Ni Hao! We're in China!

Hi everyone,


Well we made it after a looooonnng day yesterday.
The Lord has been good. A few highlights
Upon takeoff to San Fran a little girl behind us said UP,UP and AWAY!
then as the captain gave a few announcements she says ALL Right captain!
ah the mouths of babes how sweet!

On the flight to beijing the girl next to me moved and this allowed for an extra seat. Though the funny thing was the chinese man sitting on her side said 100 dollar as i tried to stretch out over the seat:) we shared a laugh, we then settled on 50/50 of the seat. He was very funny and nice.

The airport in Beijing was a piece of cake. A lot of hoopla had been made about the swine flu and the quarantine of passengers. We checked our tempatures before we got off the plane, walked through two infared camera systems that checked our tempatures and that was it. Customs litterally took 10 minutes.

The best part of the day was the ride from the airport to the hotel. We rode in a van with two other couples and our guide Joy. The driver was Chinese. Apparently in China, every piece of blacktop is considered "a lane". We spent time passing cars on the shoulder. The best part is merging with other traffic, there were several times when we were inches from other cars, especially taxis.

Once we arrived at the hotel we were exhausted, having been awake for 24 hours straight. Who can sleep on a plane? We settled into our room and then went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. After some interesting navigation of the menu and communicating with the waitresses who hovered around our table as we made our choices, we ate a nice meal. Heather had mashed potatoes, I had a hamburger. When we were finished, Heather asked for the bill. There was some confusion as another waitress came over and asked Heather if she wanted domestic or imported. Apparently, bill and beer sound really similar! We will ask for the check from now on :)

We slept for 13 hours and now we feel pretty good. Today, we have the morning free and then we are going to see an acrobat show this afternoon.

We'll try and post again tomorrow. Three days until we get Katie!