8 Planes, 4 Russells, and 3 Seats – Part 2

Plane # 4

Friday in Hong Kong was a day of gathering. Ten families (we would meet the eleventh in Nanchang) flew into Hong Kong at ten different times during that Friday. We gathered at the Regal Riverside Hotel, filled with the excitement of seeing and experiencing new things, and promptly fell asleep. Jetlag had exhausted all of us. Even jingling the strange Hong Kong coins in our pockets could not keep us awake.

So, Friday passed in slumber.

Saturday, we met with our agency representative, Matthew, and learned about our next flight. On Sunday, we would leave Hong Kong on China Eastern. This flight would take us to Nanchang. Within just a few hours of landing, our daughters would be brought to us.

We boarded our flight early Sunday morning. China Eastern flies in-China flights only, so we were introduced to airline food Chinese-style. Our main course was spicy noodles with mushrooms, and the sides were pickled bean sprouts, a pickled green plum, and a dried “fillet” of fish that stunk.

We Americans landed in Nanchang with empty stomachs. Not surprisingly, our fellow Chinese passengers slurped down every noodle, bean sprout, plum, and stinky fillet – with chopsticks. They all deserved gold stars.

Plane # 5

After our week in Nanchang, we packed our bags, challenged the airport security guards to label us as threats, and took another China Eastern flight. This time, our destination was Guangzhou.

After boarding our flight and fastening our seat belts, we noticed the stewardess coming down the aisle and stopping every once in a while to make someone change seats from the right hand side of the plane to the left. Bright people that we are, it only took about 4 seat changes to realize she was moving mothers with babies on their laps to the left hand side. When the stewardess came to Sandy, she explained that the left hand side had four oxygen masks. The right hand side, where we were sitting, only had three. Baby makes four, so Sandy and Carly had to switch seats.
Logan was horrified when the man from the seat on the left hand side of the plane plopped down beside him. This was invading Logan’s personal space. He pressed (smashed) himself against me for most of the flight even though the man was friendly and smiled a lot.

We had missed lunch, and would be flying into Guangzhou late in the evening, so we all assumed we’d be offered a meal. We were hungry after our early morning rush to dress and feed our new babies, dress ourselves, load our suitcases (now heavier with baby items), and our long and bumpy bus ride to the airport (with babies that didn’t like buses). We did all of this with arms and backs that were sore from using new muscles to carry our new daughters.

We didn’t care what they offered us to eat on the plane. Our week in Nanchang with its entrees of Braised Dog, Cold Jellyfish, and Frog Goop Soup had deadened our senses to the point that pickled bean sprouts sounded delicious. We were confident that we could really eat them this time. We really could!

Instead of the meal, though, we were tossed a piece of pound cake. It was a very dry piece of pound cake.

So, we ate it.

Sandy tried to eat hers, but most of it was crumbled to bits by Carly. Who knew that putting a baby on your lap on a plane and trying to eat a piece of pound cake was impossible? By the time the flight ended, she and Carly were covered with fine grains of dried pound cake. They smelled like a Yankee Candle…with a wet diaper.

On our side of the plane, Logan, and I ate in silence. The fellow next to Logan had the aisle seat, so all we could do was try to look over him from time to time to see how Sandy and Carly were surviving the flight.

We landed, passed through security, rode a bus to the White Swan Hotel, checked in, and collapsed for the night. It was eleven-ish at night, and we were pound cake weak and travel weary.

Plane # 6

After a week in Guangzhou, we were finished with our paperwork and ready to go home. But, we (all families) began to worry about our luggage. We had accumulated quite a few souvenirs and were all thinking that we wouldn’t have enough room in our luggage. All of our bags were bulging when we arrived at the White Swan Hotel. How could we possibly fit our souvenirs into them?

Besides, most of our clothes were now dirty. There is a strange traveling law that dirty clothes take up twice as much room as clean clothes.

Our solution was waiting for us in one of the little tourist shops. We spotted some large suitcases, and asked about the price. They were 90 Yuans, which is only about $13. Our U. S. dollars are worth about seven of the Chinese Yuans. Until recently, the U. S. dollar was worth about thirteen Chinese Yuans, but let’s not think about the devaluation of the dollar right now.

I rolled my suitcase back to the hotel and spread the good word among our fellow families. Soon, several families were sporting the same 90 Yuan luggage, which made that little shopkeeper very happy.

Saturday morning, old bags packed, new bag packed, carry-ons stuffed, and rooms double-checked for forgotten items, we boarded our last bus in China and set out on a 45 minute ride to the Guangzhou airport. China Southern Airlines waited for us this time.

After China Eastern’s pound cake, we didn’t dare expect a meal. We didn’t even want a snack. We’d just drink our tiny drinks with our pinkies up to make it special.

We couldn’t help feeling a little excited, though, when the stewardess appeared with an armful of green packages. A gift was coming our way, and we could possible eat it! It didn’t look like pound cake, nor did it seem to be pickled.

