Ni hao from Beijing!

This post is actually from several days ago, but we couldn't get it posted until now.

Praise God, all went well getting to the airport (thanks Pam) and the flight went smoothly (once I felt the bump of the landing, a huge grin spread across my face. We had arrived!). We went from foggy cold SF to pea soup smoggy hot Beijing. When we deplaned and walked into the airport, we were greeted by an almost eerie silence. There was no Chinese version of Barry Manilow playing over the loud speaker. We are also guessing that the basket weave construction of the ceiling helps absorb the sound of footsteps echoing and luggage being dragged across the floor.

We got into Beijing at 5:00pm (8am your time) and finally got to our hotel around 8:30pm. Getting through customs was a breeze. We just showed our passport and visa and that was it. Oh yes, and there was the “thermoscan” we had to walk through to make sure we didn’t have a fever. We passed.

Getting through the city to our hotel was another matter entirely. I had to learn to suppress my gasping at all the close calls we had. Our driver knew how to handle the dodging and weaving of cars and busses to get through Beijing traffic (LA meet your match!).

We have seen the other two couples who are adopting from Beijing, and were able to talk briefly with one. This couple has 5 kids already, with two daughters with them on the trip. They’ll be adopting a 7 year old boy. They’ve had a crazy adoption journey as well, and I’m guessing that is par for the course.

Well James is already passed out on the smallest “king” size board, I mean, bed we’ve ever seen. I have to go downstairs to post this where we can get wireless access. Tomorrow breakfast after 6am, photocopying documents after 7am and then we head to the orphanage at 9am. I have two words about that last item….WOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!