Plane Trip/arriving in Beijing

This is our first post from mom:

After counting down the weeks, days, and hours, we
are finally on our way. The airplane ride, so far,
has been very boring. We got up this morning at 4 am
and left for the airport at 4:30 for our 6:30 flight
to Newark. There was no line at the check-in or
security checks. We had to gate check our carry-on
suitcases because there was no more room to store them
on the plane. I hope they get to Beijing when we do.
Kylie slept about an hour on the first plane ride. In
Newark, we switched planes. We only had 25 minutes
before the next plane boarded; luckily, the departure
gate was right next to the arrival gate. While we
were waiting to board, we ate at McDonald’s. The
Kylie went to the Swatch store and bought a new watch,
It is very cute. Now we are waiting for the
entertainment system to reboot so we can watch the
movies. Both planes had a lot of turbulance. Only 12
more hours until we land in China.

Update:
We are still on the LONG plane ride. according to the
monitor, we have 3 hours and 51 minutes until we land.
As Kylie pointed out, that’s only 2 movies. Only!
When you’ve already watched 4, you don’t want to watch
any more. The good thing about the long flight, is
that we’ve been able to watch some new releases that
we missed at the theater: Get Smart, Swing Vote, Mama
Mia, Kit Kittredge, and Journey to the Center of the
Earth. Kylie still has not slept on this long flight.
I did get to sleep about 2 hours snd got a little
re-energized. Most of the flight has been dark
outside, but the sun is rising now. It seems to have
given both Kylie and me a second wind. I’m sure she
will conk out when we get to the hotel, but we are
going to try to stay awake until at least 8:00 (We
arrive at 3 pm.).

Kylie wrote the following on the airplane:
It’s a lot of fun at the airport because we went to a
Swatch store and I got a new watch. My favorite part
of the ride was the takeoff, but on the first plane
we spent about 30 minutes on the runway.

We FINALLY arrived and met Angela, our Beijing guide.
She met us at the airport after we cleared customs and
immigration. Well, 1 bag (Kylie’s) turned up MIA. We
have been assured it will be delivered to our hotel
tomorrow evening. She took us to a nice hotel (see
pictures). We ate take-out Pizza Hut and are going to
sleep now at 6:00 pm. We are going to rest up before
our long day tomorrow touring some fmous landmarks.
We are going to Ti 'An a Men Square, the Forbidden
City, the Great Wall, and an acrobat show. We will
also have a traditional Chinese dinner. We’ll post
more tomorrow.