Ni Hao!

We made it to China!  Our 13.40 hour flight wasn’t too bad.  It was dark for the entire flight so lights were pretty much out and people sleeping. Ashley slept a good bit of the trip and Ellen too.  That worked out well because the movies that we had bought were not able to be viewed because the were in the" iCloud whatever" and could not be watched. I downloaded Les Miserables and that one worked so I watched that by myself.  Cried my eyes out at the part where she dies and he takes the little girl.  Was a good movie for me to watch on this trip.  Luckily the airline had movies to pick from and Frozen was an option so we lucked out with that one.

We landed around 10pm and someone from WACAP, our adoption agency, was there to meet us.  She helped us get to our hotel shuttle.  Checked into the hotel and was hoping that the wifi would work.  Unable to hold the wifi connection, we weren’t able to check in with Steve….which resulted in a 2am panicked phone call to our room phone, which surprisingly was in the bathroom.  So all wake now in the bathroom, we’re catching up with Daddy.

We’ve been told over and over DO NOT DRINK THE WATER….don’t even brush your teeth with it.  I remembered the advice of taking lots of toothbrushes for the reason of forgetting and contaminating your toothbrush running it under the facet water.  Well, so true because the first night I did it and next morning Ellen did it.  Wow, it’s amazing how habitual brushing your teeth can be.  Good thing we know a dentist that was able to give us lots of toothbrushes to take!

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and it was great.  A little different and unusual but good….all we could think is that Dad would love this breakfast.  Our driver picked us up and took us to the train station.  That was eventful.  Lots of people on bikes and mopeds, lot of honking, lot of yelling back and forth between drivers.  Our driver was very calm and was very pleasant to work with.  Sort of odd riding with someone who speaks another language…no conversation the whole way.  Kinda nice at the same time.  Crazy traffic getting to the train station, parking and going in.  Our driver went in with us, helped maneuver our luggage up 4 escalators, multiple lines and then took our passports to the window to get our train tickets. Must have been some sort of problem because he was on the phone and talking to different employees but finally he rushed us to a terminal, talked to a few ladies and got us on the train.  Very thankful to him for helping us! Not sure I could have done that part on my own.

Something we have already discovered about China is that everyone is in a hurry, they don’t mind pushing their way through, nor do they mind that someone else has pushed their way through too.  Kind of the “understood” rudeness factor.  People are very blunt and say exactly what they mean.  They are very "matter of fact” about everything and can seem a little impatient. Once again, we say Dad would fit right in here.   

So now we’re on our 4 hour bullet train ride.  Neat to see the landscape of China as we travel from the big city of Beijing to Hefei.  Ashley and I had our first experience with the Chinese bathrooms.  If you ever come to China, you better practice your squatting!  Ashley has some work to do if we’re gonna make it 14 days here with only 7 pairs of pants! LOL!  Told her I guess we’ll get the hang of it.  Hey, I always knew my redneck background of peeing in the woods would pay off. Lol, too funny!

Okay, well we will report back once we get settled at our next hotel and find out our plan for tomorrow.  Once to Hefei this afternoon, our guide, Jane, will meet us and go over the timetable and happenings of tomorrow’s meeting with Luke.  Hard to believe that in less than 24 hours we’ll be adding a precious child to our family!