Our Journey to the Middle Country

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Part I: A slow boat to China...

Friday 17 March 2000: Columbus - Detroit (- Tokyo - Beijing)

Columbus

We left for China on Saint Patrick's Day. I had said that my plan was to get stinking drunk so that I'd sleep through the flight. But, not being a drinker, I meant it as a joke. Today was the third coincidence with a holiday. By all rights, our daughter's name could have been Patricia Valentine Noel.

Tammy's parents, Bill & Mary, her sister Dena and nephew Sidney were all at the airport to see us off. Mary gave Tammy a necklace that she had worn for several years to wear during the trip.

Before we left the Columbus airport, I called and talked to Karen, my old boss at Oracle, for a bit. Mostly we spoke of how funny it was that we were almost using the same gate that she and I had always used when going to work in Detroit. We always flew out of B-17 and Tammy and I were using B-16.

NW 174

The flight to Detroit was something I've done dozens of times when I was working at Oracle and for me the only difference was that it was a bigger airplane than we would normally take. It was just a 38 minute hop, even thought the itinerary listed it from 10:20am to 11:20am.

Detroit

When we arrived in Detroit, at gate E7, we took the slide walks to the international terminal down to gate F14. As we sat waiting for the flight, we noticed a couple with what looked like a Chinese daughter. This would turn out to be Diana and Steve and their daughter Jade. They had adopted her from China a few years before. We went over and introduced ourselves and also met Kim and Paul. They had flown up from Texas to catch the flight.

NW 11

We departed at 1pm and the flight time was to be 12 hours and 32 minutes. I think this was just for the leg to Tokyo. This was the longest leg of the journey. Tammy was on the isle and I was in the middle. I was sitting next to a fellow who was going home to visit relatives in the Philippines.

The worst part of this flight was that just when we thought we were going to go to sleep, someone would open up the window to look outside. We were heading west and generally keeping the sun in front of us. The day just kept going, and so there was nothing to see. All that would come in the window was a blinding flash of light. We were well above any clouds, and so it was just clean, clear sky. We were also so far up, that you couldn't really see anything below. All that would have been there would be ocean, I suppose. And from our height, I don't see how any detail would be visible.

If I'd thought about it, this would have been the time for a sleeping mask and for a sleeping pill.

I also remember waking up just as Galaxy Quest was ending. I had wanted to see it, but it wasn't listed for our flight.

While we were traveling, another couple in our travel group, arrived first in China around 11 in the morning:

• Vickie & Dennis

Later, at around 7 in the evening, two more families in our group arrived in China:

• Mary Lou and her mother Miriam
• Judy and her cousin Nancy

The next time we go to China, I want to show up a day early. It's worth it to get adjusted to the time change.

During this leg of the journey, we flew into the next day and it was Saturday.