Greetings from Beijing!

We are here. The flight was great, with the plane being about half full. Plenty of room to spread out. Andrew was so excited he could hardly sit still during take off. And to be sitting next to his Aunt Nay was the icing on the cake. We had a really long ride as we taxied down the runway and he kept asking "are we in the air yet?" So you can imagine the look on his face when the engines of that big plane revved and we took off. I only wish I could have had a camera to capture his excitement. And then when he found out that Dolphin Tale was one of the movie choices, and that they Disney Channel tv choices, he was nearly beside himself. So he held up really well for the entire trip.

We all slept for a chunk of the trip which helped the nearly 14 hrs go by. When we got down to the final 30 minutes of the trip, Andrew was watching closely the flight map and giving us minute by minute updates. Again, he was super excited. Getting thru the airport was a breeze - no crowds at all thru passport control. Our guide, Grace was waiting as expected and we were quickly taken to our hotel. It was after 1:00am Beijing time when we got settled into our room, but since that's only noon back home, we are all wide awake. We quickly got settled, and each of us pulled out our tech gear and started getting connected. Pleased that we have great connection. We have full days planned for the next couple of days here in Beijing before we head down to Guiyang on Sunday to meet the kids. Tomorrow, we have a tour of the Summer Palace and a hutong lined up with a rickshaw ride on the agenda. Now to convince Andrew he needs to try to sleep again.