Arrival Day!

We've been on 3 different airplanes today! One had the coolest touch screen tv thing. On the longest flight, they served meals. I can't have anything because of my nut allergy.  There were two heart melting Japaneses movies mom and I watched. I would reccomend these movies. Dinner (4:30 pm in China 3:30 am at home) was cool. I still couldn't eat anything from the restaurant, but I got to play with chop sticks. I am sooo tired. After dinner we all went on a walk. That was chaotic. We almost got ran over by a car! Traffic lights are just a suggestion. Really! I'm very tired.  ~Lydia

We left at 3:45 this morning after getting to bed at 1am.  It was hard for me to leave Violet, but she said, "Now you leave, Mom!"  I think somebody was excited for a sleepover at Grandma's!  However, I called and spoke with her when we were in Canada and she asked me if I was going to come home and snuggle her.  She was okay with my answer that she was going to get to talk to me on the computer later.

The flight to Beijing was long, as we knew it would be, but having your own personal TV screen with loads of movies made it much easier than 10 years ago.  We thought we'd have wifi but no luck.  Lydia and I watched two Japanese movies (with English subtitles).  They were really good.

Once here, we met our guide and some other families that we will be with in Beijing only and got settled in our hotel.  We then walked down the street and got Chinese food all by ourselves at a place that came recommended by our guide because it had English menus.  No English speaking people though.  So, lots of pointing to communicate.  That's kind of fun.  Jake tried a few bites and was a little lukewarm.  The food gets better as we get to Chongqing though.  It's pretty bland in Beijing.  As Lydia said, she doesn't get to eat anything.  The risk of cross contamination with nuts is too high.  We are super prepared, though, with two weeks of food for her packed in our suitcases, 7 epipens, 2 bottles of zyrtec, and an emergency airway kit (no, I am not kidding!)  I think that is the only way our allergist was going to let me bring her here after her recent anaphylactic reaction in his office!

We are exhausted!  We keep having to wake the kids up.  We are trying to get them to stay awake until 7:30pm so they don't wake up at 3am unable to go back to sleep.  Tomorrow is the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and an acrobatics show.

Good night!

P.S. Julie Riley, I'm so sorry I texted you back at 1am!  I obviously didn't do my math.  It was sunny outside here and I totally blanked that it wasn't the same time there! 

~Carla