Zàijiàn Zhōngguó

Jīntiān wǒ qù měiguó (Today I am going to America).  I am used to weekend trips, but this trek is going to top my 26 hour long train ride. 

So pray for divine appointments for ministry, for adjusted sleep patterns, humorous sightings, a starbucks, and just easy travels.

To be honest traveling by myself hardly fazes me now.  You just pack, leave, and go with it.    Pretty simple, and airports are easy.  Traveling is good for people watching and having adventures.  Also a good chance to read, journal, day dream, plan, scheme, sleep, and listen to music.  Oh and do strange things like brush your teeth, wash your face, wash your bangs and proceed to dry them under the hand dryer in the public restroom (I have done that before… more than once).   The nice thing is that here it’s no big; I am just the crazy foreigner.  In the states…. In the States I am just crazy. Lol.

But just to give everyone a picture of what my trip home looks like here is how I plan to get there:

Step one: put hair in pig tails

Step two: find some ruby red slippers

Step three:  click my heels together and say there is no place like home

...hopefully since Like Dorothy my name begins in D and I am from Kansas this plan will work.  It will teleport me home much more quicker than my back up plan, and it will drop me off in my bed already as well.  But in case I can't find the appropriate footwear, or heaven forbid it doesn't work as well as it did in the movie the following is plan B:

• Yinchuan to Beijing.  
• change terminals and check in again
• at 4:15pm July 24^th  I will take a flight  to Vancouver.  The tricky thing is i arrive at 11:30 Am on the 24th... technically that is 5ish hours before I left China.  Yeah I know it’s pretty cool.
• Then after another 4 hour layover I leave for LAX.  
• YAY CUSTOMS!!!!!
• Check in for the 3rd time on my travels home...
• And six hours later at midnight thirty I will get on a flight to Minneapolis.  I arrive there at 6:06 am (meaning it is really only a 3 and a half hour long flight)
• then  leave there an hour later and finally land at KCI at 8:30 am on July 25^th… convert that to China time and it is 9:30pm July 25^th.  Therefore making the entirety of my journey about 37 hours.
• Hug my family, get my bags, and then…..
• WAFFLE HOUSE!!!
• Home to shower and do laundry.

That is a total of 5 flights, 5 planes, 4 layovers, 3 check-ins, 3 countries, 2 longerish layovers, 2 times paying to check my 2 bags, and 1 long awaited waffle house stop with my fam jam.

Thanks for keeping me in your prayers as I travel.  I will post again eventually, possibly not till I have recovered from jet lag.  Just know that because my summer here is over doesn’t mean my blog is.  I still have a life full of adventures to share about, one that I really believe will lead me back here someday.

Well, I am leaving on a jet plane today, and I don’t know when I’ll be back again…

Li Ai