Our Journey to Carson

Hello From Beijing!!!

It's 4:18 -- in our normal world that would be 4:18AM, but we're on the other side of the world so it's 4:18 in the afternoon!! The flight over was uneventful but LLLOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG! The combo of claustrophobia and restless legs made it a little challenging for me, but otherwise OK. Our plane landed in Beijing about 2:15 and, since we left the house at 3:30 Friday morning, we have been traveling for nearly 23 hours!!!! Yikes! Unfortunately, I had a LOT of trouble sleeping on the plane so, except for a handful of short catnaps, I've been awake since Thursday morning at 7AM! Since it's evening here, we're going to stay awake and hopefully get to see the Great Wall of China.

When we arrived in the Beijing airport, we didn't see any guide. So we followed the crowd through the Quarantine area (assuring we haven't been exposed to bird flu), through Border Control, got our bags, and then went through Customs. Outside of Customs, we walked through a roped off area (think arriving for the Oscars) and on the other side of the divider there were probably 100 people watching all of us exit. Tons of people had signs with names written on them of people they were looking for, so we looked for one that had our name. Sure enough, there she was! We sorta felt like celebrities! Our guide, Lisa, couldn't make it to the airport so she sent Michelle instead.

Michelle was a tall, slender girl and she moved very quickly through the crowd in the airport. We dragged along with our luggage as best we could. Waiting for the elevator in the parking garage, a Chinese man felt sorry for us and told me, "In China, everything's rush" and let us ahead of him with a smile. Apparently, I was being too timid and allowing people in front of me...they were knocking into us and we kept losing our place in line.

Also, those who know how much I worry will appreciate this. Michelle's sign was handwritten with Kevin's name on it ("CCAI" was nowhere on the sign), and she took us from the airport to an unmarked white van. It occurred to me more than once that we were possibly being kidnapped and too dumb to realize it! Anyway, it all worked out fine.

Michelle was so cute but the driver (Mr. Fong, I think) drove like a crazy maniac and I held my breath for most of the trip. Mr. Fong and Michelle never spoke to each other and there was no radio. Occasionally, Michelle would turn around to us and tell us stories about Beijing, or the neighborhood we were going through, or the upcoming Olympics preparations, or whatever. Once her story was complete, though, she would turn back around in silence. The van we were in was very basic (think plumber's work truck) and there were no seat belts! Mr. Fong was quite an aggressive driver and seemed, from my vantage point, to be constantly straddling two lanes in an effort to quickly switch to the fastest one whenever he could. It was a little frightening!!

Michelle helped us check into the hotel and told us she was amazed with Meggie (who wasn't all that amazing in my book...bad hair, sleepy, not super talkative). Michelle had me take a picture of her and Meggie with her camera phone and told Meggie she was "charming" and that she would be a "big movie star in China" if she was willing to stay here. Meggie didn't know WHAT to say to that! Then Michelle told us to wait in our room for Lisa to call, and she was gone. We came up to the room with a bellboy who didn't appear to know much English...I'm feeling a little stranded right now!

I'm having a little trouble with the blog. For a while the pages were only in German, for some reason, and it won't let me post pictures...I'll work on it and add the pictures later. (I'll definitely get it figured out by Monday when we get Carson!!) Anyway I do have pictures to post...I'll get to those, I promise!

We're sitting in the Holiday Inn, hoping our guide calls us soon. Kevin and Meggie have gotten their showers, so it's my turn. (Kevin's currently snoring on the bed, actually! What a bum...he slept almost the entire flight from Newark to Beijing!!) We really want to see the Great Wall tonight but can't go anywhere (even to dinner) until Lisa contacts us. Yikes!

I'll work on adding photos to the blog later. It's possible that I'm just too sleep deprived and it'll make more sense in the morning!

Anyway, we're safe, we're SUPER EXCITED, and we're less than 2 days away from meeting Carson!!! Wow!!