The Adventures of the Griffis Family in China: November 10-18, 2010

Day 1: Tuesday, November 10. Owen has been repeating “We go China now!” at intervals for the past 36 hours when Davey, the usual driver for Eric’s department, arrives at 9:30 a.m. to collect us. It’s an hour-long drive to Edinburgh. Davey, as per normal, talks for nearly the entire trip. He is a sixty-something man with a serious Dundonian accent, and I only understand about two-thirds of what he says. This, however, is not a problem, as one rarely has to do much in a conversation with Davey other than smile and nod. On arrival, I find myself impressed as usual by the general efficient cheeriness of Edinburgh Airport. It’s compact and uncrowded and yet seems to have all the amenities one wants in an airport, particularly including excellent baby care facilities. The flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow only takes an hour. We come in at Terminal 5, which, as you will know if you have ever been there, is the exact opposite of compact and uncrowded. After four months in Scotland, the array of English kitsch in the souvenir shops seems weirdly foreign – we are used to seeing the St. Andrew’s cross and kilts, not the Union Jack and those furry Buckingham Palace guard hats.

By now it is the middle of the afternoon. While we wait, Eric exchanges currency and buys some gifts for our hosts. We encourage Owen to run and jump as much as possible, hoping to tire him out a bit. Boarding is a bit late, which is not bad, as it gives Eric time to charge his computer and Owen more time to run himself ragged. Takeoff is around 5 p.m. We have bulkhead seats, so there are no complaints about legroom. The flight attendant presents Owen with a Paddington Bear coloring set, and since we have ordered a child’s dinner, his food arrives almost as soon as the plane has completed its ascent. It’s chicken tenders and mashed potatoes, but he only eats about three bites. Our own dinners of beef cobbler are not bad, and since Eric and I split the leftovers of Owen’s meal, I end up quite full. We both abstain virtuously from the free wine. After dinner Owen gets to watch Monsters, Inc. on “my own TV!” For my part, I am starting to crash. I only had about four hours of sleep the night before, owing to travel jitters, so I put my headphones on and nap. After the movie ends, Eric takes Owen back to an empty row he has spotted so that Owen can lie down to sleep (bulkhead seats: good for long legs, bad for putting up the armrests). I move over one, so that I have empty seats on either side of me, and keep on trying to nap. (Somehow those little booties and sleep masks and toothbrushes that British Airways gives out just make everything seem so much nicer. United, you can jump off a bridge.)

Beijing is eight hours ahead of London, so morning comes very early. I make myself wake up when I see light coming through the window, even though there are still two hours left in the flight. Eric and Owen rejoin me when the cabin lights come up. Owen is in rough shape, very sleepy and unhappy, and it gets worse in a few minutes when they serve breakfast and, ugh, he vomits on everything. Clothes, jacket, blankets, stuffed doggie – I don’t even notice that he got some on my sweater for hours afterwards. Eric insisted on bringing a carryon with a change of clothes for each of us, just in case; thank goodness he did. “I want to go home now,” Owen whimpers pathetically as we change him, but he seems to improve quickly afterwards. Despite the overall grossness of the situation, I am still quite ready to finish breakfast afterwards (somewhat to Eric’s dismay, I think). What can I say? Flying always leaves me hungry.