August 31, 2025
We’re excited to be leaving for China tonight! Thankfully our first flight isn’t until 9pm so we have time to take it easy this morning and get organized. At the hotel breakfast, the kids enjoyed their last serving of Turkish string cheese and Len ended up flinging a piece that landed directly in my coffee cup.
After breakfast, we went back to the room to download movies and shows on the kids’ iPads for the long flights. The water wasn’t working at the hotel but were told it would be fixed by mid-afternoon so we hoped we’d be able to shower before our flight. We left the hotel mid-morning to walk to the mall down the street to kill time and pick up a few things. Kyle and I have lost about ~5 pairs of sunglasses in aggregate over the course of the trip so Sunglass Hut was our first stop. We also replaced Kyle’s lost flip flops. In the mall, a Turkish woman stopped to grab both boys faces and say something that we didn’t understand. Eileen had warned us that this would happen in Turkiye but we haven’t been many places outside of Mehmet’s home and village so this was a first for us. The boys acted confused and shy but it didn’t bother them as much as I anticipated.
We promised the kids a bit of arcade time at the mall but first we needed to eat lunch. Ollie was excited to order manti for himself but the rest of our food was mediocre compared to what Mehmet’s family made for us all week. We then spent about 30 minutes at the arcade with Ollie’s favorite as the Batman game and Len’s as the gum ball machine. Ollie played the game until he beat all the levels which left a woman and her son lurking behind us to let us know they wanted to play.
Thankfully the water was working at our hotel so we all took showers and finished packing before heading to the airport. We arrived to the airport with plenty of time and were pleased we had no issues with our Chinese visa at check in! This is the first hurdle with boarding the plane to Beijing and then passing through customs in China as our next hurdles. We’ve received some assurance from the folks that helped us plan the trip but we don’t have absolute assurance on the visa and have read some horror stories online.
Since we were so early, we spent nearly 3 hours at the lounge in Izmir. We have a free airport lounge card that came with our credit card but this is the first time we’ve used it on this trip. The food was fine but the kids went nuts for the mini raspberry cheesecakes for dessert. We bought exorbitantly priced travel pillows for the kids (>$35 USD each) on the way to board the plane in hopes they would help the kids sleep. While waiting in line, Ollie repeatedly, says “I can’t believe we’re going to China today!!!!”
On landing in Istanbul, Len goes, “what country are we in again?” We’ve talked about the travel plan for the day a bunch of times but its understandable how confused he can get. We were talking with Mehmet this week about the trip and he remarked that at almost 5 years old, and this trip at nearly a year long, it will be close to 20% of his life.
We had a brief layover in Istanbul waiting for our flight to Beijing to leave at 1am!
