Tomorrow is the Big Day!

Since I can hardly keep my eyes open past 8 p.m. here I've been asleep for a while, but I woke up and decided to do a post.  We are in Zhengzhou now and tomorrow is the big day.  In less than 12 hours we will meet Leah for the first time!  With that said I am feeling like a nervous wreck.  All of the excitement, anxiety, nervousness, you name it is right there at the surface and today has been quite the long day.  We have the crib in our room and all of Leah's stuff out and ready and tomorrow morning we'll be coming home with a baby!  Leah's orphanage is about 4.5 hours away from here, so they were going to bring her here to the hotel, but we found out today they will actually bring her to the registration office where all of the other families are going.  I'm really excited about that.  Now we will get to watch and wait with everyone else in our group as the kids arrive.  Leah is one of the youngest kids being adopted on our trip and considering her tiny size and development I think she will definitely be the mei mei of this group.  

I know once Leah is here I will never record anything about our second day in Beijing, so I'll try and do it now.  Saturday in Beijing was great.  There was a freezing cold wind blowing all day, but it was good because it blew all the pollution out and made for blue, sunny skies.  We headed with our group to a jade factory and then on to the Great Wall of China (about 1.5 hours from hotel).  That was so amazing.  We climbed to the top of the Juyong section.  It had some really steep pitches with lots of steps ranging from like 18 inches to only a few just to keep you on your toes.  Along the way are a series of towers.  It was pretty cool, and we had a lot of fun climbing it along with some other families in the group.  When we got to the bottom Jer and I ate our Chinese Snickers we had purchased the day before--this time I came prepared with daytime snacks.  It doesn't really taste like a Snickers at home...maybe one that's been on the shelf about a year, but it was good nonetheless.  Today's food was much better, so I wasn't starving all day.  I found a few things I like at the breakfast and our Chinese food lunch today was delicious--no mystery meats!  Some of the men in the group tried a tiny bit of some rice wine they offered.  They served it in cups about the size of a thimble and the label said it was 58% alcohol.  Apparently it was pretty tough stuff!

After lunch we headed back in to Beijing.  It really was amazing today to drive around and see just how vast this city of 20 million people is.  I can't really describe it.  I have never seen so many banks and glass skyscrapers in my life.  The high rise apartment buildings seem to go on forever--amazing!  The traffic and driving here is crazy.  We've been in a bus the entire time, so it hasn't been too scary because we're usually the biggest.  People just go pull out in front of each other all over the place.  I am seriously impressed with our bus driver's skills--some of the places he has squeezed our bus into have been incredible.  You would really have to know how to drive to get around in this city.  There are people riding scooters and electric bikes everywhere.  In contrast to America, I have yet to see one person wear a helmet.  They drive like crazy and head out into huge intersections with no fear.  Being a pedestrian is scary.  They don't exactly yield to pedestrians here!  It has been a real eye opener to just see the sheer number of people everywhere you go.  I guess that's what you should expect in one of the biggest cities in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people.  Our guide Candy has been so awesome.  I will miss her. She speaks excellent English and has a great sense of humor.  She has entertained us and taught us a lot about her city which she obviously loves.

Back in Beijing we made a quick stop at the Olympic Village for a few pictures and then went to a Chinese acrobatics show--think Cirque de Soleil Beijing style.  It was in kind of a dumpy, rundown theater, but the show was incredible.  Guys doing handstand presses on huge stacks of chairs, 12 girls riding a bike at the same time, 6 guys going around on motorcycles inside a cage--you name it and they did it!  It was very entertaining, and I think Jer was even more wowed by it than I was.  Jer was all excited because he smelled popcorn.  When he came back he had a bag of microwave popcorn with "American Flavor" that left quite a bit to be desired and some Coca-Cola Lights in a can that taste just like Tab.  Yuck!  I may be over my Diet Coke thing when we get back because there is none to be had here!  You can't drink the water so it's been bottled water with the occasional Sprite thrown in here and there--no ice.  This morning we packed up and left the hotel at 8 a.m. to head to the airport.  Our guides here are very prompt.  Getting up early is no problem because of the time difference, but it always makes me laugh that literally the second the last person's foot is on the bus the doors close and we pull away.  You don't want to be late around here!  The flight was only around 1 1/2 hours and our next set of guides Yisha, Cindy, and Vivian met us at the airport here.  They seem very nice.  The rest of the afternoon has been spent unpacking and getting things ready for tomorrow.  All of the men in the group walked with the guides to the bank to exchange money.  We have been doing up to this point in our hotel.  They use renminibi or rmb which they also call yuan here.  It is about $1 to 6.3 yuan.  You feel rich in China when you fork over 35 yuan for a drink or something!  We need cash to finish the adoption process.  There are a bunch of remaining fees we will be paying during our stay here.  We were told to bring new or at least very good quality $100 bills to China with us.  Today Jer exchanged $1000 of them for yuan.  He said the bankers inspected the bills very carefully and all of ours passed.  Only 3 out of 13 families had all of their bills pass inspection.  They are very particular about the condition of the American money they accept here.  The drive from the airport was pretty sobering.  The landscape in this part of China is very stark and we passed lots of rundown hovels along the way.  Once we got the city it got nicer.  This is also a big city with lots of skyscrapers and people everywhere!  Our hotel is quite nice with lots of amenities nearby.  There is even a Walmart a few blocks away.  Here the people drive their scooters on the sidewalk.  Whole big fleets of them come along on the sidewalk honking for you to move.  They cross the streets in big groups and then on to the sidewalk again.  Well, I better get going.  We leave her at 9:30 a.m. to head to the registration office.  I'm sure this is rambly and full of typos galore, but I'm too tired to check that now.  Thanks for the comments...it's so nice to hear from all of you back home!