We are in CHINA!!

Can you believe it, we are really here! Sorry it has taken so long to post. Our first night Mike couldn't get this to work and yesterday we were so busy. By the time he was able to get it up and running, I fell asleep. It is now 4:30 am here, and I've been up for over 2 hours, so you know our internal clocks are all messed up. I want to tell you about our experience so far. I know I have many friends and our families praying for us. We can feel your prayers!

On landing in China we waited at the airport while the other families arrived. We all boarded a bus and headed for the hotel. At first glance China was cold, dry and like any other big city. But as we have traveled around these last few days, I am finding China very different. The stragest thing to me is that we know there are billions of people here, millions in Beijing. But when you are riding down the road you don't see anyone! You see what you would think of as villages or neighborhoods, but you don't see anyone there. No people, no dogs, or animals of any kind. It's like it's deserted. Very strange.

Anyway, after we got to our hotel the first night, our guide, Joy, took us to the grocery store to purchase "snacks" for us to have on our sightseeing tours. This was an adventure. It was fun seeing the girls reaction to how other people purchase their grocerys. They were totally grossed out by the pigs feet, heart, liver and other organs just laying out at the meat counter. Chandler took pictures of all kinds of strange and exotic looking food. We found what we thought were lay's potato chips and Mike of course had to buy his Diet Coke. We walked out with 4 bags of grcerys for 77 Yuan, which is about 11 dollars!

Next to the grocery store was a "Chineese" resturaunt. It looked just like the ones in the states with the red lanturns and other Chineese decorations. Right when we walked in we remembered why we liked it when Georgia passed the law of no smoking in resturaunts. It was so smoky that Candler sat there with her scarf around her face! The food was wonderful! We had dim sum, fried rice, that really isn't fried, Kun pow chicken, that we hope was really chicken! The girls just ate plain rice. It was a great beginning of our food expereince in China.

That night we discovered why everyone talks about the hard beds. Go outside and lay down on your driveway, that's what the beds feel like. The pillows are very small and flat. You know we are missing our own pillows! But when you are as tired as we are you can sleep anywhere.

On Friday morning we woke up around 5 am and had the breakfast buffet at the hotel. The girls favorite food was the friend noodles, just think lo mein with out the meat, and the delicious pasteries they had. Then we were off to the Cloisonne' factory and the Great Wall. The Cloisonne factory was an interesting way to learn about the art work from this area. They are beautiful peices of what you would think was pottery. And of course they drop you off right in a gift shop where the girls wanted everything! We had to be quick with our math skills trying to figure out how much everything cost. It was pretty high for our taste so we only picked up a few things. Here is where we got to experience our first squat potty. It was interesting. Kind of like camping, with out the bugs!

Then we headed to the Great Wall. I guess I never realized how mountainous this area is. And that on the other side of the mountain is the Gobi desert. This explains why everything is dry and dusty here. As we traveled the 1 1/2 hours we went past many more empty "neighborhoods". The Wall sits on an area that goes up an around the mountanins. It amazes me how the men thousands of years ago could design and build such a wall. As you walk down the wall and around all the area it seems so surreal, my mind couldn't really grasp that we were actually there. How amazing is the work of God. The mountains were beautiful but looked nothing like our north Georgia mountains.

After we left the wall we went to a resturaunt - more dim sum, rice and kung pow!

We headed back to our hotel and went by the Olympic Stadium - very impressive.

Last night we tried to have some good old American food. Hamburger and Pizza are not the same in China. Today we are heading to KFC or McDonalds!

We have a busy day planned again today, please continue to pray for our safty and our count down. Only one more day and we'll be holding our baby. She only has one more night in the orphanage, please pray for her transition to us.

Ok, this isn't letting me do a spell check, so sorry for all of the mistakes!