From Caitlin Monday Morning

I can not wait until I meet Tayler!!!! I hope that she will warm up to us and that she will begin to understand  what will happen.  I hope that everyone at home is happy.  

China is really really different than I imagined.  I thought that it would be poor but it isn’t.  I hope that people can come to china if they have a chance.  Beijing has all sorts of fashion.  Very stylish but different than the US.  The food is GREAT.  I liked how the rice was not overcooked.  It was way better than back home . for example the fried rice is really good here..  The steamed rolls with meat were extraordinary!  The people in China like to stare at me..it kind of creeps me out!  

Caitlin

Random Updates

Forgot to say that our guide told us that she heard Min Xi Wei is very smart, and can peel an orange by herself. 

we had a quiet day yesterday and stayed by/in hotel but we got up at 930 am in time for breakfast which was pretty good considering we got to bed at 4! we stayed up all day, C&D went swimming. 2x there were monsoon like rains; the first time it got so foggy all of a sudden we couldn't see the skyscrapers <1 km away. its very humid, but cool in hotel! delicious dinner in hotel last night.  the host helped us order from 100s of choices (there were pictures too); she had to suggest we get some vegetables [more of a balanced diet thing than an upsell, as she told us when we had enough food, and said we only needed 2 bottles of water, not 3]. This morning I tried to eat a chili including all seeds for breakfast, thinking it was a red bell pepper. Now I am awake.

this am, copying passport photo pages and getting gift bags ready (eg photo album for foster family) and getting Tayler's stuff ready (diapers, food) and searching the room for choking hazards!
at 3 our guide will come and take us to the another hotel and we meet her!!! 
supposedly all Chinese paperwork is tomorrow. (next week is for US paperwork)
then wed this week we are taking the train 6 hrs to Guilin (look it up, very beautiful)

the city is very new, apparently only 2 milllion 10 years ago and now 7 million.  its different than in Lanzhou, Gansu in 2002 (not sure if its the location or the time diff) -- many more hotel people speak English for example, as opposed to none!  Here many people already speak 3 languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, and a regional dialect).

off to shower and finish getting ready. tonight at dinner we will be 4!

jenny

Geographic/cultural surprises so far...

1. Washington DC is so far east and north that the best route to Beijing involves flying for endless hours across the length of Quebec (which is 2x the size of Texas), over Davis Strait, Greenland, the North Pole, Russia, and Mongolia. That is, over the Atlantic/Arctic oceans and never over the Pacific. (Unless the co-pilot was just joking around and put in a fake flightpath on the tv monitors to freak us out.)

2. Nanning, Guangxi, the provincial capital where we will meet Tayler tomorrow (YEAH!!), is by no means a major city in China. But its the size of London.  

3. The hotel provides info in English about how to access a VPN (perhaps to bypass Google censoring?) If you are reading this, its working.

Jenny

PS. (that's my name outside North America)
PPS (can you tell I am super jet-lagged???)

We made it....finally!

Well after 36 hours of travel, we arrived at the Nanning International Wharton Hotel.  Quick description of the trip:
4am wake up
6am flight to DC
11:30 am Fight to Beijing (15 hour flight)
2:30 pm china time (2:30 am eastern time) arrive at beautiful new Beijing airport, clear immigration and customs and take shuttle to different airport to discover our final flight is delayed resulting in 8 hours waiting for our plane. 
10:30 pm Flight to Nanning
2:30 am:  arrive Nanning
4am in bed at Hotel

 We are all doing really well given the travel and jet lag thanks in part to "western buffet breakfast"  including spaghetti. omelets, sweet buns and dumplings. Caitlin has been really great keeping me (dave) entertained during the trip playing many many rounds of her new favorite card game called spit...(thanks Tracy).

Here is the important news.  We meet Tayler Monday afternoon at 3:30!  Our guide Belinda informs us that she is very smart.  We hope to keep you all up to date as live out the wonderful adventure.  We will try to post a few pictures later but not sure how reliable is here.  More later...
Dave

Leaving early tomorrow

Thank you so much to all of you who wrote or called or dropped by to wish us a fantastic trip! 
We think we are ready to depart, with the 100s of random tasks completed or abandoned...now just to sleep to prepare for the 4 am alarm. Can't wait to get started on the journey.

Highlights of our schedule, as we understand it

Friday (10 Sept) 6 am - leave State College, connect in DC & Beijing
Saturday 11 pm - arrive in Nanning
Sunday - crash
Monday - meet Tayler; provincial paperwork
Tuesday - more paperwork
Wednesday - take train 5 hours to Guilin. We lobbied our agency to let us take the train by ourselves rather than a 6 hr van ride (sans car seat with a toddler). Hopefully this was the right choice!
Thurs-Sat in Guilin, river cruise, caves
Sun (19 Sept) fly to Guangzhou
Mon & Tues - US medical, consulate appointment, paperwork
Wed - Autumn Moon Festival, Jenn's birthday, and major holiday
Thurs - US swearing in ceremony
Fri - Visa available
Sun - Fly Guangzhou-Beijing-DC-State College

When I write it down, it seems so short... Will see how that goes...

new camcorder

this is us goofing with our new camcorder...just a test