Friday was a travel day. Mrs. Frank and I got to the Bradley airport at 6:30AM on a sunny morning and met our two traveling companions, Mailoha Albaladejo, an economics student from Eastern Connecticut State University who was going to visit the Shandong University of Finance, and Dan Gregg, the trip organizer and former employee of the Connecticut State Department of Education who was there to make arrangements for more upcoming trips to China. Chicago seemed much colder than Connecticut. Our flight left Bradley at 9:00AM and we arrived in Chicago at 11:00AM (10:00AM their time). We had a light lunch at the airport and waited for United Airlines flight 0851 to Beijing, which left on time at 12:43PM CST. Luckily Ms. Frank and I both had isle seats for the 13 hour trip to Beijing. During the flight we read, watched two movies, ate, and tried to sleep. We arrived in Beijing around 4:15PM on Saturday afternoon. There was a very heavy cloud cover and a fog that seemed to surround the entire city. It was cool and damp. We met our tour guide, Bing Wang and a driver, King Wang, at the airport. We all traveled to a restaurant for our first meal before going to the hotel. The dinner was a buffet style assortment of traditional Chinese dishes. We arrived at the Jiang Xi Grand Hotel around 7:00PM. We settled in and even got foot massages at a shop near the hotel. We then got our computers and internet connections set up. Before we turned in I was able to call home using Skype and email, but for some reason we were unable to connect to our blogs or Facebook.
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