While we were at Dulles Airport waiting to board our flight to Beijing, Mei Ling delivered some unfortunate news. She had just come off a lengthy, tense call, and even though my proficiency in Chinese was limited, I sensed that things weren't going well. Indeed, they weren't. Cleo's summer camp in Yunnan had been canceled, and the only possible alternative was in Dalian. Not only had I meticulously crafted an itinerary for our time in Yunnan, but we had previously spent four days in Dalian back in 2019. I had enjoyed our time there, but I didn't feel we had much left to explore. Dalian is situated at the end of a peninsula, making it inconvenient to reach any new, interesting places on our own while Cleo attended camp.
My initial thought was to cancel this camp segment, leaving Cleo with just five days in Beijing. This way, we could stick to our original plan and have Cleo with us in Yunnan. It would be her first time away from us, and perhaps five days would be better than two weeks. However, Mei Ling was clearly dissatisfied with that idea, which meant I had to engage in some intensive research and planning. I had developed our itinerary back at home on my desktop over several days, navigating through maps, planners, and ChatGPT among other tools. Now, I had to reorganize everything in a matter of minutes on a small phone screen—far from ideal.
We would need to postpone our arrival in Hanoi by a day and cancel our road trip to Jianshui and Xishuangbanna in Yunnan, but we could still keep Lijiang and Dali. We'd maintain our plans for Beijing and Chengde but had to move them later due to our new stop in Dalian. After a brief search north of Dalian, I discovered Dandong, a city on the North Korean border, where a day trip to Sinuiju seemed feasible. While visiting North Korea had never been on my agenda, this opportunity appeared to offer an intriguing travel story. Though I was ambivalent about Dalian itself, visiting Dandong and Yingkou on the peninsula meant we would only have to spend a couple of days there. Even if we repeated some past experiences, it wasn’t the end of the world.
Mei Ling reached out to the coordinator again and secured Cleo's spot in Dalian. She then canceled our Beijing accommodation and booked a domestic flight from Beijing to Dalian that departed about three hours after our arrival. Ultimately, she found us an apartment in Dalian on Ctrip. Thankfully, I hadn't made any reservations in Jianshui or Xishuangbanna, just needing to adjust our stays in Lijiang and Hanoi by a day. Mei Ling would manage Dali. We decided to postpone concerns about Dandong or Yingkou until we arrived in Dalian, as it seemed likely accommodations wouldn’t be hard to find in those lesser-known cities.
By the time we wrapped up these last-minute changes, they were announcing our boarding for the flight to Beijing. The journey to Casablanca, Morocco took seven hours, followed by a seven-hour layover before a twelve-hour flight to Beijing. Finding direct flights to China from the eastern United States had previously been straightforward, but since COVID, most options had vanished. While they slowly returned, prices surged by fifty percent compared to one-stop flights, making it quite costly for a family of five. We purchased access to a lounge in Casablanca, hoping for some rest, but it turned out to be futile. The lounge had only a few chairs, most of which were occupied by travelers who left their belongings claiming them. I’m not the type to move personal items aside to sleep, though I wished I could muster the courage. The food and drink options were also disappointing. I hadn't managed to sleep at all during the first segment, and while I might have dozed on a regular seat in the lounge, it wasn’t restful. Predictably, I couldn’t sleep on the lengthy second leg to Beijing either. No matter how tired I am, sleeping upright remains nearly impossible for me.
In Beijing, we had enough time to enjoy a decent meal at an airport restaurant before our final two-hour flight. By the time we reached Dalian, we were all exhausted but relieved that the grueling intercontinental travel was behind us for the next six weeks. Mei Ling had also arranged an airport pickup with the same person whose apartment we were renting. The ground was still wet from a heavy downpour, and the plane trees around the parking area were a rich shade of green. Our apartment in the Heishijiao district was a forty-minute drive from the airport, consisting of a spacious room on an upper floor of a high-rise condo. The large window provided stunning views of the Bohai Strait and the illuminated Xinghai Bay Bridge.
Naturally, everyone was tired, and I’m sure I was
While we were at Dulles Airport waiting to board our flight to Beijing, Mei Ling delivered some unfortunate news. She had just finished a long, stressful phone call, and though I didn't grasp much of the Chinese conversation, I sensed that things were not going well. And indeed, they weren't. Cleo's summer camp in Yunnan had been canceled, and the only possible alternative was in Dalian. Not only had I meticulously crafted a whole itinerary for Yunnan, but we had also already spent four days in Dalian back in 2019. While I did enjoy our time there, I felt like there wasn't much left to explore. Dalian is situated at the end of a peninsula, so even if we ventured out while Cleo was at camp, it would be quite inconvenient to reach any new and interesting places we hadn’t yet visited.