we're here!

So, it's been a few days since we got here, but we have been so busy and too exhausted to write.  Our flight left Charlotte on wednesday a few hours late due to issues in Newark.  Big Shocker.  Then we left about 3 hours late from Newark, another big shocker.  Once we finally got going everything was fine..the girls were great.  We sat them all together and they watched tv and played with their ipods for the entire flights. Continental did pretty good with food and service.  Unfortunately, about 1 hour from Beijing we hit some fairly major turbulence.  Let's just say 4 out of seven of us didnt actually survive unscathed.  Image a plane with oh, about 200 people on it, and more than 25% were hurling.  Not very pleasant.

Our guide was a little nervous that we were late but she eventually found us.  Her name is Sunny and she speaks very good English.  Very good.  She is in her 20's I am guessing and the girls love her.  She speaks chinese to them as much as possible.  We are staying at a Radisson and it is very nice.  It is walking distance to a few restaurants and grocery store.

We got to our hotel around 5:30 pm and we hadnt had much sleep on the plane but we had to stay up.  we at very expensive burgers at the hotel, I mean, Maggie and I, 2 burgers, 2 drinks, about $55 US dollars.  Learned that lesson real fast.  Hit the sack around 945 pm and slept right though the night.  Beijing time is 12 hours ahead of US time, so our days have switched to nights and vice versa.