WE HAVE ARRIVED!!
We woke up this morning to the first snow of the season! The big, fluffy flakes looked harmless to us, but after listening to the news, it seemed that it was going to be a long, arduous trek to the airport and an even longer wait in line! So our limo, in the form of Rhonda and Connor, picked us up bright and early and out we headed! And, of course, we breezed to the airport which was not full of travelers, but WAS full of reporters! The media being alarmist - imagine!
We met two other families at O'Hare and we all swapped baby pictures. Once on the plane -- business class -- ahhhh! If only we had it for the trip home! It took us about half the trip to figure out all the different configurations for our seats, but even that was fun! The plane was quite empty -- apparently Thanksgiving in China is not a big thing! Anyway, the trip was uneventful, other then the constant eating and showing anyone who would look our pictures of Eleanor!
And then, before we knew it, we were in CHINA! Or at least that was what the map on the video said! When we looked out the plane at China below, our first impression was "brown." We passed over very arid brown land that was dotted with factories spewing smoke. I guess we take the EPA for granted because much of our first view of China was through a brown haze! Our first view of Beijing -- also brown!
Once we landed in Beijing, it was like the color had been turned on! There are colors, often neon, everywhere! We met up with the other families and we were all met by Linda, our guide outside of customs. We had an exciting trip to our hotel in the middle of rush hour traffic -- the lines in the road -- apparently just for show! At one point, I looked out my window and I could swear we were going to exchange paint with the car next to us! But the best part -- our first view of China from the ground is like being part of a postcard! So many new buildings going up everywhere, bikes loaded with multiple people on them, street vendors selling all kinds of food and parking lots crammed full of bikes! We are incredibly tired (we have been up over 24 hours now), but Rich is gettng his wish for Peking Duck for Thanksgiving, so we are headed out to dinner now!
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