Wednesday,
May 25
The Leist family has become an international sensation as we
take our show on the road to China. We left Atlanta this
morning at 9:20 and flew to Detroit. While in Detroit we
were tempted by the offer to give up our seats on the Tokyo
flight because they needed three people and were offering
$750/ea. We decided that was not the smartest thing to do
and then came up with our "bottomline" deal that we would accept
should the airline go crazy and offer us anything we wanted.
We decided that $1500/ea plus first class to Beijing and a stay
for three at the Westin located at the airport and we would change our plans. Well, since I'm typing this while we are
4.5 hours from Tokyo on the 25th (24th back home) you know what
our decision was.
The flight to Tokyo does seem to be taking forever as we have
watched three movies, stretched, walked all over the airplane,
and eaten three different times but are still now 4.25 hours
away. Probably going to be hard to jump on another
airplane for 4.5 hours right after we land in Tokyo but we would do
just about anything to get our precious daughter home and into
the routine of being a Leist family member.
Tori is holding up well and has been reading magazines and
watching movies. Stefanie has slept a little and is trying to
again but the white noise of the airplane doesn't give her the
comfort of the crickets on our sound machine so she isn't
sleeping as well as at home - that and the fact that we are on a
plane at 36,000 feet no where near home.
We miss Zach, Asher, and Dalton
something terrible but must focus on getting Isabelle. The
hardest part is leaving them but our families are awesome and
their support and comfort of the boys is priceless to us.
As everyone knows, we think that each of our kids is a blessing
from God and the separation from them, even for a short period,
is rough on our emotions.
We want to thank everyone who is on this journey with us and
especially for your prayers! We feel the strength that is
derived from having so many caring friends and family thinking
and praying for our welfare and safety.
We made it to Tokyo and are in
the airport waiting for a couple of hours before we head for Guangzhou, China. Should arrive there at 10:35 p.m. today
the
25th. It is good to have a couple of hours outside the
confines of an airplane so we are going to use the time to play
a family game of Quiddler. (see photo) Funny thing
happened on the way to Guangzhou - Tori got frisked because she
looked so dangerous in her tie-die t-shirt and carrying a teen
magazine with the headline, "How to get your best butt."
(another photo)
We made it to China at 11:20 p.m. and realized that those in the
eastern US are exactly 12 hours behind us (central = 13 hours).
Should make the conversion easy! Following an easy pass
through Chinese immigrations and customs we were accosted by
taxi drivers - how did they know we needed a taxi?!
Some friendly girls helped us and then a mad dash occurred as we
made our way through the streets of Guangzhou in a taxi that
would have passed Speedy Gonzales and the Roadrunner had they
had the courage to risk the streets of China. We arrived
at the White Swan and are getting ready for the day tomorrow -
or actually later today. We'll post the latest Leist tale
tomorrow from Beijing. |
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