Once at the airport we found out that our flight was delayed. We already heard that the flight the day before was cancelled due to mechanical issues and that flight was rescheduled to  leave on the same day as ours, but was again delayed by several hours.We had called in advance to make sure our flight would leave, we already had visions of the air company putting all the passengers of the day before on our plane and that we would have to wait for another flight. They assured us that this was not happening. 

At the airport there was a long line of people waiting, these were the people from the cancelled flight.

Our flight was also delayed but not by much. We had to wait for check in until the people who’s flight was cancelled the day before were all checked in. 

Our flight to Bejing was smooth and quick. We arrived at the Beijing airport in the middle of the night and we had booked one night at an apartment just outside of the airport. 

We needed a visa to leave the airport, which normally is no problem, but the desk where you’re supposed to arrange the visa was closed when we arrived.

We explained it to the person behind the desk and he told us that we should just stay at the airport next time, because we didn’t have enough time. We were able to convince him and he started working on our passports. 

The first one went fine, but with the second one some commotion happened. We have no clue what happened but all of a sudden he started yelling to someone else, who got the supervisor, who came to our desk and gave directions. Or at least that’s what we think happened, since we don’t speak any Chinese. I do know everyone was staring at us and that it took for ever before we had all four passports stamped and we were allowed out of the airport.

We were amazed by the airport, when we visited China in 2002 this airport was nit there. This was obviously new and very efficient. You take a train to the main hall, it can’t be missed. Everything was clean and modern. A very different China than we experienced in 2002.

Once in the main hall we went to the coffee shop where our driver would meet with us to take us to our apartment.

He quickly arrived and drove us to our apartment. 

After the heat in Bangkok, Bejing was cold. The apartment was lovely. The girls slept in the loft and we had a nice queen size bed. 

We arrived at our apartment at 4.00 and we would be picked up to go back to the airport at 11.00. Everyone fell asleep quickly except for, you know who… it was cold in the apartment and we had no idea how to change the temperature setting. There was a manual in the room, but again we don’t speak or read Chinese!

Even tough I didn’t have a good couple of hours of sleep we were very happy that we didn’t spend the night at the airport. It was good to be out for a couple of hours and the girls did get to sleep for a bit.

We quickly checked in for our flight to Montreal and walked to our gate. There were some very comfortable chairs at the gate so we lounged until it was ready to board.


Our flight was not completely full, but it had many babies on board! Not ideal, we already envisioned a flight with 14 hours of crying babies but nothing like that at all. I don’t know what they do with Chinese babies, but they were all happy and extremely cute!

I was sitting next to a family with two kids. I had the feeling they might have given the kids some gravol or something, because the oldest girl crashed and slept for hours the moment we took of, but the little boy was extremely hyper, which can be another reaction to gravol. He was kicking the seat in front of him, was constant on the run and couldn’t sit still for a minute. Until he passed out and slept for hours. During those hours him and I shared our four seats. A pretty sweet deal!
Fourteen hours is long but again service was great. We watched some great movies, had tasty food and slept for a bit. 
We arrived at Montreal and quickly made our way to the check in for our flight to Hamilton. 

Still smiling! So impressed by our travellers!

Once back in Hamilton we hopped into our car and drove home. I couldn’t believe my world travellers! After all those hours they were still smiling and didn’t complain once. What happened to my kids? Where were my pre-teens? They didn’t fight, they didn’t complain all vacation long. Oh how I wished it would stay like that for ever!

Close to home they crashed and could barely stay awake for a quick bite to eat.
Jet lag was about to happen and it hit us hard!