Day 1 & 2 - Travel to Beijing (Thursday & Friday)

Here’s some photos and a bit of our story from Days 1 & 2!

Our travels went great from an early departure from Louisville to Los Angeles (4 hours) with a quick 1 hour transfer to our Beijing flight (14 hours).  The Boeing 787 was SWEET! The windows changed shades to keep the cabin dim since the entire flight was in daylight.

Each of the 2 meals was delicious with a choice of a more Eastern or Western food selection.  We had good snack time sandwich and ice cream too.  

Each seat had a touch screen TV with about 50 movies to choose from along with video games and a detachable game remote.  We all had a good movie binge in between 1-2 hour cat naps.  Jonathan was sandwiched between two young Chinese men who had no interest in a Monopoly tournament 😂

Customs and immigration went well, Beijing is a massive airport but wonderfully organized.  Our bags were waiting for us with non missing!! 🙌🏻

We easily found our Beijing guide, Lisa, who was waiting for us with an “American World Adoption (AWAA - www.awaa.org, our adoption agency) sign! Smooth and easy!  We waited for another AWAA family to join us and then were picked up by our van driver for a one hour van ride through Beijing to our hotel (Metro Lido).  Jonathan spied a Lamborghini and Ferrari he thought would’ve gotten us through Beijing rush hour much quicker.

We arrived at the hotel jet lagged and worn out!  The hotel is beautiful and has amazing flower displays everywhere.  It was the same hotel we stayed at in 2014 ( https://thecarlhome.blogspot.com/2014/08/arrived-in-beijing.html?m=0 ) so we felt comfortable exchanging money and exploring shops.  

Our guide Lisa took us to dinner at a nearby jaozi (dumpling) restaurant that was wonderful.  She helped us order, showed us where they were being made, and explained different ways of eating them with vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, etc.  It was delicious and although we were exhausted it was a sweet finish to the day.  We even got to talk about “things above” 😉  

We finished with a “buy one get one free” dessert treat at a local pastry shop before heading back to our room.  We cleaned up and got to sleep after about 30 hours of moving and scooting across the globe :)

Tomorrow we get to tour the Great Wall of China, the Olympic areas, and eat a special Peking Duck dinner too as we adjust to the time change.  Monday we get to meet our Mia!!! 🙌🏻