But, we found that China Eastern must frown on sweets because we were tossed a package of onion crackers.

Onion crackers?

Why would they choose onion crackers for people that are sitting on top of each other in a closed-system controlled-air environment? We couldn’t roll down a window, and it was almost impossible to squeeze your hand into your pocket to find your breath mints.

Still, we ate them obediently and waited for the landing gear to be lowered.
We landed safely in Hong Kong, gathered our carry-ons, and got our boarding passes for our international flight. Everyone was kind. No one ever complained about our onion breath.

Plane # 7

After a 3-hour layover in Hong Kong, we boarded Cathay Pacific for the trip back to the U. S. The flight over took about fourteen hours, but the reverse trip was only about ten. It’s amazing how a tail wind can shorten the trip. Since we were now traveling with Carly, we were extremely thankful for the tail wind.

Carly is a happy baby, and seems to travel well, but we hadn’t subjected her to travel 38,000 feet in the air. How were we going to quiet a baby when Economy Class doesn’t give you room to jostle and walk her until she calms down? When we boarded, I had glanced at the First Class folks, but hadn’t seen any sympathetic baby-lovers among them. Besides, once that thin blue curtain is closed between First Class and Economy, the border between the social classes is clearly defined. That option was out.

So, we began our flight home with crossed fingers that Carly’s patience and good attitude would last ten hours. Either that or that she would sleep for ten hours. We would be pleased with either choice.

One fortunate aspect about this part of our journey home was that we had booked seats in the bulkhead. This meant that we had a little fold down shelf available for a bassinet (supplied by Cathay Pacific). If Carly decided she has okay with sleeping on a shelf, then we were ready.

We were in a four-seat section in the middle of the plane. Sandy, Logan, and I occupied three seats. Carly was flying on a “lap ticket”. The fourth seat was next to me and was occupied by a younger Chinese man that traveled for most of the ten hours wearing eye shades and some paper slippers that he ripped out of a plastic bag shortly after the Fasten Seatbelt sign went off. His shoes were tucked neatly under his seat.

Until this part of our trip, we had stayed fairly clean. True, we were getting a little wrinkled and tired-looking, but still felt clean. That changed as soon as the airline served dinner.

For desert, we were given cheesecake with blueberry topping. Don’t be jealous about my cheesecake. Remember that it was airline cheesecake. It was like a doppelganger version.

Sandy set hers aside with the idea that Carly might like to try it later.

Carly was sleepy, and I held her until she fell asleep. I didn’t want to put her in the bassinet right away, so I decided to rest my arm on a pillow. I groped around on the floor until I found the pillow and stuffed it between my left arm and left leg. I rested very comfortably for quite awhile. I was quite pleased with my pillow prop.

Later, I stood up from my tiny Economy Class seat to put Carly in the tiny bassinet. I let the pillow fall to the floor. That was when I discovered that the blueberry cheesecake had been smashed into the pillow I had used as an arm prop. The plane’s lights were dimmed, so I could only feel a cold sticky mess. But, in a few hours, when the lights were raised and we exited the plane, my knee would look like a large berry-eating bird, such as an ostrich, had perched on my knee and pooped on me.

Poor Carly – she’s still BCD (Blueberry Cheesecake Deprived) to this day.

Besides sleeping and tearing paper into very small pieces, Carly is very good at filling her diaper. With American Pampers, this isn’t really a problem. However, she was still wearing Chinese Pampers (yes, the same brand, but made thinner). Thinner Pampers can’t hold as much as our version, of course.

While Carly was sleeping on her bassinet shelf, she silently filled her diaper. When she woke, she wanted her Mommy. Mommy happily scooped her up, plopped her into her lap, and learned that a thin, full diaper will release urine into Mommy’s lap very easily.

Now, we had a Dad with a bird-pooplike stain on his jeans and a Mom with baby urine-soaked pants. Brother was still clean…for awhile.

Logan, poor kid, had survived China on rice and soy sauce. He had crossed time zones like an expert traveler. He had dragged carry-ons and luggage through several airports. He was hungry and tired.

Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, Logan became airsick, also. He threw up between his feet (sort of – I won’t go into detail about “splatter”). When he was finished, I threw my blueberry pillow on top of the mess and then put my blanket on top of it for good measure.

So, we landed in San Francisco much dirtier than when we left Hong Kong. We were blueberry-stained, urine-stained, and vomit-stained. But, we walked through the airport with a clean and happy baby, so how could we complain?

Plane # 8

The American Airlines flight from San Francisco to St. Louis was a direct flight. It would take four hours, but we had a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains to entertain us for part of the first half. When night fell, we played Pass the Baby To Keep Her Happy and How Do We Heat A Bottle? We never seemed to really win at the first game, but a smart stewardess figured out how to make the bottle lukewarm, so we made her the champion.

Soon, St. Louis arrived like a fairyland. Its lights were bright and cheerful from the sky, and seemed to welcome us, officially, back to the U. S. We landed at 9:17 PM.

It was not a moment too soon.