So sorry for the delay in posting!  Our flight was over two hours late due to electrical problems, so we didn't land in Beijing and get to our hotel until around 2:30 in the morning (Saturday morning here).  We then had to be up at 10:00 a.m. for "sightseeing."  I wasn't prepared for our guide's definition of "sightseeing."  From 10:00 a.m. until 5:15 p.m. we WALKED!  We walked all over Tianneman Square, we walked all over the Forbidden City, the Pearl Market, and FINALLY, at 5:15 p.m. , we got to sit down and watch a Kung Fu production, which our guide said would be "amazing!"  We hooked up with another American couple adopting through the same agency.  They are great people!  They have eight children, including two adopted from China.  They are adopting a 4-year-old girl this time.  She is a stay-at-home mom who has home schooled all her children!

 

Our guide uses the name Yoshi from the Mario video games. He is thirty and very pleasant, but given to long-winded history lessons while standing in full sun.  Yes, it is very hot and very sultry here.  Think sweating and red faces.  I am afraid tomorrow I will be sun burned.  Tomorrow we climb the Great Wall of China.  He will send a driver at 8:30 a.m.  Driving is still as crazy in China - it sort of resembles "Chicken" but with vehicles and involves lots of honking and drivers trying to fake each other out.  People have more motor scooters than I remember last time, but there are still bicycles going down the streets as well, weaving in and out of traffic, sometimes in the middle of a busy street with cars on either side of them!

 

After we climb the Great Wall, we will be taken to the airport and we will part ways with the other family, who are from St. Louis,   They are going to another province to adopt their little girl.  It is a province where the majority of people are Muslim and mosques are everywhere.    Aleah and I will leave the airport here in Beijing around 6:00 p.m. and fly to Chengdu.  Jet lag prevents me from typing more.  Aleah is asleep on my shoulder as I am typing and needs to be taken to our hotel room to sleep.  We only have WiFi in the lobby of the hotel, so there is a party of probably twenty young Chinese people going on around us right now.  Thank you to my daughter, Amy, for posting on my blog for now.  I am being blocked from accessing it altogether.  The VPN I thought I had downloaded is not working - probably due to user error!!

 

Hope all is well back home!! 

 

Love you all!