Anniversary in separate rooms

On February 21, 2002, we met on a Thursday evening after the Wesley Foundation's weekly event. Ten years later on February 21, 2012, we spent the night in separate hotel rooms.

You see, we spent the 10th anniversary of the day we meet traveling home from Bangkok to Harbin. It was the beginning of a long and eventful two day event.

The day began on the beach in Thailand south of Bangkok eating breakfast and taking some last minute photos of the boys on the beach wearing something other than a swimsuit. We boarded a van, traveled 3.5 hours to Bangkok's airport and waited for our flight home. We ate lunch at Burger King and Subway (the last of those we'll see until we visit to America this summer) and boarded the delayed evening flight to Shanghai.

30 minutes from Shanghai, a flight attendant told us that our plane would not be land in Shanghai because we've been diverted to Qingdao because of bad weather. Minutes later, the crew announced this to the whole cabin.

It's midnight by the time we learned the flight was cancelled and we're stranded in Qingdao. (Guess we won't be using the room we reserved in Shanghai.) During the next thirty minutes, we cleared immigration and customs, claimed our bags, used rockin' Chinese to change our flights, and waited along with everyone else for a bus to the hotel.

At the hotel, everyone jostled for room keys at the check in counter. Since we had four travelers, we're given two rooms. We spent the night apart.

After 3 hours of sleep, we're shuttled back to the airport ready to board our new flight home from Qingdao.

We arrived at our apartment in Harbin by 12:30 PM ready to sleep. This time in the same bed.