Saturday night

We are here! After 25+ hours of traveling, we made it to Beijing last night. Our travel was fairly uneventful. The flight from Tokyo to Beijing was delayed, but the pilot made it up in the air. It took a few minutes for us to find out guide, but then we did and made it to our hotel by 11:00 pm China time, Friday evening. (That would be 10 Friday morning in Mississippi.) Our rooms are nice. Rick and I have one room and the boys are across the hall. We went to bed about 11:00 and I slept until about 4:00 am, I got back to sleep a little after 5:00 and then we got up at 7:00.

We ate breakfast in the hotel at 8:00. There we found our other AWAA families. The breakfast is very good, but no grits. We left the hotel at 9:00 and our day was packed!!! First we went to Tianneman Square and took a group picture. We walked through the Forbidden City. It was amazing. It is huge, but you cannot imagine it from the outside. Our guide told us it had 10,000 rooms. At first we thought, "No Way," but after walking through we realized it just went on and on. It was very interesting. It took us 3 hours to walk through it. The women's bathrooms were "squatty potties," but very nice. They were porcelain in the floor and automatically flushed. (Sarah, no smell.) The sky seemed very overcast, but it is just the pollution.

After the Forbidden City we were all starving, so we went to traditional Chinese lunch. It was a very nice restaurant. We had Chinese food in the traditional style served on a lazy Susan in the middle of the table. Of course there are no serving utensils, so you try not to think about how everyone at your table is dipping in the same bowls. There was lots of food. I did pretty well with my chopsticks, and the kids did great with theirs!

The next stop on our fun-filled day was a pearl factory. They told us all about pearls and even opened a fresh water oyster. I will have a beautiful complexion when I return because I bought pearl cream with ginseng. I also purchased a few gifts.

We went to the summer palace and walked around there for about 45 minutes. It is where the Chinese Emporers and Empresses vacationed. They were not allowed to leave the city, so they created a place with replicas of the famous landmarks from all over China. By this time we were beginning to wilt just a bit. It was pretty warm today.

Our final stop before dinner was a silk factory. We learned how silk is made and it is quite an extensive process. We bought a couple of silk outfits for Hannah Ruth. Richmond bought a tie and Ryan bought some boxers.

We ended our day with a Peking Duck dinner. Same thing - food served on a lazy Susan.

Now the bad news: When we came back to the hotel, I wanted to update the blog and download pictures. Somehow the computer cable for the camera was overlooked during packing. We went next door to the Carrefour store (a big grocery and department store, sort of like Wal-mart) and bought a USB camera adapter, but so far the computer will not recognize it. Tomorrow we hope to borrow a cable from someone in our group so we can upload photos. I do not know what we will do if we cannot borrow a cable.

Tomorrow is another busy day. We will start our day at the International Church (only people with foreign passports can attend.) We will then travel to the Jade Factory and the Great Wall. Tommorrow night we will attend a Chinese acrobats show. (Then of course Monday Hannah Ruth will join our family.)

Pray that we stay healthy. We are trying to be careful. Rick is not feeling well tonight, but I think it may be from our busy day, yesterday's long travel, and jet lag. Continue to pray for "gotcha day" with Hannah Ruth. We are feeling hopeful about the transition because three families in our group received their babies on Tuesday. (SN) They had about 48 hours notice to travel. This is the first time with AWAA that any families have done the Beijing touring portion after having their babies. The babies are adorable - two boys and one girl and they already seem to have bonded with their parents.

Hopefully I will post tomorrow night with pictures.