27 June | Beijing, China
After six hours in the Seattle airport and almost 12 hours on an airplane, we arrived in the Beijing airport around 11:40 Sunday night. It was a long flight and a late night. We were grateful the customs officials were awake and waiting to admit us to the country.
We were met at the airport not only by other members of our production team who had arrived a couple of hours earlier, but by cameras wielded by six or seven members of the Chinese media! It was quite a shock! We knew Minzhi was famous in China, but the reality of it hit us squarely in the face as the media descended upon us.
Two representatives from JingYing Education group were among those who greeted us, Jiang Hanbing and Xue Zhijun (also known as Jarold). We would come to value and appreciate all their efforts to make our stay in Hebei Province a positive, fruitful one.
Within less than an hour of walking off the plane we were in the Garden Airport Hotel, and I was so ready to go to bed. The plan was to leave the hotel for Shijiazhuang the next morning at 9 a.m. It was with gratitude that I tumbled into bed and quickly went to sleep.