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We started out early on Wednesday morning (August 30th) with our flight out of Mobile at 6:20 am. We arrived in Memphis on schedule, made our connecting flight to Detroit, and then the problems started. Our connecting plane for the Detroit to Tokyo flight had a hydraulic leak. All passengers were moved to another airplane along with the luggage and food supplies. This caused a five hour delay. We bet you can guess the next event. That's right! Due to the delay, we missed our connecting flight from Tokyo to Beijing. The airline was very gracious and put us up in a very nice hotel in Tokyo for the night.
 Once at the hotel, we attempted to phone our travel guide in Beijing to inform them of the changes to our travel plans. Suffice as to say an Alabama country boy trying to converse with a Chinese office assistant proved to be quite a lengthy and trying experience! We did however arrange for transportation from the airport on the following day. Our flight out the next morning had us arrive in Beijing at around 4:00 pm. Our guide was there to pick us up, but he informed us that his company had no record of our travel arrangements. After a visit to their office, several phone calls back to the United States and many broken discussions in Chinese/English, we were still lost without a definite destination. Our guide decided to take us on to our originally booked hotel to see what they could tell us. Once at the hotel the story began to unfold. We were booked into the hotel and we had a travel guide but not the one we had worked with over the phone from Tokyo. The phone number that had been supplied to us by our US travel agent was incorrect, but at least we had a place to lay our heads and it appeared that we were safe, for the moment. We will update again tomorrow, after a good night's rest!!
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