China: Day One/Two

CHINA!

Without pictures.

I've decided that instead of cursing myself every time I forget to copy the pictures from Brandon's laptop to my desktop, I will just go ahead and give you a narration of the trip. The pictures will then be a sequel to the narration! Yay! Sequels are fun!

You're welcome.

DAY ONE/TWO:

Brandon and I flew from SLC to Seattle; we had a 9 hour layover. Instead of wallowing over the longevity, we decided to par-tay! We took a taxi to the waterfront of down-town Seattle. We had lunch at Elliot's with bythelbs (probably my favorite part. No, not probably. It was my favorite part!), wandered through Pike Place, rode The Ducks, and we visited the awesome Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum.

Good times, man. Good times. I love me some Seattle!

Next, we got on a plane. This plane flew us to to Beijing.

Beijing is in China!

Now, let me tell you, long flights are hard when one is sitting in coach. It's true. The food was...sub par, but not unwelcome. The seat was cramped (I have 36 inch legs!), and the air is always stale (although I'm guessing way better than in the days when smoking was allowed). This doesn't mean I can't sleep under such dismal prospects, though! I rock at sleeping on planes. But, in order to arrive in China with a jump on jet lag, we stayed awake as best as we could. I watched four movies! Four! What were they? Let me see if I remember...

The first was the new Karate Kid.

2nd: The Joneses (?)

3rd: Diary of A Wimpy Kid (this one was funny, although I can't remember now how it ended).

4th: That new James Bond movie. The newest one. You know, where he kills people and seduces women.

Yeah.

Unlike Brandon, I only slept for about 45 minutes (he slept for a few hours here and there). Which means I woke up in Provo at 5:30AM on a Wednesday morning and stayed awake for...24 hours. Or so. But here's the clincher: Staying awake that long meant being able to sleep when we got to the hotel. Because although we left around 8:30PM Wednesday night and only flew for 13 hours, we arrived in Beijing at 11PM Thursday night. Because China is about 14 hours ahead of us.

Flying in over China was interesting. Beijing (unlike Shanghai) tends to turn off a lot of lights at night. Like, a lot, lot. So, although I knew we were flying over the city, there wasn't much to see, you know?

After landing, we got through customs pretty quick, took a taxi to our hotel, checked in, and collapsed. And if I'm remembering correctly, we slept pretty good!

*And instead of boring you with many, many, many days typed out, let's go with just one at a time.

You're welcome.