We have arrived...

After 22 hours of flying, we finally arrived safely! We arrived in Beijing at noon on Friday. We were extremely jet lagged and of course Mike was hungry! So, we ate something and grabbed a 3 hour nap... After waking up Friday evening, we each got a massage at the hotel (less than $30.00, U.S.!)

We then ordered room service and went back to bed. I woke up at 2:30 AM and watched Mike sleep, as my body clock was totally off... Saturday morning we met with 3 other couples from our adoption group and loaded a bus to tour the Great Wall of China. It was a 2 hour drive there and we went through many rural Chinese villages on the way. We hiked to the very top of The Wall, which was no small feat, since it was over 1,000 steps! We were hot & exhausted, but it was definitely worth the long hike. Next we headed to a Chinese factory where authentic Closene Chinese pottery is made. This tour was interesting as there was absolutely no automation. All human labor for every step of the process! We then had lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant in the countryside. We sampled many Chinese dishes from the largest lazy Susan you could imagine. After lunch we drove 2 hours back to Beijing and toured the original Hutong neighborhoods via ricshaw. The area is very poor and dirty, yet at the same time quite beautiful. Entire streets of homes will share one bathroom! We arrived back to the hotel at 6:00 PM where I went right to sleep without dinner and woke this morning at 5:00 AM!

While I was sleeping Mike went down to the hotel bar with another soon-to-be Dad from our group, had a few drinks, and had no problems sleeping.

China is truly an amazing country. Our expectations have been exceeded at every turn. Beijing is very crowded, dirty and chaotic. Yet somehow it's strangely appropriate. The people are extremely friendly, there is order to the chaos, and the depth of history is staggering. China is over 5,000 years old... We are loving it here. It does take effort to communicate.
This is not at all like Europe or S. America. Hardly anyone speaks English and while they are very friendly, their focus is not on Westernizing their civilization. It's actually nice to see... We fly to Guangzhou in the morning to finally accomplish our goal of bringing Mia into our family. We can't wait.

We've been unable to post to our blog since the Chinese government has blocked the Internet access to any chat groups, blog sites, Youtube, etc.

My sister, Caren, was very helpful in allowing us to dictate this posting to her. We should be fine to post regularly, with photos, once we get to Guangzhou tomorrow, as we'll be much farther from the capital and the governmental control loosens considerably! We miss you all & can't wait for our big day tomorrow!!!!