China Trip Day 1: Leaving Home for Beijing

We made it to Beijing! It feels so strange to be so, so far away from home. Honestly, I am a little freaked out by the fact that it took us 13 hours in a plane to get here. We traveled over 6,500 miles from Chicago to Beijing. That's a long stinkin' way.

We started this day (actually yesterday Wednesday, May 11) getting up around 5:30 and pulling everything together to catch our first flight from Birmingham to Chicago. Mom took us to the airport and sat with us a while before we went through security. I so wish she could be here with us but someone has to work, right?!? We got on the plane, made it to Chicago and our flight to Beijing was delayed by 2 ½ hours. We met up with Karen, Tony and Karen's mom in the airport, ate and twiddled away some time until we finally boarded the plane....and sat on the tarmac for another 2 hours. It was excruciating!!!

Once we took off, it was ok....as ok as 13 hours squished like sardines on a plane can be I guess. I tried to medicate myself with Benadryl but I must be resistance cause it did NOTHING for me. I slept maybe 40 minutes the whole flight. We were supposed to arrive in Beijing at 3:15pm and ended up getting here at 7:20pm Beijing time (6:20am CST). Our guide, Louise met us after we went through immigration, claimed our bags and made it through customs. She is super sweet and walked us through some highlights for the next few days. She will actually be accompanying us all the way through our trip until we head home on the 28th. She also said she called the orphanage yesterday to check on Lily and Sophie and they told her that our girls were very active. Hee hee. We are in for it, aren't we?!?

We are now settled in to our room at the Rennaisance Chaoyang Hotel in Beijing. We took a little walk to the Quik mart about 2 blocks away to get water and some Coca-Cola Light. I had graham crackers and peanut butter in the room tonight for dinner. Food for tomorrow will be much more interesting. Tomorrow morning we will wake up at 6am (5pm CST), get ready and have breakfast in the hotel before we meet Louise at 8am to start our touring day. We will visit the Great Wall in the morning and the Temple of Heaven afterwards with a stop for a traditional Chinese lunch somewhere in there. We will also be going to a jade factory.

I'm really not sure what my first impression of Beijing is. It's smoggy and there are lots of people on bicycles. People drive nuts and there is our nice hotel 2 blocks down the street from a sex shop. Strange. I haven't slept for 2 days and I have to go down to the lobby to upload this and our pictures from today so I will save most of my impressions for tomorrow. I really just want to get my baby girl. Like now. :)

Here are pictures from yesterday/today... click on the pic and it will take you to the album.

2011-05-12 China Trip Day1

More tomorrow!