Arrival!

First of all, I don't have any pictures because I HAD a window seat, but it sucked because I was right on the wing.. which was HUGE. So I let the attendant talk me into giving up my seat to some old people so I could take the empty row in the middle of the plane for myself, plus all of my friends were on that side of the plane. So there. No pics. Deal.

Flying from Hawaii to Japan to Beijing was interesting. JAL has some awesome service. We all were starting our trip right with drinks (for me Yuzu and champagne - I'm definitely getting some on the ride home too cause that stuff was good!). We didn't have a full flight
which was nice because a lot of people got to spread out and sleep. I nodded off a little bit, but mostly I was chatting to Val and working on the scarf I started crocheting Sunday night at Sonnetts. The food was pretty good too, but definitely was working some havoc on my GI
tract by the time we landed at Narita (Toyko).
The flight from Toyko to Beijing was not as nice. The seats were MUCH smaller and unconfortable which was not helped by the fact that we were all ready to be finished flying. The man I was sitting next to felt the need to take up more than his alotted space and the 2 men
behind me kept hitting the back of my seat for emphasis during their lively discussion. It was very tempting to turn around and yell, but that seemed pretty useless since they probably wouldn't have understood me anyway and luckily I was trying to be mindful of the very little
sleep I had gotten so I wouldn't cause a seen or do anything I'd regret later.. you know prepare myself that I'm about to spend a month in Asia.
We finally landed, got our luggage, changed some money, got through customs, had a happy reunoin with Shifu, and were on our way to the hotel when Shifu let us know that our hotel for the first 4 nights was a 0 stars hotel. It's definitely not as bad as it could be, but it stinks of
cigarettes and the beds are really hard. Also, there is no heat. Luckily for me, I sleep better in the cold and love my hat and socks.