18 July

Good-bye, China!

Hopped a cab for what we had been told was a one-hour ride to the Pudong airport. (we had arrived in Shnaghai's other airport, about a ten minute ride from the Galaxy in west Shanghai. Pudong is way across the city in eastern Shanghai.) Cab driver, bless him as were leaving about an hour later than we had wanted, flew: Got there in a little more than half an hour. Lack of traffic -- we beat morning rush leaving the hotel at 6:00?? -- helped as did often going -- well, well over the speed limit....

Girls flew to San Francisco, starting point for two weeks in and around central California.

First, the twin nightmares of starting to finish packing at 4:00 for a prospective 5:00 departure (blown big time). Then I went online where the Shanghai-Beijing appeared to maybe (or maybe not) have been cancelled. Called Air-China, travel agent, no clear answers, decided to continue anyway.

Getting to Beijing was again a nightmare albeit a much lesser one than the prior trip to. Landing initially delayed "because of weather", then we were to land at airport 90 miles away to tank up; that was cancelled and we instead continued on where we landed so late that I pretty much had to rush for my connection. According to "plan", I would have had a little downtime with the girls before boarding. Instead, by the time we got luggage, got checked in, got through customs and got to the gate, my flight was boarding.

Nearing landing in Beijing, we did a little arts and crafts with air sickness bags. I drew a bio-hazard symbol, wrote a warning re: toxic contents and drew a skull and bones. I then filled it with air, sealed, the bag, and gave it to Shayna who gave it to one of the stewardesses on disembarking. I do believe she smiled and got a joke if not the joke....

Otherwise, Beijing to JFK was OK; sold out enough to request people to volunteer to be bumped yet the middle seat in my three-across (on the wing, where there's no seat in front!) was empty; go figure; then again, it is Air-China.

Flight otherwise OK, ditto, the girls' flight.

I bussed to Grand Central then Metro-Northed and cabbed home. Shayna called while I was on the train and they were in a cab en route to their hotel, malready missing her dad....

And Lucy was ever-so-slightly happy to see her dad....