We're Here!

DAY 1 – We’re here!
After getting up at 4am and a 13.5 hour flight we made it to our hotel in Beijing. We’re exhausted but excited! Our flight was uneventful but Doug did say I was actually a shade of green on our very rough landing! Good to be on the ground again. We walked around Beijing tonight, went to a mall (VERY different than our definition of the word) and then went to this very cool, very large restaurant where we proceeded to order a whole lot of food. Didn’t know it was "family style" until the food came. It was good, and plenty spicy, and NOTHING like what we call Chinese food at home. Egg rolls? Cashew chicken? Sesame chicken? What’s that? How about frog, chicken "hands"(feet), pig "hands", stomach, or turtle instead? Trying to order and then asking ourselves –"OK, when does the bill come? Who do we pay and do you tip in China?" We found out that at this restaurant, tipping is a "no no". Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers. We also found out today(night) that we will most likely pick up Maylie on Wednesday – a day earlier than planned. Tomorrow is the Great Wall and Forbidden City! For those interested, we are 14 hours ahead of you, so we’ll say goodnight on this Monday from Beijing!