China, day 1

Well, not really day 1 for China.  I mean, China has been around for a long time.  But it’s our first full day in China. But I’m guessing you knew that anyway.

We got a good night’s sleep, and woke up ready for a day of sightseeing and cultural awareness.  After breakfast (mmm, eggs) and exchanging some money, the 19 of us boarded a bus.  5 of the 7 families are here now; 2 other families will join us tomorrow or Monday.  Sherry is our guide in Beijing.  She met us after we picked up our bags.  There’s one other family on the trip who is adopting their first Chinese child.  The other 3 with us now have already adopted from China and are back for another round!  A couple of the families brought their kids with them.  We wish that we had our kiddos with us…we miss you guys!

Today was pretty cold, and full of pagodas.  We visited Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, ate some serious Chinese lunch, dropped into a pearl shop, took some pictures of the Blue Bubble and the Bird’s Nest (remember the Beijing Olympics?), the spent some time at the Summer Palace.  That was a little weird, since it’s neither summer (it was below freezing all day) nor was there a palace.  Palace is the word they use for what we would call a Park.  I can imagine that in the summer, that park is spectacular.  It’s built around a huge man-made lake, with copies of the most beautiful pieces of all the other Chinese provinces.  After another splendid authentic Chinese meal, we headed back to the hotel.

It’s only 8:30 here now, but we’re wiped out.  Kim’s already asleep, and I’m not too far behind her.  I’ve been trying to upload pictures to a Picasa album, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.  I thought I might be able to upload a picture or two, but that is also proving difficult.  I’ll keep working on it for a little while, but if you don’t see any pictures here, I promise that we’ll get them all up once we get home.

We’ll go to church here in the morning, then do a little more of the cultural awareness/sightseeing.  Beijing is huge, and there’s so much history.  We are getting a pretty good lesson about this beautiful and ancient country.  I’ll post again tomorrow, but for now, goodnight!