Getting here was half the fun

The last leg of our initial trip to Xiamen--first two characters say Xiamen.
You know it's bad when you can actually SEE the humidity!
Ice cream with toppings and fruit for dessert, served in real dishes!
Don't get too spoiled Amanda! She loved the seat-to-bed feature!

We had thought for several months that we would be leaving Michigan for China some time in early August since the international school's starting date was August 17. Though we had to change the actual travel plans two or three times (leave out of Chicago on NW, no, leave Chicago on Korean Air, no, leave Grand Rapids on NW...) we eventually settled on Sunday, August 9. I had been pushing my family to pack their actual suitcases in July before the air shipment was sent so that we could be sure everything we wanted to take would actually fit. (I remember well moving back to the states from Korea when I was 12 years old; we had to buy several huge and hideous suitcases to fit the rest of our junk and then haul them all across the world!) Mostly they heard blah, blah, blah, I guess, since we ended up with each of our rolling suitcase/carry-on bags jammed full and each shoulder bag equally jammed and two large suitcases that we checked stuffed full. I had visions of zippers bursting and various items flying all over the airport as we shuffled between four flights. Hauling all this stuff must have been practice for my future grocery-getting trips! Big city living is not quite the same as having to walk only from my garage to my kitchen with my purchases.
We had splurged and used loyalty miles/points to upgrade our tickets to business class. We figured that we'd treat ourselves to a comfortable ride (and also try to diminish the complaining from the kids) and decent food before our lives got turned upside down. Northwest business class is very comfortable, complete with a closet to put the bags in, seats that recline all the way into a bed of sorts, individual on-demand movies on a flip-out screen, comforters instead of tiny fleece blankies and more food and drink than we could finish. We tried to stuff some of the help-yourself snacks into our bags for later but it wasn't easy to find space! First travel glitch: the counter lady in GR said we couldn't check our two bags straight to Xiamen without getting them in Hong Kong (and elsewhere?) as Gene had arranged. She was not exactly pleasant. Gene got on his phone and contacted the NW elite desk and got the lady to discuss it with them. Thankfully, they talked her through it and all was in order again. We went from Grand Rapids to Minneapolis (lounged in the world club for a little while) and then had the long (11 plus hours, due to favorable winds) flight to Narita, Japan. Our friend, Jen Kroll, had made a care package for the girls full of small, wrapped packages for them to open along the way! This kept them busy and happy all the way to our hotel in Xiamen. Thanks, Jen! We did plenty of eating, relaxing and watching movies. From Japan (where there was the threat of a delay, but turned out okay) we flew to Hong Kong. Stand in lines for customs, dig around for the quart-sized bags, remove the laps tops, etc and then ride the shuttle van to the hotel. Glitch two: we had booked two rooms in Hong Kong for the night and had specified one room with two beds for the girls and one room with one bed for us, rooms very near each other, please. Got up to the floor and found rooms across from each other but only one bed each. Eventually a guy came up with a key to another room, way at the opposite end of the hall, with two beds, but we decided it was too far from us so we kept the original rooms. We slept fitfully and then rose for breakfast before our last leg to Xiamen. For this one we did not have the upgrade and were going on China Southern Airlines. We stood in line with everyone else, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder into an airport van that took us across the tarmac to the plane and then stood in line again in high heat and humidity to climb the stairs up into the plane. It was very full and only one hour in duration, but they managed to feed us an interesting meal along the way. Liz and I had some sort of greasy rice with vegetables and chunks of chicken that we picked out and a foil packet (like a ketchup packet but a little larger) labled "appetizer." Turned out to be some sort of brownish goo that smelled salty--we passed. Amanda was given a kids meal, wrapped up in a smiley-face package. Looked cute but she didn't want to try the ravioli-type stuff or the jello.
Now for the best part of the initial trip: when we finally got off the plane and filed down the escalators in the Xiamen airport to turn in our "health forms" that declared us free of the H1N1 flu, Gene and Liz seemed to have some sort of problem and were hauled off for a further health check. There were portable curtains set up in a maze-like configuration staffed with people wearing those attractive surgical masks. All Amanda and I could do was stand around waiting and worrying and getting onto our tip toes to try to see over the curtains. We were worried. After about 15 minutes, which felt much longer, they were released. Turns out they had registered just barely one degree above "normal" on the clandestine temperature-taker that all passengers must walk past. Then came the fun of trying to find the proper form that must be filled out in order to claim our air shipment, whenever that will arrive. After pantomiming our needs to several officials, we were able to get the quarter-sheet sized paper filled in, signed and sealed (and tucked into Gene's bag with all the other crucial paperwork).
We were greeted eventually by a nice lady from Gene's company (nice, but zero English skills) and the driver who crammed our bags into the minivan and drove us to our hotel. After 36 hours of travel...home at last!