Signing in from Beijing!!!

Well, we made it! Thanks to all of you who prayed for us to get out of Charlotte on the morning of the 1st. We could hardly believe it when we took Maya out for her morning walk and this is what we saw...

It was a bit stressful as we waited in Charlotte at the airport this morning. After boarding 20 minutes after our flight was to leave, we had the happy experience of sitting for about 30 minutes for them to de-ice the plane. Our connection in Chicago was tight, but we made it.

(I'm so confused on time right now ~ Friday is pretty much over for us here in Beijing as it is currently 6:30 pm. We're all exhausted, but are going to force ourselves to go downstairs in this ~ by my standards anyway ~ swanky hotel and get dinner. Then blissful sleep shall abound. But you guys at home are just getting ready to start your Friday, my computer clock says 5:34 am...)

So here we are just after we cleared immigration and customs. Looking pretty rough!



You'd think that coming over 7000 miles would get us away from Starbucks...


Cool toll booth on the way to the hotel.



Tomorrow will bring many cool sights. I'm hungry and tired, but most importantly, I'm in CHINA!!! We are on the same continent as Kylie! This is so surreal, one minute I feel like I'm in any city, and then I realize I really don't understand what people are saying. I'm in Beijing ~ WOW!!!

We'll hold Kylie in 3 days!!!!

Some thoughts from Ian too....
Ditto that... We will have our little one in our arms in 3 short days!!!

We just got back from dinner. Adam asked the question of 'What did you do today?' only to be met with groans! We sat and sat and sat... then we ate. Then we sat and sat and sat.... Actually the flight wasn't horrible. Just kinda long.

After dinner we took a 2 minute walk from the hotel to Carrefour, which is -- for the most part -- a French Wal-Mart. Well, this one was like no Wal-Mart I've ever been in. 2 full stories, each as big as the biggest Wal-Mart I've seen. I'm convinced that there wasn't anything we couldn't have bought there. Luckily we were just on the prowl for some bottled water for tomorrow which we found (level 1 between the fresh fish and the fabric softeners) and we also found this:
Yup... that would be diet coke. It turns out that the Carrefour is the only place you can get it here, according to our guide... She say's "We don't need it!" with a laugh, followed immediately by... "we don't understand you Americans... you buy a double cheeseburger with fries and a diet coke."

Tomorrow is a lot of sightseeing and more adjusting to the local time. Sweet sleep in a bed... here we come...