Zero!

Last day before we finally meet Maisey!!  Let’s get you all up-to-date.  We arrived in Beijing Capital Airport at around 1:30PM on Friday (1:30AM EDT Friday.)  We met our ride and traveled to our hotel where we met our guide Xia Jing (called Grace.) She told us not to sleep until normal bedtime in Beijing, as it would be easier to adjust to the time difference.  Good advice, except for the fact that I can’t sleep on an airplane and I’d now been awake for over 24 hours!  Lisa did get some sleep on the flight, but she was also exhausted. 

On our guides recommendation we went to a local grocery store, Wu Mart, to buy bottled water.  In China you can’t drink tap water without boiling it first, so we bought 6 bottles to get us through the 2 days in Beijing.  We had dinner at the hotel and went to our room for a good nights sleep.  When I got to the room, and literally flopped myself on the bed, ouch!  We soon realized that the Chinese prefer very hard mattresses.  Not firm, HARD.  If I weren’t so tired it would have been difficult to sleep.

We started our first full day in China with a breakfast buffet of Chinese and Western food, and then got on our bus with the one other couple traveling with our agency.  They are Lee and Sarah from Seattle and they are adopting their first child.  They are wonderful people and it was nice to finally talk about the process with someone who was going through it at the same time.

Our first stop was to be Tiananmen Square.  But before that we learned one very important thing.  The drivers in Beijing, in the opinion of everyone on board the bus, are among the worst we’ve ever seen.  Fearing for our lives we finally arrived at Tiananmen Square, which is the center of the Chinese Government like the US capital.

As we walked though this enormous plaza we noticed something that should be quite obvious.  Beijing is full of people!  There were tens of thousands of people in Tiananmen Square, and there were thousands waiting in line to see the preserved corpse of Chairman Mau.  We didn’t do that but we did walk down the square to see the Forbidden City.  We entered though the first gate under Chairmen Mau’s enormous portrait and into the outer court of the city.  The Forbidden City is huge and very ornate.  It was built under the direct of the Ming dynasty and was completed in only 14 years. Which seems impossible when you are standing in its vastness.  We learned a lot about the ancient Chinese all the way though the last emperor, son of the famous concubine, the “Dragon Lady.”

After the Forbidden City we got on the bus for another white knuckled, teeth clenching ride to a Jade Factory where we had lunch and took a tour.  After the tour we purchased a gift for Maisey to be given to her when she’s older.

From there we held on tight for our ride to the Great Wall of China.  Let me say in all honestly “Great” is an understatement.  It was magnificent.  There were lots and lots of steps, but truly an amazing life experience. 

We returned to the hotel for dinner and went to bed.  We could not sleep at all, it may have been the mattress, but I think it was mostly the anticipation of meeting our sweet Maisey.

See Photos and update following.

SUNDAY MORNING UPDATE:

We left for Beijing airport later than expected, when we got there our flight was full, no we no longer had a seat.  Praise to God, they bumped us up to first class!  Not the big seat, but the seat that turns to a bed first class.  I actually napped.  Thank you Lord.

We arrived in Nanchang another huge city, which was built from what was farm land just 10 years ago!    Amazing.  We got to our hotel, one of the better I've stayed at.  God is taking good care of us.  Best of all?  Maisey will be here at 4:00, just 4 hours from right now!  Alleluia!!

More to come.  Stay tuned.