Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China

China Map--Xi'an's in the middle

Xi'an is our initial destination for our trip. It's right there on the map--sort of mid to Eastern side of China. It's considered Northwestern China, though. This map doesn't show that many of the Western chunks of China are actually 'autonomous' regions that sort of fall under China depending upon the weather, political climate and other odd factors at various times of the day. Heck, Taiwan & Tibet are even considered as 'auto' regions. Hmmm...I need to think about that one a bit. ;) This will be about the 'boondockiest' I've ever personally been in life. Well, Hawaii is 'technically' the 'boondockiest' location on the Earth--the most remote of any inhabited place but it didn't ever feel 'boondocky' during our multiple trips there. Xi'an will, I think. ;) Maybe it's just because we don't speak the language or read their writing? We'll soon find out.

Our trip begins with our first flight out of Seoul's new Incheon Airport (at least, it's new to us--it opened just after we moved away from Korea back in the Winter of 1998). The airport itself is gorgeous--sleek, modern, new. It puts to shame many of the US airports we've spent a bunch of time in over the past several years. Incheon got it right! We catch our Air China flight on a B777!!!!!! Yes, we finally got our first flight on the triple 7--and it wasn't even a polar cap route!!! It took ages but for some reason they used the 777 for this hop, skip & a jump flight between Seoul & Beijing. Who knew??? Double bonus day for us--and we hadn't even arrived in China yet! Well, the bonus soon ended.