China Trip, Day 9 - Aug 2

The last day! Our fellow B3ers who were heading to LA had a later flight, so it was sad to say goodbye to them at the hotel. We took all our luggage, which had grown considerably since we arrived and headed to Shanghai's Podung airport. Jenny accompanied us into the airport, which was great, because we did have some problems checking in. For me, my Irish passport was a small problem, because at first they couldn't find Ireland into their system. Eventually a supervisor or someone found it. Secondly, one of my suitcases set off the alarm, and Gordon had to go to the luggage check room, where they basically unpacked the suitcase to figure out what set off the alarm. It turns out that one of the fake iPods set off the alarm. So Gordon repacked the suitcase and off we went. Kim also had problems, as it turns out that someone with her name is on the "no fly list" so she had to convince them she was not a terrorist. We had a flight from Shanghai to Beijing, and then a connection on to San Francisco. We boarded at Shanghai, and then we sat on the ground for three hours before we could take off, apparently due to thunderstorms in Beijing. We even ate lunch and watched a movie before we took off, it was so boring. There also wasn't much information given out except for one announcement in Mandarin. Luckily for us, Alex in our group speaks Mandarin and he checked in with a crew member who kept us up to date, and also gave us the good news that our flight from Beijing to SFO would wait for us.


We landed in Beijing and changed planes, leaving Beijing three hours later than planned. The flight across the Pacific was long but uneventful, and we managed to sleep. When we landed in SFO, I called Dara to arrange for her to meet us at Bart. Dara told me that she was in the hospital, delivering my grandson a month early! We picked up our luggage and checked back in with her, and she said it would be another 3-6 hours. We headed to Bart and she called back, saying they were doing a C-Section, and would wait for me. Ten minutes later, she called back saying that they couldn't wait. So we went straight to the hospital, arriving only 10 minutes after baby Aidan was born. Dara & Aidan are both doing fine, although he was little because of being early. What an exciting end to our trip!