March 25/05 ~ We're Here

It is now Good Friday! After 11 hours in the air, we began to notice that the landscape had definitely changed and became very mountainous and brown. The captain announced that we were beginning our descent into Beijing. We arrived at 3:30pm (there’s a 13 hour difference, so that means that it was 2:30 in the morning back home). We are traveling with another couple, Louanne and Darren, and will meet the rest of our travel group (11 families in total) tomorrow. After passing through customs, we are pleased to announce that all of our luggage has arrived with us! It is quite common for luggage to go missing on flights to China. Maybe it's on purpose so that you have to buy everything again in China :o)

Ellen, our guide and interpreter, met us and took us by bus to our hotel. What a ride that was!!! Let me just put it this way, I won’t complain about Jamie’s driving again! Our hotel is very nice but the beds are so hard. Jamie is disappointed that he can’t jump on the bed because it is like a rock, and I’m not exaggerating! But we were so tired that it didn’t really matter. We turned out the light at 8:00pm
Seeing China for the first time.
Mountainous terrain coming into view.
We are finally here and going through customs.
Bus ride to hotel.
Children's playground - view from the bus.