Ni Hao from China!

We FINALLY made it!! Everything went smoothly and our flight actually left the airport a little early, so we had extra time to make our connecting flight in Tokyo. From all outward appearances, Donny did very well on the flight. We had some turbulence on both flights but it wasn’t too bad. It was definitely a long flight and we were all pretty wiped out when we arrived in Beijing. We stayed awake for the flight to help us shift our days and nights around. It was about 11:30 p.m. or so by the time we got into our hotel room. I think we were all feeling some jetlag this afternoon but hopefully we will sleep well tonight. Our guide in Beijing is Peter (he is employed by our adoption agency) and he is great! We are the only family that he had today, (another family arrives tonight) so he took us to the Summer Palace this morning and Alycia got to see the panda bears at the Beijing Zoo this afternoon. The pandas had just eaten, so we didn’t get to see them do much other than stand, sleep, and scratch themselves. It was hot today, so we didn’t walk around the zoo other than to see the pandas and buy a t-shirt.

We braved the traffic and hit the streets of Beijing a few times today (Thursday). We get lots of stares but only had our picture snapped by one family because we are (comparatively) soooo tall. It takes some time to get used to all of the store clerks trying to talk you into their stores. It was a little too overwhelming after a short visit to a few stores, so we just went back to our hotel. We took a nap this afternoon and decided to brave the shopping once again. We found a market with several vendors who weren’t quite as aggressive. The only thing we bought was some candy but at least it was a start! We also looked at some art and bartered on that…..we might go back but need to figure out if it’s something we can haul around for the rest of our trip. I was hoping to find someplace where I could buy a bunch of different items and have them all shipped home. I’ll ask Peter tomorrow if that’s possible.

Tomorrow morning we are off to do some more touring. It’s good that we’re busy doing things because it keeps us from counting down the hours and minutes until we get to Sydney.