Jefflog

We arrived safe and sound in Taiyuan, China a day-and-a-half ago. After three planes and nearly 24 hours of travel, we were all exhausted, and spent yesterday just trying to get settled in. The 12-hour jet lag is not easy to get adjusted to. In the past, I used to take sleep medications to help me along the path, but with two kids in tow, I can’t allow myself to get adjusted until my kids are adjusted too. Yesterday, we all accidentally took an afternoon nap of four-and-a-half hours, and trying to get the kids up at that point involved a lot of crying. I expect today will offer a similar story, maybe with a shorter nap duration, until everyone has adjusted. We’ve been giving the kids Children’s Benadryl to attempt to get them to sleep longer at night, but it’s only having a small effect so far.

As such, we haven’t gotten out to see the city except for the trip coming in. I can report that the Beijing airport was completely different from our trip last year. They’ve constructed an entirely new terminal located about 5 minutes from the old terminal, in effect doubling the size of their airport. We saw construction workers still at the terminal, with light fixtures missing in places and sections closed off. No doubt the terminal is scheduled to be completed in time for the Olympics in August. On our arrival, the pilot called the Beijing International Airport the largest airport in the world. I tried to verify it using Wikipedia, but it appears to be inaccessible from China.

There was construction at the local Taiyuan airport as well, which is very rundown compared to it’s Beijing counterpart and in bad need of renovation. Alas, I didn’t see any signs of improving the current terminals, only expansion. In fact, there’s construction everywhere you look in this city. It seems like every other skyscraper in town has a crane on top of it.

One lighthearted observation before I go: most dishwashing detergent is lemon-scented in America, but here I found ginger scented dishwashing detergent. It smells good.