4/29 - The alarm clock didn't go off and we woke up 35 minutes late, but still got to the airport on time. Good thing John showed up early! After that little SNAFU all went well. We met the Harp family - Ken, Sharen, ShuShu and sister Sue while we were waiting for our plane. We were delayed leaving Cleveland by about 15 minutes and had an easy flight to Chicago. After sitting in Chicago for almost 4 hours we took off on the longest plane ride of our lives! Lucky us, we got bumped to Economy Plus! That means about 2 inches extra of leg room. We went up through Canada and above Alaska and over the Berring Sea. Coming down over Russia we hit some turbulence about 1-1/2 hours before our arrival. The ride was LONG and the seats were not made for sleeping. Somewhere on the plane, Dan found the Finnegan family - Jamie, Kathy and Mary Claire. We landed in Beijing about 3:00 pm local time (3:00 am Cleveland time) and were running on maybe 1-2 hours of sleep on the plane. We met Tara and Aaron (can't spell the last name) and Barry and Denise Schwartz at the baggage claim. We made our way through Customs - piece of cake and met Zhou (Joe), our guide. John, our bus driver, took us to the Holiday Inn Beijing where we checked into our rooms. The room is small and has a king size bed that is hard as a board. The lights only stay on for 1-2 mintues unless you leave the key in the inside key slot. That is one way that China conserves energy. The traffic was CRAZY driving to the hotel. We saw lots of people on bikes and small cars and some out walking their dogs. After a 20 minute break at the hotel, Zhou took us to the local supermarket and showed us around some. There is a Pizza Hut, McDonalds and KFC within walking distance of the hotel. Dan bought some chips and pop at the supermarket and we crashed for the night.