange) straps to put around each of the 12 Rubbermaid bins that we used instead of suitcases, and all but 2 were gone. It looked like TSA only went through one bin, and no one opened the others, or our 3 suitcases, plus the 1 running stroller = 16 total checked items.

Alex loaded our luggage onto three carts (free internationally, but $4 at PDX - yipes!). We were wondering how we'd get out with me pushing the double stroller and three carts, when a Customs official here in Dalian came up and I asked if he could help us. We were the last to leave the luggage area for customs, and I was bracing myself for the customary scrutiny of luggage and passports, but the guy LITERALLY wheeled us straight through to the exit where our driver and his boss were there with a sign reading "Alexander Jones" and we were home free! They did not even look at our passports, believe it or not! It was amazing. By this time we were exhausted, and relieved that they came with not only our Buick minivan, but a second one as well. Alex loaded the vehicles with our luggage, and I brought the girls out in the blustery sub-zero cold for just a few minutes to get them into the car. We got to the Shangri-La around 11 pm and after getting the beds made up and a shower for Alex & me, everyone was down for bed.

We unfortunately woke around 6 am and I haven't slept since... getting tired now! But we had a great day. Bathed the kids in the am, went up one flight for the special guest private breakfast (if you pay the extra $100/night for this sized suite, you get a private breakfast for only 2 floors of guests in a 26 floor building) - went out with the double stroller for a nice long walk downtown through Dalian. A few things of note - it is cold here, so the girls were bundled up in their stroller. The sidewalks mean well, but the ramps down and up always have at least a 3"+ lip, so I had to walk in front and pull the stroller up every time we crossed a street (not to mention to prevent traffic from zooming by insanely and hitting the stroller). And whenever we stopped, a whole group of Chinese people - mostly middle-to-elderly-aged women - would stop and coo at the girls. They literally would touch their cheeks and say things that were probably complimentary about how cute they were. We got lots of "Lion-gu" - two people - and had to answer that we had "lion-gu nu-har" - two girls. This was apparently a very big deal because not only does China have the one-child policy, but two GIRLS is probably the most rare combination of even illegal or special-circumstances family here. So even when people didn't stop, they would giggle, point, wave and smile at our little family. It was kind of funny, but I made sure to get down to Lucia's level and give her hugs and kisses while the attention was being lavished so she wouldn't get scared. And she actually seemed fine with it - she wouldn't repeat "Ni-hao" like I asked her to, but she would often wave and sometimes even say "bye-bye" when we forced the crowd to back off so we could keep walking.

This is getting long, but I should finish out our day... we got back around noon, and after a Skype call with my folks, packed up to go to Golden Pebble Beach where our house is. We made it out there and took a walk through our huge home (4100 sq ft!). It is furnished, but very sparsely so. The girls room has a kids bed, a crib, a wardrobe and that's it. No floor coverings anywhere, no changing table (we'll buy one at IKEA here). All the furniture is IKEA. The beds have no mattress pads, and no fitted sheets - only the flat sheet tucked around the mattress. And they put some weird pad and pillow on the crib, but fortunately I have our fitted crib mattress pad and sheet to use for that, and it does appear to be the same size. We have a list of things to buy.

We also found out that the government regulates the heat to turn OFF at the end of March. This is kind of scary given that it was a low of just below 0 C here today. But that is for the floor heat, and there are some wall units that will keep us warm, though they'll drive up our electric bill. Oh well!

We also drove around near the beach - miles of beach with cobblestone paths through the shrubbery and some nice looking sand. Lucia informed us that Dada would get his big swimsuit, Mama would get her medium swimsuit, Magdalena would get her "little tiny" swimsuit, and she would get her big girl swimsuit, and we'd all go for a swim in the ocean. Fortunately I convinced her that we should wait till summer for this little adventure. :-)

We came back and the girls both conked out in our bed, where they are sleeping now. Alex and I are taking turns going to the free happy hour in the same private room for dinner - there are lots of yummy finger foods including many veggies and dumplings, so enough for a meal when added up. He's there now, and I'm finishing this post after downing 2 glasses of white wine - the most I've had in a while, so if you get this far in your reading, you can blame the verbosity (is that a word?) on the wine... Ha!

More to follow in our adventure! We go grocery and other shopping tomorrow, and should be moving in to our home tomorrow afternoon - internet is supposed to be up, so we'll try to get photos posted as soon as possible.