First Chinese Dining

We made it to Beijing. The flight only ended up being 13 hours on the way there, so that was a nice surprise. The kids couldn't have been better the entire time.  Karsyn slept most of the way and Billy didn't sleep at all.  He just watched movies, read books and played on his i-pad.  Bill was able to catch-up on all those movies that  I won't watch, so he was happy.   

The airport is a sight to see. They built it for the Olympics in 2008 and it is made mostly of glass.  I will try to take pictures when we fly out. All the people were extremely friendly to us.  They even took us out of the long line at customs and had us go through the "with child" line that had no wait at all.  We found our guide Grace outside Customs and baggage claim and met up with two other families who are adopting through our agency.  The first couple is from Houston and they are adopting a six year old girl.  Then there is a lady from Pittsburgh who is traveling with her father to pick up her one and a half year old son who will be her second adopted child from China.  Her and her husband adopted a few years back a six year old little girl.   

We took a bus to the hotel and decided to settle in for a minute before heading out to find dinner.  Karsyn is our picky eater and since she didn't eat anything on the plane due to it not being chicken nuggets, we decided to take care of her first.  Off to McDonald's we went. 

As we are standing in line, Bill and I are talking back and forth about how in the world we were going to order.  We still hadn't figured it out when we we got to the front of the line.  Luckily, the lady took one look at us and pulled out a picture menu.  So Karsyn got her nuggets and fries.

We walked around a little while longer and finally decided to go back to the hotel.  Grace had said something about a Western buffet they had on the 2nd floor.  Once we found the restaurant, we went in and began our first experience of Chinese food.  I walked from dish to dish and was able to find a couple of things I could brave.  When I looked over at poor Billy , he had one little sample of  Duck that his father talked him into trying and nothing else. On a table off to the side I found some bread that I knew Billy would eat so I loaded him up with banana bread and a roll.  Enough for now! We all agreed that McDonalds was going to be seeing a lot more of us. 

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.  The beds are comfortable but the rooms are extremely warm.  Even with the windows open in 25 degree temperatures, we all found ourselves up by 1am because we are used to sleeping in a cold house. It ended up being a great time to Skype and call our family back home. Today we get to go sightseeing so hopefully we will have some fun pictures and stories to post about when we get back.