You spent how much?

That was a long day. Up at 6. Leave the house at 7:30. Catch our flight from Charlotte to Detroit at 9:40. Land in Detroit with just enough time to use the restroom before boarding the plane for Beijing -- a 14-hour flight. About 90 minutes to the hotel, and 60 minutes to get the internet (kind of) working. By my count, we've been up roughly 26 hours straight and are ready to crash at 8:30 PM (that's 7:30 AM back home). Our Friday is over; hope you enjoy yours.

So why the title? Well, let's just say I made some questionable purchases and now I'm doing the math and trying to decide which was the biggest mistake. Do any of these sound unusual to you:

1. $169 to upgrade to Comfort+ for a seat close to front of plane with 4 inches extra leg room and "free" cocktails. I got a Jack & Ginger and a rum and Coke which averages out to $85/drink.
2. I forgot to bring an ethernet adapter for the laptop. I picked one up at an Apple store in Beijing for roughly $38.
3. Met a strange Chinese fellow who convinced us to share a small pot of tea and a bowl of peanuts in a back alley bar. Tab was 500¥ which amounts to $83.

Yeah, so $169 extra for seats may not have been the best deal around, but we did it mainly to have seats closer to front of plane with a little extra leg room. I was OK spending a little extra for the "luxury" even if the only real "extra" was the free liquor. The Thunderbolt adaptor for $38 sounds great -- I'm thinking I would spend $40-50 back home plus tax. But a small pitcher of tea (think 2-cup coffee maker) and some Planter's peanuts for $83?!? I'll never complain about an $8 beer again. (JollyRoger would be proud that I didn't leave a tip.)

We managed to part company with our new Chinese friend before he could order a 2nd pitcher, especially once we realized he wasn't going to be able to cover the bill. He claimed he taught grade school children English and wanted to work on this conversational skills. To this credit, he did a great job. But the whole time (especially when we turned off the main street into the back alley) I thought he was going to mug us. Little did I know it was the tea shop that was going to take me for all I had!

Now we're back in the hotel room. We have a free day tomorrow. The rest of the adoption group (who we have not met yet) are going to the Great Wall, but we passed on that option since we visited it on our last trip. Originally we thought we'd tour Beijing on our own, but now we're thinking we might have to stay in our room and watch movies on the laptop. If we have another day like today, we'll be broke before we meet Seraphina.

Edit: As luck would have it, I was kicked off the VPN connection while typing this and couldn't get back on Friday night. Apparently China and Google don't play well so without VPN we have no blog, no email and no Google Hangouts with the kids. Dumb communism.

And we're back. For now.