I will say, however, this is not the U.S. and they don't fly by the same rules that airlines have to abide by in the U.S. For example, on one very crowded flignt as we were walking to our seat, the pilot decided it was time to go. We held on, edging our way to our seat and made it there before the wheels actually left the ground. It was a suprise to say the least! If you like to read when flying, take something with you. All the reading materials that were on our flights were in Chinese.

Somewhere during the waiting, we decided we'd add a few days to the end of our trip and go to Beijing, mostly to see the Great Wall (see our Beijing Trip Report for more information.) When I contacted Adoption Travel Services, I asked them how I should go about planning for the additional days. Flights, tours, accomodations, transportation, etc. He put me in touch with George Tang of China Travel Service in Beijing. We communicated via Fax and E-Mail. He made all the arrangements and told me what flights to book, suggested and arranged tours to Tian'anmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, The Ming Tombs, an Art Muesum, a Closinet factory, a gymnastic show and, of course, the Great Wall. We were exhausted by the time our trip had come to a close, but we were very glad we made the decision to add on Beijing. Emma was wonderful throughout the entire trip and the sites were AMAZING!

One glitch in my planning, however, cost us about $1600.00. In my initial travel planning I had booked our round-trip flight from Atlanta, through Minneapolis to Hong Kong and back following the same route. While in Beijing I found out that Northwest had a direct flight from Beijing to Detroit. The thought of not having to fly back to Hong Kong, spend the night in a hotel and leave the following evening for Minneapolis was too tempting to pass up. So, hurridly, I changed our return flight. I did this by calling Northwest direct which meant I was speaking to someone who didn't have a good handle on English. I "yes, yes, yes'd" my way through the conversation knowing I have to pay a nominal penalty.

Wrong.

A month after we returned I got my Amex statement and the additional charge was $2400.00! I took me a month, but I got NW to reduce the charge to $1600.00. Basically, in changing my flight, I booked three ONE-WAY tickets from Beijing to Atlanta via Detroit. I'm sure the NW agent in Beijing told me that (in Chinese), but I didn't get the message. Live and learn (and waste money)... Regardless, the trip was worth it and I'm glad we were able to go...