First Day in Beijing

We got to Beijing on Thursday night.  Our long flight out of Seattle was delayed for an hour due to problems with the air-conditioning system.  We thought for awhile that they were going to have to put us on a different plane (brought from another airport?) but thankfully God heard our prayers and that didn't happen.  While we were waiting, we met up with my adoption friend Whitney and her family, and hung out with them while we waited in line.  They kept telling us we could go sit down, but we weren't about to give up our place, haha.

Since we were very late, we were worried that the driver we'd hired online to pick us up would not be there.  But he was.  It's been fun this time, trying out our Chinese.  Jim asked the man, "Ni shuo yingwen ma?"  (Do you speak English?)  The man grinned and said "Nope!"  So I said, "Women shuo yidian zhongwen."  (We speak just a little Chinese.)  He looked at me funny, so I added in English, "but apparently not well".  Haha.  But then I told him "Women de feiji wandian."  (Our plane was late.)  He totally got that and started rambling on in Chinese about it, to which I just smiled, haha!

Our hotel here in Beijing is the Novotel.  It has an international flavor, as we heard several different languages in the elevator and at breakfast.  The breakfast is good, although they don't cook their omelettes all the way!  The pool is small but fun.  We have walked around the neighborhood and found places to eat, including Dairy Queen.  (Keelan got a picture of that for you, Brittany!)  The traffic is as crazy as the other cities we've been to, but there are way less bikes and scooters.  

This tea place is next door, with the teapot suspended in the air.

On Friday we walked several blocks to Tiananmen Square.

These are the sights we saw along the way.