We are safely in Beijing! The plane ride over was obviously very long. We were pleased by the selections of free movies (and free wine/beer) ... Kings Speech, Space Battleship Yamato, The Tourist, Gulliver Travels and much much more). Our seats reclined just enough so our foreheads were not knocking into the seat in front but not at all enough to get comfortable.

Once we arrived at our destination we waited for almost two hours for our guide to pick us up. Needless to say we were confused, exhausted & agitated. We had no yuan to make a phone call so luckily Dad took charge and found some English speaking Chinese girls, working at a tour desk, who allowed him to use their desk phone to call our guide- the mix up was that our guide had our old itinerary which had our flight landing one hour before it actually did.

Here are the confused Americans, weary from travel and anxious to assume horizontal posture...


We ended up on a small bus with 2 other families who had been picked up at a different terminal. One of them originates from Texas. Both families are here to adopt their daughters and they will leave Sunday to fly to their prospective families. The ride to our hotel was surprising to us all- at night at least, the roads, buildings, green exit signs, digital information boards over the interstate all looked like home. They are even driving on the same side of the street. We were expecting vastly different sites and today was not the day we would experience much except fatigue.

We got checked into our hotel with the help of our friendly guide. Our room is very pretty. The bed is much lower to the ground than what we are used to back home. And there are only a handful of hangers to hang our small wardrobe. Matt and I just ate our room service hotdogs and french fries and it was delicious. I would go as far as to say it was as good as the yummy New York hotdogs we indulged in a few years ago. We think the total for our two hot dog platters comes out to be $15. Lets hope we arent mistaken. The room mini bar has single cokes for $20 each so we will stay away from those. Here's a few pictures of our room. Notice the playpen bed waiting on our son!! We are set up and ready for Zachary's arrival!









We were told tonight we would be leaving for the orphanage at 9am Sunday! We cant wait! We are the only family from our agency staying in Beijing so we are excited to meet other families (from other agencies) who will be going to our Gotcha Day too! Exciting times!!