We Made It

I want to let all of you at home know that we are safe and sound in Beijing! What a trip. It was about six hours from Orlando to San Francisco and then what felt like a life time to Beijing, China. Our pilot took the scenic route, you know that one that you don’t head straight west to the destination but go north, through Alaska and then over the tip of Asia and then back south for hours; we did see beautiful mountains, snow everywhere and big ice burgs out in the ocean but if you could feel what our bodies feel like those beautiful scenes could have been missed. The temperature outside the plane registered around 46 degrees BELOW Celsius for awhile!
We left our home at 4:00 AM the morning of March1, 2007 and landed in Beijing, China at 4:00 PM the day of March 2, 2007. It doesn’t make sense but we lost a day in there and went over the actual timeline somewhere after Alaska. The weird thing is that for all the hours we were on the plane it never got dark outside. We were in sunlight for at least 36 hours!
Our tour guides were waiting for us at the airport with their green flags. After getting our bags and going through customs we met up with the Great Wall China Adoption tour guides and we were directed to a bus with about six other families and driven about 30 minutes to the hotel. It is different seeing all signs in another language. Now we know what the tourist in Florida think when they come over.
I can’t give you a whole lot about anything right now as we checked into the hotel, exchanged our money and then walked around the corner to the market to buy our bottled water for our tours tomorrow, or today, I am so confused! BUT at the market place we found a Subway, a KFC and a Baskin Robbins! We had to take photos!
(Jay and his picky eating habits are forever saved- he will not starve to death while we are here!!!)
When they exchanged our money I collected $100.00 US dollars from everyone so I had six hundred dollars in my hand. The lady gave our tour guide a bit of grief as she didn’t want to exchange so much money until he told her I was with six people. She gave me back about $5700.00, in Chinese money, or something like that.
At the market we grabbed eight bottles of water and the bill came to $21.00. The lady looked at me like I was crazy giving her a $100.00 bill. Then we stopped for ice cream. Mallory and I got a pint and it was $56.00! It is so funny!
We got back to the room and I got the laptop all hooked up and told Amanda she could check her myspace; my head didn’t even hit the pillow and I was out cold. So now it is the middle of the night here in China and my same bad habits from home have already taken over- I am up and on the computer in the middle of the night!
(By the way, THANKS CORKY for this computer, as the TV stations are only in Chinese and I won’t let Amanda use her cell phone she can now keep in contact with her friends back home so I don’t have to listen to any complaining during the trip!)
Just a couple more days and we will be with Ali!!! This is so exciting!