When my younger brother told our family he was going to spend his first year out of college living and teaching English in China, we prepared for a year full of Skype conversations and missed holidays, as well as the vacation of a lifetime to go visit him.

That was how I found myself on the longest plane trip I had ever taken, stuck in the middle seat between my dad and my boyfriend, who had somehow talked his way into the trip, too.

After about 18 hours of travel time that began at 4 a.m. Arizona time on Saturday, we landed in Beijing at about 3 p.m. on Sunday.