First Full Day in Beijing!

Houston...er, uh...Beijing, we have a problem! The technology gods have not been with us on this trip. This is what housekeeping brings you when you blow the fuse in your room not once...but twice!

(I should note that I am posting this with Jeff's permission and I should also note that we so know how to use our converter for the outlets in the room.) Let's just say that it had to do with my new flatiron and some possible rigging of a power strip by my husband. The result was a very loud POP followed by loss of all electricity to our room. Among the many lessons we will no doubt learn on this trip, we will start the list with 1) it is very difficult to explain "blown fuse" when speaking with someone who does not know English. Fast forward to later in the day when we blew the fuse a second time. Thus prompting the hotel to bring us an enormous converter that looks more like a battery charger LOL. We currently do not have a way to charge our laptop and my flatiron is fried. So...I may have to find a super cute hat to wear the rest of the trip!

Speaking of the trip...let's move on past our tech issues.

When we arrived at the airport we were to look for a sign from our agency to locate our guides. However we missed it on our first pass through because we were distracted by all the signs for Katy Perry. I have no clue if she was headed to Beijing or not, but there will be a lot of disappointed people if she didn't show up...fairly certain she wasn't on our flight.

We hit rush hour traffic on the way to the hotel which caused our drive to be an hour and a half opposed to the usual 30 minutes. But that was fine as it allowed our guides Alice and Cecilia to tell us all about the cute and what the next few days will be like.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we were able to skype with Isabel and my mom. That was great being able to see izzys cute little face. We miss her terribly, but can already tell she would not have enjoyed all of the time in the vans, nor all of the walking, etc that we have done thus far.

This morning we had a later start and after having breakfast at the hotel buffet, we met our guides at 9:00. While we were waiting, we saw a beautiful bride with her groom getting ready for photos in the hotel lobby. While we took pictures of them, their friends and photographer took pictures of us (see the guy in the back with his phone).

 

Our first stop was Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City. It is so grand and immense, there is no way a photo can do it justice. It was amazing to walk in the footsteps of so many before us and in a place where many amazing moments in history have occurred so long ago. Here are a few photos:

 

 

 

I thought we were at the end of the tour and our guide said we were only halfway through! We had our picture taken as a group and received it included with a guidebook. Oh, and there was one "Four Star Restroom" along the way...

 

After the tour of the Forbidden City, we went to tour a Hutong which is like a small collection of homes which share common courtyards. The streets are extremely narrow and so we took the tour via rickshaw. Our driver was great and he went quite fast at times...he preferred to be the leader if our pack. LOL He zigzagged around people, other rickshaw a and mopeds. When we reached our destination, we were at a family's home where they allowed us to dine in their home and served us a traditional homemade meal. Jeff and I tried everything (except for the dish that was made only if onions) and it was all very good. My favorite was a dish of spicy peanuts made with hot peppers...they were delish!

After the meal, she welcomed us into her kitchen to see where she had prepared our meal. The family races pigeons and had many awards hanging in their home. We also saw where they houses the pigeons.

Then we hopped back on our rickshaws and headed out of the Hutong. It was such a great experience!

We headed back to the hotel and had the rest of the afternoon free.

One if the wives needed to find a market and I was anxious to replace my flatiron so she, her husband, Jeff and I went on a walk down the street from our hotel to a local market. We didn't have any luck finding what we needed, but it was a lot of fun.

Tonight the families have all decided to meet up in the lobby. We will go from there to get noodles at a restaurant nearby and then head to the outdoor night market down the street for some sightseeing.

Tomorrow we will visit the Great Wall, Olympic stadium, and then see an acrobatic performance in the evening.

Jeff and I were discussing how the second time around we are really able to sit back and take it all in. We are of course anxious and nervous, but right now we are trying to soak up the culture and learn as much as we can. China is a beautiful place and the people here are all so kind.

I am also grateful that our group has already formed a bind. We had such a great travel group when we adopted Isabel and we still stay in touch with many of those families. I can tell that we will do the same with this group. We are much smaller ... just six families and one of them will not meet up with is until Henan. Whereas our travel group with Isabel was made up of 17 families. A very different experience and such a diverse group of individuals, but at the end of the day we all have the same goal...to be united with our new sons/daughters and bring them home.

(I had many more photos to share, but they are not uploading properly.  I am going to go ahead and post this for now and try to add more photos later!)