July 18/19 Arrive in Beijing

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. We have arrived! We caught our airport shuttle at 4:30 AM and by the time we landed in Beijing, we'd been up nearly 24 hours. The San Francisco- Beijing leg was incredibly long, with the kids asking about 2 hours into the flight if we were almost there. We flew over Alaska and Russia and were able to see lots of beautiful Chinese countryside and farmland from the air. When we arrived, we walked over to customs and got in the very long "foreigner lines". We'd been waiting only about a minute when a man pointed to us and motioned us over to the "Chinese Resident" line where we breezed right through. Maybe we looked particularly tired and pathetic and that's why he took pity on us. Thankfully, our guides were right there after we got our luggage and they drove us about an hour to our hotel. There were so many interesting sights on the way. Beijing appears to be a very clean city with many trees and an amazing number and variety of bikes and scooters. We have a big day tomorrow with Tiananmen Square, Hutong tour, acrobat show, Peking duck feast, and more. I am so tired I can hardly think. It's about 8 PM in Beijing and I think that means it's about 5 AM in Seattle. The one nice thing about missing a whole day is that means we're one day closer to meeting Qiu Ju--only 4 days! It feels great to finally be in her country! We'll update tomorrow with pictures. Dear Abby, (I feel like I should be asking for advice!) I hope your first day at Granny's was fun! Did you go in the pool? I was so proud of you yesterday marching onto the plane all by yourself with such a big smile on your face. Guess what movie Dad watched on the plane today? I'll give you a hint--it has a leopard seal in it! Yep, Eight Below! Now he knows why you had leopard seal nightmares! Well, I'm going to get to sleep now. Be good for Granny and share with your cousins. We'll be getting your little sister soon! Love, Mom, Dad, Adam and Linney