We left Springfield at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, November 9th and arrived in Chicago at 7:30 a.m. We met up with two of the other families in our travel group and had a nice visit while waiting to board our plane. Finally, we boarded our plane for China and were scheduled to take off around 12:30 p.m. but there was some kind of a problem with an indicator light and we were not able to leave until 1:00 p.m. We sat next to a young couple named Amy and Roger who live in Boise, Idaho. They were traveling to China to adopt a baby girl also. Our seats were close to the other families in our travel group which made it easy to converse back and forth. The thirteen and one half hour flight was uneventful and very long. Apparently none of us had slept much the night before with the growing excitement that we would soon be united with our daughters. We did fly over the North Pole and the temperature below was minus seventy two degrees. Now that is cold!
We arrived in Beijing around 2:30 p.m. on Friday, November 10th. We were all so tired it was quite a chore just to fill out the forms for Customs. William, our BLAS (Bridge of Love Adoption Services) guide was there to meet us at the airport. We boarded a bus and headed for the Marriott Hotel. It was rush hour on a Friday night and the traffic was just crazy. Stop lights here are mere suggestions and not necessarily to be followed. William told us he had spoken with our Fuzhou orphanage director and our babies were all doing good. Three of the babies including our Hannah were still in foster care and one baby had been returned to the orphanage in July or August. Our rooms is very nice and we found ourselves in bed by 7:00 p.m. We woke up a couple of times during the night but we were able to go back to sleep. In two days we will meet our daughter.
Today our Hannah turns 14 months old. Just one more day and we will hold our baby girl for the first time. After breakfast at the hotel we boarded a bus and we were joined by the fourth family in our travel group. We stopped along the way at a jade factory. Tracy bought me a jade bracelet and earrings. Back on board the bus William gave us some of the history of The Great Wall and how it is a symbol of China. It was built many hundreds of years ago in sections for defense purposes. From East to West it is shaped like a dragon which is another symbol of China. Tracy and I climbed to the top of the first tier. The steps at times are very steep and quite uneven. The view was definitely worth the climb.
Next we stopped at the Cloisonné Factory. Cloisonné is enamelware which originated in Beijing of Yuan Dynasty. We watched the workers tediously working on some beautiful pieces of fine craftsmanship. We were then treated to an authentic Chinese luncheon courtesy of our BLAS guide. We tried many of the foods and surprisingly found them to be very good.
Next we were off to the Summer Palace and Imperial Gardens. One of the emperors had built this as a gift for his mother. There is a lake inside of the palace with a marble boat. We rode a ferry boat back to the main entrance. We were bombarded here by some very pushy local vendors who had a hard time taking no for an answer.
We then came back to the hotel and after a very brief pit stop because some of us preferred not to have use squatty potties we headed by bus to a local market for some bottled water, batteries, etc. William told us since the market was in walking distance that we would walk back to the hotel after making our purchases. His idea of within walking distance and ours was a bit different. After several blocks we finally made it back to our hotel and opted to have pizza delivered to our rooms. This will be our last night without our daughters. We leave in the morning after breakfast for Nanchang and should receive our daughters around 4:00 p.m.
