In early April, the NFL announced it had cancelled the game. However, sticking to my original thought that the game was just a bonus anyway, we decided not to cancel. The agency said they'd substitute with something else, and would send out the final itinerary "soon." Meanwhile, we applied for travel visas, she renewed her passport (new name), we arranged for a cat sitter and mail grabber, got travel prescriptions and just-in-case medications (Pepto), etc. I tried to arrange my three fantasy baseball teams to predict results a week ahead. We're talking serious prep here, folks.
We next heard from the agency on July 15th, but not with the details. It was more of "we're still here" and that the new itinerary would come "by the end of this week." Eleven days later, we got it - the only change was that the game was dropped. No makeup. Plus, this included our flight details, just nine days before the flights. Oy. The flights were Seattle to Seoul (actually Incheon) on Korean Air, then a short layover, then to Beijing, with the same return route.
The advice was to leave lots of baggage space for things we might buy in China. Besides that, since we were going to be flying for 14 hours or so each way, we wanted to make sure we wouldn't go bonkers en route. We packed about eight books, the laptop, magazines, cards, and so on, making for some heavy carry-ons.
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