Finally, we're leaving LA for China! It's January 5; we'd left St. Louis January 3, but were mechanically delayed for a few hours on the ground at Lambert. THEN we sat on the tarmac in Denver for an hour waiting for a gate while we missed our flight to LAX and, ultimately, our international connection.

China Southern, our international carrier, would not endorse our tickets over to United, so the staff in United's Denver office berated us, gave us $23 in vouchers and sent us to a hotel which, by the time we got there, was already overbooked.

We spent two days in LA waiting for another China Southern flight, but finally-- we were off to China. Little did we know the trip wasn't going to get a whole lot better from here.