What a wild and wacky trip it’s been. We made it….yeah!!!! 13 hours and 8 minutes later that is. That is some flight. We sat in our seats on an almost packed flight, very few seats available. It was Boeing 777; seats were three, three and three so almost four hundred of us embarked for Beijing. We guestimate about 2/3 Americans traveling and 1/3 Chinese were on the flight. In case you would like to know – we left at 12:20pm. We were given hot towels before lunch, steak or salmon, including salad with shrimp, rolls, brownie, and a fortune cookie. Then we watched "Hancock". Later we had a "snack"; which consisted of a personal small cheese pizza and a yogurt size personal container of Hagen Daas Vanilla Ice Cream. Another movie, "Get Smart". I also watched three episode of CSI and a few episodes of Raymond. Then most people slept a little. We were able to play video games on the personal video monitors in front of us so Bill, Dad, and Kristin played a LOT of games of Solitaire. Then I watched a series of comedies: I Hate Chris, Malcolm in the Middle, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and The Big Bang Theory. Then breakfast…our choice of dumplings or scrambled eggs. One hour left to go. We landed fine, arrived at the gate, went through customs with no problem. Luggage came through fine. Yeah! We left the airport and we felt like rock stars. You had to go through a gated section and people were lining the gates with signs. There was our guide, Susan carrying a "SCHAB/CACRCICH" sign……yeah!!
Weird story on the plane…..we were talking with a woman who was going to Cambodia with her mother to do a build for "Habitat". (This was her third….amazing.) We were talking about Kassandra and Bill pulled out the I-pod with her picture. The gentleman behind me, who had not been a part of the conversation and had slept most of the way, asked me if I had a website and was I adopting a three year old? I said "yes" and Bill showed him the picture. He proclaimed, "Yeah, that’s her. She’s cute. I’ve seen your blog." Apparently his friend in Ohio gave him the link to our website and he checked it out. She is not adopting but found the site and connected him. Our guess is she googled the flight and the site came up as a hit due to our itinerary being on the sight. What are the odds that a man who knew about our adoption story, but did not know us, would happen to be sitting behind us and overhear our conversation and tell us he has seen our sight……weird!!!
Weird story on the plane…..we were talking with a woman who was going to Cambodia with her mother to do a build for "Habitat". (This was her third….amazing.) We were talking about Kassandra and Bill pulled out the I-pod with her picture. The gentleman behind me, who had not been a part of the conversation and had slept most of the way, asked me if I had a website and was I adopting a three year old? I said "yes" and Bill showed him the picture. He proclaimed, "Yeah, that’s her. She’s cute. I’ve seen your blog." Apparently his friend in Ohio gave him the link to our website and he checked it out. She is not adopting but found the site and connected him. Our guess is she googled the flight and the site came up as a hit due to our itinerary being on the sight. What are the odds that a man who knew about our adoption story, but did not know us, would happen to be sitting behind us and overhear our conversation and tell us he has seen our sight……weird!!!
Anyway, Susan took us to our new mini-van with driver and they took us to the Temple of Heaven. Amazing is the only word I can use. We cannot imagine things being built so long ago with such detail and opulence. This temple was built for celebrating the gods of the harvest and praying for good crops. The amount of people there both visiting and just hanging out on a random Friday afternoon was remarkable. Groups of Chinese both young and old were gathered and singing different songs. Old songs from their youth, new melodies, some had accompanying dancers. Every few feet there were new groups singing different music with pride and talent. All along the walkway were groupings of locals’ playing card games. They were taking their games very seriously. The temple was fabulous and we loved seeing it but the trip was starting to wear on us and we were beginning to fade.
Now Susan takes us to the Pearl Market. Shopping!! Please keep in mind, it is now 3:30pm (ish), and we are getting close to being up about 20hours. The market is stimulation overload. Booths next to booths crammed with every conceivable item for sale and girls are shouting at you as you walk by "You need purse, come see." "We have luggage, you buy". "I got shoes, you try on." Etc. We went to a pearl dealer on the third floor. Very lovely items but we were exhausted and could not focus. Bye Bye market….no pearls for us.
Driver took us to The North Garden Hotel, our home for one night. Lovely, check-in no problem but they only have two rooms….one with a "king" and one with two twin beds. We went to our rooms and Bill and I laughed…..the "king" is obviously for Chinese people. I’m not positive it is even the same as our "queen" at home, it is somewhere in between a double and a queen at home. Mom and Dad played "Lucy and Ricky" for the night. You know how you say the phrase, "I’m so tired I could sleep on a ______". No worries. I’m sure all will sleep like babies.
Our first "authentic" dinner was delicious. We choose well and feasted on yummy noodles, Bill ate some pork that he loved, Dad had some crispy duck and we all liked our dumplings. We left full and tired and needing sleep. The bill came to $375 RMB (which equates to about $50 US dollars)…..what a bargain.
We leave in the morning at 8am for our adventure at The Great Wall. Kind of mind numbing to think we will be standing on one of the 7 wonders of the world tomorrow morning. Even typing it feels odd. Okay all sight seeing and then a 3 hour flight to Changsha and we are one day closer to meeting our little one……YEAH!!!!!!!
More to come…….(today’s post is, what I think will be, unusually long. We crashed after dinner and then woke back up at 11:30pm and now we have to go back to sleep until our wake-up at
6:15am.)
Now Susan takes us to the Pearl Market. Shopping!! Please keep in mind, it is now 3:30pm (ish), and we are getting close to being up about 20hours. The market is stimulation overload. Booths next to booths crammed with every conceivable item for sale and girls are shouting at you as you walk by "You need purse, come see." "We have luggage, you buy". "I got shoes, you try on." Etc. We went to a pearl dealer on the third floor. Very lovely items but we were exhausted and could not focus. Bye Bye market….no pearls for us.
Driver took us to The North Garden Hotel, our home for one night. Lovely, check-in no problem but they only have two rooms….one with a "king" and one with two twin beds. We went to our rooms and Bill and I laughed…..the "king" is obviously for Chinese people. I’m not positive it is even the same as our "queen" at home, it is somewhere in between a double and a queen at home. Mom and Dad played "Lucy and Ricky" for the night. You know how you say the phrase, "I’m so tired I could sleep on a ______". No worries. I’m sure all will sleep like babies.
Our first "authentic" dinner was delicious. We choose well and feasted on yummy noodles, Bill ate some pork that he loved, Dad had some crispy duck and we all liked our dumplings. We left full and tired and needing sleep. The bill came to $375 RMB (which equates to about $50 US dollars)…..what a bargain.
We leave in the morning at 8am for our adventure at The Great Wall. Kind of mind numbing to think we will be standing on one of the 7 wonders of the world tomorrow morning. Even typing it feels odd. Okay all sight seeing and then a 3 hour flight to Changsha and we are one day closer to meeting our little one……YEAH!!!!!!!
More to come…….(today’s post is, what I think will be, unusually long. We crashed after dinner and then woke back up at 11:30pm and now we have to go back to sleep until our wake-up at
6:15am.)
Love and hugs……
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