Safely in China for our First Leg

We arrived safely in China two days ago. Everyone is well but still a little tired from the 12 hour time difference. Our liaison and first tour guide have been wonderful. We were sitting at breakfast yesterday morning at the Beijing International Hotel and into the restaurant walks one of Matthew's classmates from Valley Christian Academy along with her parents. Now what are the chances of that happening in a city with a population of 16 million? We spent the day yesterday (Friday) at Tianamen Square, The Forbidden City, and The Temple of Heaven. First, we had to start at one of the silk markets because the weather in Beijing was much colder than we had expected and we did not bring appropriate clothing. The clothing shop attendant quoted us a price of 1200 RMB for the four jackets. We ended up paying 380 RMB for the four jackets after much haggling. This translated to approximately $13.50 each for three Abercrombie pull-over hooded sweatshirts and one "Element" hooded sweatshirt. Not a procedure that I'm totally comfortable with and it definitely pushed Sheryl to her limits and significantly affected everyone's desire for shopping. After the sightseeing and all of the walking, we went to a Chinese acrobatic show that lasted about an hour and then on to a Peking Duck restaurant for a fantastic Peking Duck meal.

The time difference is causing us to wake up between 3-4am each morning. This gives us much time for devotionals, recharging batteries for cameras, etc, and discussing the previous day's activities. I have had difficulty accessing our blogsite to post updates as the internet here will let me on Google but will block access to our blogsite and has not let me send e-mails using my usual e-mail account via outlook express or directly through Road Runner. I am now using my daughter's CVCA e-mail account to attempt to update the blog. It's currently 5am Saturday, April 17 here in Beijing. We have more sightseeing today at the Great Wall of China, the Ming Tombs, and a look at traditional Chinese medicine. The kids are starting to realize what it feels like to be a minority and all have commented to us regarding this fact and how their minority friends back home must feel sometimes. Everywhere we went yesterday people would stand and stare or walk past us and stare. In a culture where it is very abnormal to have three children and with three of us having blonde hair, we seemed to attract attention. We must have had ten separate occasions yesterday where Chinese people would approach us and ask if they could have their picture taken with us. They were actually much more interested in having their photo taken with Sheryl and the kids so I just walked around and shot photos of the event. They would especially seem to focus in on Madeline with her long blonde hair and several times wanted a picture with only Madeling and themselves. They also liked to touch her hair. I think it made her feel uncomfortable but also a little bit special -kind of like a celebrity. Crossing the street was also quite an event. The traffic does NOT stop for pedestrians so our steet-crossing events were a little hair raising at times.

We leave Beijing tomorrow and head for Grace's province. We will pick her up Monday morning. So far I have not been able to download any of our photos onto my computer since the memory cards that we are currently using are 2GB or greater and my computer is not recognizing these larger memory cards. And, of course, I didn't think that I would need the transfer cords to directly transfer from the cameras to the computer. We will attempt to use smaller memory cards today so hopefully I will be able to include some photos with the next posting. However, we aren't sure about accessing the internet from our next hotel in Hangzhou, China.

It's just the beginning and we still have so much to experience - and we still have the whole experience of receiving Grace and getting to know her and helping her settle into our family. We are so glad that all of the kids have been able to be a part of this experience and look forward to what is ahead. Please continue to pray for us over the next two weeks and I will attempt to keep the blogsite updated when possible.

The Hallgarths