Packing, Passports and Pcasso

I had a delightful lunch with a friend today and truly enjoyed and welcomed the break since I have been very busy getting things in place for our upcoming trip to China. We have both passports and visas in hand, so we're almost ready for the big event. I don't usually get very excited about traveling any more, but I'm really looking forward to this trip. I've been packed mentally for over a week, but now the time is almost here, so I had to get busy and get things done before I run out of time!

As a general rule, the photograph above is the way I look when we get off the plane for a trip overseas. Not true this time! We are limited to 1 bag each, weighing no more that 44 pounds TOTAL and 1 carry-on each.

I have spent the better part of the day packing my bright, compact little chartreuse bag that Frank bought for me so it wouldn't get lost amongst all the black baggage, and he took it to the Mailing Center (not the post office) to be weighed. Believe it or not, it only weighs 39 pounds and I'm allowed 44! That's one big load off of my mind. Now I have to unpack it, wash and iron the linens and Chico Traveler stuff (I don't have to iron those) and re-pack it so the linen pieces can get wrinkled again. Such is life. At least everyone knows that linen wrinkles (at least if it's the real thing) so that's what I'm taking since it's going to be very warm in China and handkerchief linen doesn't weigh very much. The clothes from Chico's are a completely different matter, but they don't wrinkle!
Next comes the carry-on. We're allowed one each of a very definite size and it can't weigh more than 11 pounds. This is the real challenge because my cameras, medicine and make-up will be in there. I just pray that they don't decide to weigh me because I already know that I'm WAY overweight!

Once I have this done, I can sit back, relax and look forward to the trip. It's going to be a long one, over 20 hours traveling time, but at least the seats on JAL make into beds so we can sleep. We go from San Francisco to Tokyo and from Tokyo to Beijing. They are sending a car for us from the hotel so that will make things easier. Check out the hotel ... it's looks pretty neat.

http://www.shangri-la.com/en/property/beijing/chinaworld

We'll be there 5 days so we can really get to see Beijing as well as recoup from the long flight, and then we will begin our actual tour. Here is our itinerary of you're interested.

China’s Cultural Delights River Cruise: Itinerary - www.VikingRiverCruises.com We are taking the extension trip to Guilin and Hong Kong as well. I've always wanted to see the Li River and Guilin. Here is photograph of this mystical place.

I won't be taking my laptop but I will take a lot of photographs and will post them after we return. I do plan to keep a daily journal while we're gone. It's a good refresher after you're gone on a long trip.

I'll write more later. It's cocktail time and I think I deserve one. It's been a very busy day!

Pcasso