We are in China!!

I am writing this at 10:11 pm China time.  Well, we arrived at our hotel about 24 hours ago.  We were exhausted from the trip in, but with some rest and walking around town today, we both feel human again!  The trip in was great... Long but great.  I gotta add that technology on planes have changed tremendously!  Every seat has individual tv's for movies, tv shows, music, games, etc of your choosing. Pretty cool!! Helped make the time fly by!

So today we have had on our own to rest, then tomorrow we get our little one... Ahhh!!  We met a family today who adopted their daughter from a small, small remote place near Beijing... Can't remember the name. She was beautiful and teeny!! Jim loved making her laugh.. He is going to be a mess when we have Emily with us! It's funny here because Guanghouz is where all US adoptions are finalized. So most people get their children one week, then fly here to spend the second week. It just happens that our daughter is from the same province, so we stay here the whole two weeks. We look very odd on the streets... My bet is most people think we are here to adopt, but she isn't with us yet. So it looks like we left our child at the hotel or something, ha! While many Americans come here to adopt, we are still a bit odd to most of the Chinese people. I have been stared at by many people, right in the eyes.. At first it was strange, then I realized they do not see blue eyes often.  So, I guess we are pretty unusual here. ( I'm sure plenty of people think we are unusual at home too ;) )

It's humorous to us being in a place where we can't understand people are saying or read anything... It's nice sometimes to be taken completely out of our comfort zones.  We were stuck sitting set a restaurant table for awhile today because we couldn't figure out how to tip, and no one hinders rid what we were asking to do, ha! I did make a small girl cry today though. She was in front of us in line at the store checkout, and I bent down to scratch my knee. I guess my eyes were at her level because she looked at me, screamed, then begged her mom to take her. Just the confidence boost I was needing right before meeting my daughter, ha ;)

There is much I could write about what we have seen so far ( like the amazing lights still up everywhere from Chinese New Year, the enormous turtles for sale to eat in buckets on the streets, or the little street show/ practice-- we have no idea what was going on-- that got crazy when everyone started running around with real swords) but for now, I'm going to sleep. Big day tomorrow, and my stomach is in knots with nerves.. Prayers are greatly appreciated'!! Xia Xia!! ( I think this is  thank you written.. You should hear me say it with my southern accent. My goal is to say it properly by the end of the trip ;) )