Chapter One - Our Journey

Well we finally set off... We were picked up and taken to Palmerston north airport.  All kids and bags loaded into the car... we left a little early in order to pick up some new pants and shoes for Brent.  For the kids waiting at the airport seemed to take forever... but eventually our "huge" (in my sons terms) plane arrived to take us to Auckland. The first plane ride for the kids was wonderful for them... they loved it.  We arrived in Auckland and made our way to the International terminal, we were going to walk but it was pouring down with rain, so we took the shuttle bus.  Making our way through customs we just relaxed in the transit part and had a look around the duty-free shops.  There was an interesting light feature in the centre of it all.  In the pics you can see sam sitting at the base of it.  It looked like a giant ponga tree. I tried to take a picture but my camera would not  for some reason.  It had an inverted dome on the top which changed colours... it went from green with kakapo images and bush images on it... to blue with fish swimming round then to yellow as in the sunrise with a Tui on it.. was really quite fasinating.

Finally we boarded our long flight to Beijing...  Plane was packed tight, but once settled we were served a meal...now airplane food was a bit unusual for the kids lol.  Because we were flying to Beijing there were a lot of noodles served..and they had no idea about wot should be in a kids meal .  They operated the videos in the back of the seats without too many problems watch a couple of movies..and slept.