Our Last Day in Beijing- Heading Home

I woke up early to pack and get organized.  Our flight doesn't leave until 6 pm but we have another busy day planned.  I had a 9 am meeting with two of the volunteers with "Baby Come Home." Later someone from Hunan TV is supposed to be bringing our videotape back and copy more photos from our computer for the documentary they are making. 

After a busy morning we had lunch with Barbara Demick, writer for the LA Times and another colleague of hers.  They are both US citizens living and working in China.  Barbara wrote an excellent article on the story that was in the Baltimore Sun, LA Times, Chicago Tribune.  We had a great lunch at a sushi restaurant in a very modern part of the city.  I really enjoyed talking to both of them about China and their experiences.  It was also interesting to get their perspective on the Reunion story and hear how well it has been received by local Chinese people.   

After lunch we took a taxi back to our hotel, where we met Emily, our local guide and the driver to take us to the airport.  As we were halfway to the airport at about 3:30 pm, I started looking through the flight information for Jamie's flight number.  Jamie flew separately from the rest of us and we recalled that his flight was three hours from ours.  As I scanned the flight information I realized that the 9:30 departure time I had previously seen was not his departure time from Beijing but from his connecting flight in Newark.  Jamie's flight was leaving three hours before ours, not three hours after ours!  He was supposed to leave Beijing at 3:30!  So...Jamie got an extra night in Beijing!  Kelly and I joked the whole way home about how we were going to tell our mom, because the last thing she said to Kelly was "don't lose my boy."