We Made it! (now with pictures!)

We arrived in Beijing yesterday afternoon. The flight was smooth; albeit a long one at 13:45 hours! Our hotel is surprisingly nice, nicer than our last trip to China in fact. We met up with our tour guide and four other adoptive families, who are all adopting boys with medical conditions too. Once we checked in to our hotel, we decided to jump right in and venture out for a Peking Duck dinner in the middle of downtown, which is very safe. Thank goodness our dear friends lent us some warm accessories because it's freezing here! A warm and satisfying dinner was precisely the medicine we needed (and Mommy needed an Ambien:) to acclimate to the time change, which by the way is 13 hours ahead of most of you. Yes, I am writing to you from tomorrow!

This morning we woke up very early and went downstairs for a breakfast of dumplings, noodles & a few other interesting things. Nothing like starting the day the Chinese way! Then our tour bus took us to the Great Wall of China. They've obviously cleaned things up around here because we've had blue skies so far. On our last trip, all we saw was smog. We were very proud of Papa, who climbed the Wall without much of a struggle at all. After lunch, they took us to Hutong Lane, which are the oldest communal living spaces in Beijing. We toured on rickshaws! You should see what 3.5 million buys you here. Not even a toilet in the place! The homeowner was really kind and gracious to take us in and show us where her family was raised for many generations. They truly are kind people here. It wouldn't be a Murphy day without something crazy happening. Our rickshaw bumped into the rickshaw in front of us--twice! They were yelling at each other like crazy. No whiplash to report:)

Now we are back at the hotel sipping a cold beer and complating dinner plans. We were told about a good restaurant next door to the hotel that serves really spicy food. In fact, so spicy that they won't serve some of it to tourists! We also plan to hit the open-air food market, with no plans to eat the scorpion skewers, of course.

We miss Madi tremendously already. Mom has been so wonderful to keep us updated on her, and she is handling everything like a champ as usual. Here is an email Mom sent in Madi's words. I don't have to tell you I was a sobbing mess when I read it:

Dear Mommy,

I miss you. I hope I see you. I know I am going to be a big sister, and I hope you come home soon. I really want to see my little brother. I know I won’t see him very soon, but wish I could see him tomorrow.

I really miss you, Mommy and Daddy. I hope Daniel will be safe. And I hope you have a great trip.

I give you hugs and kisses, dear Mommy, Daddy and DJ

That’s all. Now send it.