We Have Arrived Safely in Beijing, China

Thought we would let everyone know that we have arrived safely in Beijing. The flight was not too bad, was able to sleep some and watch some movies. Guy slept I would say 11 of the 14 hours - only Guy can sleep like that on a plane. It was nice traveling the long flight with Kelly and Fred and business class sure added to the comfort. Our flight attendant was very nice and presented Kelly and Fred and Guy and I with a bottle of champaigne and wrote us a poem on a cloth napkin - ours read like this "Proud Mommy and Daddy of New Baby Girl. Congratulatins from your crew flight 897 6/23/10 United. Yeah Yeah YIP What a Trip What a Whirl A Baby Girl". We shared our blogs so she too can follow along.

Once we arrived we met up with 4 other families at the airport in our travel group from other places across the United States (SC, New Hampshire, Colordo and Florida) the SC family was actually from Rock Hill which was neat; 3 of the families already had one little girl from China and this was their second adoption. George (not sure his Chinese name, but he says call him George) is our CCAI (our adoption agency) and has been very helpful. He still had 3 more trips back to the airport over the course of evening to get other families coming in.

Once we got checked in we walked across the street and ate at a Chinese Dumpling Restaurant. They were not bad, the fried ones were the best. Not sure what was more enjoyable the food, or Guy trying the dumplings. Guy is not very adventerous on what he eats and is just a meat and potatoes kind of guy so this is going to be very interesting for him. His facial expresssions, comments and the way the dumpling made its way into a napkin had the 3 of us hysterical. He seemed to have no problem with the beer here though and stuck to a liquid dinner. It was also quit comical trying to communicate with a waiter that does not speak english when we don't speak any chinese. He was very taken back though at the tip we left, modest $5 but they don't tip here at restaurants and he was very very apprecaitive and surprised! Meal for 4 and 4 beers; $25 US dollars.

Then we ventured over to the grocery store, which is located in the mall, interesting. Very different things you will see in their grocery store. Kelly and I had to go check out the meats and produce. The grossiest thing to me was the "penis" you can order at the deli...OMG! I did not bother to see "whose". The smell itself about took me out. We got some diet cokes and waters and headed back to the room for a good night sleep. Can't drink the water here, hard minerals our bodies not used to would make us sick, so even have to brush teeth with bottled water.

We slept well, now off to get ready for a big day of tours. Today we tour the Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Hutong and Birds Nest (where Olympics were when here in China). Should be a fun day!