Beijing, Day Two

Today we woke up bright and early and go hot on sightseeing.  We went to Tienanmen Square and The Forbidden City.  It was incredible, but incredibly hot.  By the photos you will see that there are thousands of people there as well as our measly little group of 33 people (including 6 darling little girls adopted from China, waiting to meet their new brothers and sisters!).  At one point I thought I could have had a full blown panic attack with the amount of people just trying to get into The Forbidden City.  The Chinese don't really follow the standard line procedure and tend to forget a little thing called personal space.  Just imagine thousands of sheeple taking tiny steps all at the same time going the same way.  It's comedy.  Despite the mere panic attack it was an amazing sight to see.

We then went to a yummy lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant for Peking Duck.  We were super hungry so when they came out with dish after dish of many kinds of food we all had big smiles on our faces.  There were about 7 different dishes and all of them very good.  I have to say that I have yet to have a bad meal.  The food is SO good here!

Next we headed up to the Great Wall.  You just can't imagine the beauty of it without seeing it in person.  I ventured about a quarter of the way, but with the heat, smog, and altitude I decided to park it and watch people.  Mark kept going and made it to the top.  So yes, Mark climbed the Great Wall!  All along the way he got stopped by Chinese tourists wanting to take pictures with him.  I think that people think he is Fabio with his blonde hair.  I have re-named him Flabio.

Tonight we are packing up and are heading out on an early flight to Hangzhou where we will call home for 5 days.  The time to Mali is getting closer, only two more days until we meet our girl!

Checking in.......

We had a huge day today and jet lag is setting in and I need to get some sleep. For some reason I'm not able to upload photos so I will post more tomorrow when I have more time and can sting together a proper sentence.

We have to be at the airport at 6am for our flight to Mali's province tomorrow. Two days until we meet our girl!!

Beijing, Day One

We started off this morning by landing in Beijing and hooking up with our guide and got checked into our hotel.  Took an hour to shower and wash off 18 hours of flight funk and headed out to meet our group at the Hutong Tour and rickshaw ride.  After that we went to the the Drum Tower and were able to catch the drum performance, it was amazing!  After that we went to a Chinese acrobat show and can I just tell you that these performers are nothing short of sub human.  What they can do with their bodies and strength is mind blowing.  Tomorrow, The Great Wall, Tienanmen Square and Forbidden City.  LOVING it here!

Almost there!

We are at a layover in Seoul Korea taking a must needed yoga stretch in an internet cafe and getting some yummy Korean coffee (It's 5am here). Our flight was nice. We were put in bulkhead seating so we had TONS of legroom. A$iana Airlines kinda rocks the service. We have 3 more hours flying time to Beijing. My feet look like they were blown up with a bicycle tire pump. I'm trying to persuade Mark into a foot massage, but when I suggested it he basically told me to pound sand. Oh, well his loss now he gets to hear me complain! Well, I better go I see something down the terminal that resembles a foot massage machine.

Next stop Beijing!

And it's all come down to this.....

(This post didn't show up for some reason when I was at LAX)

So we are at LAX waiting to board our flight to China. We just had an amazing dinner with our Grandma Gold And Grandpa Jon at The Proud Bird, it was yummy and the margaritas were a great send off. When they dropped us off at the airport it finally hit me that we are here. A journey of over four years is finally coning to life. It still seems so surreal, but I know that there is a baby girl at the end of all this. OUR Mali.

Thank you everybody for your calls, texts and emails wishing us a safe and wonderful journey. I love you all! I will try to update later.

Four more sleeps!

Zhejiang Province

The Wenzhou Children's Welfare Institute

I. Can't. Wait.

Days......

We are a mere days from holding our girl. Plane tickets have been bought and the packing has begun. Who knew there would be a virtual pharmacy and office supply that would have to travel with us. So much stuff! I am definitely over packing. I have tried to scale down but looking at the weather reports in province and Guangzhou it is hot and steamy.