Return to Beijing

We met in the lobby at 8 am with bags packed to head to the airport to return to Beijing. We had a journey to the airport that was about 40 minutes. It was extremely hot and humid in the airport. By the time we checked our luggage Charlotte was soaked. I did a quick diaper change on my computer in the luggage cart. Dave took Charlotte for a little walk while we waited for the others. Quite a few Chinese travellers were quite interested in Charlotte and smiled and waved to her.

We then proceeded to our gate. Our girls got quite a bit of attention from local travellers. Our flight was to take off at 11:45 am but was delayed at least one hour. We were then instructed to proceed to another gate. While we waited to board the tram to take us to our airplane, Dave allowed Charlotte to run around with a few children. She had a great time and did quite well keeping up with the other children who were much older than she is.

Once we were all seated, we were then informed that the flight would be further delayed due to poor weather in Beijing. The girls started to get restless, as the temperature continued to rise in the already hot airplane. Approximately 30 minutes later, we were ready for take-off. Charlotte was beside herself, but eventually went down with a bottle. Fortunately, she was asleep during take-off so the building pressure didn’t seem to bother her. She stayed asleep for most of the flight of 2 hours 10 minutes. She started to wake during the descent. We gave her a bottle to suck to help with the air pressure. By the time the plane had landed, Charlotte’s diaper couldn’t absorb any more so it ran out of her outfit and down my leg. Once we disembarked the plane, we were both soaked. We were uncertain whether there would be a bathroom on the way to the luggage carousel, so we decided to change Charlotte on top of my computer again in the luggage cart. This was done in no time flat—diaper changed and fresh change of clothes. All in all, the flight was a relatively good experience and a little warm-up for our 12-hour flight on Friday—I’m not looking forward to that.

By the time we got to our hotel, it was approximately 5:30—the whole day had been spent travelling between provinces, which was unfortunate. It had rained most of the day, so the temperature had cooled off. It was considerably cooler in Beijing than in Changsha, and less humid.

In the hotel room, Charlotte discovered the baby in the full length mirror of the hallway of our room. It was so sweet to hear to chatter away and give such a big belly laugh to her reflection.

Most of our group met for dinner at 6:30—we went to the restaurant we had visited last week where we had the hot pot. We enjoyed a lovely meal and discussion with a few of the families.

We had a hard time putting Charlotte to sleep—she stayed up until 10 pm. The cribs in this hotel are playpens, so I don’t think we’ll have to worry about her falling or climbing out.