Day 2: New Day

Today, 10/28/12, we leave at 1130 for ND. Driving here is terrifying. Oh. My. Our driver got lost. Its funny how with the language difference you can still tell whats going on. We finally arrived to new day at 1:20. We were greeted by Grace, New Days medical director. She is very sweet. Turns out she knew Levi when he was an infant in the orphanage and would take him special formula to help him live. New Day supplies formula to several orphanages. They have a wonderful ministers. We went to the children's section of ND and Levi was with his nanny, Cora, waiting for us. It was nap time so all the other children were sleeping. They took us to the play room and Levi came right us. We gave him a gift bag full of goodies which he loved. Samuel, who had been so excited to meet Levi w became more interested in the toys! Lol. Poor little guy hasn't had toys to play with in 4 days! But he would keep coming over to Levi and pat him saying, " My friend, Levi." He gave him the sweetest kiss. After about 30 minutes they put Levi down for his nap and we went on a tour. Before we left Grace went over all Levi's medical need sand supplied us with enough Meds for a month! They also gave us a cd full of pictures of Levi! And a plastered hand print. We will treasure these. We left at 2:30 to head to the airport. Our flight was delayed so we didn't fly out until 6:15. We arrived Arrived to Hohhot and 7:30 and 8:30 to hotel. Levi will leave ND tonight as well, with Cora. They will take a 10 hour train ride to Hohhot to meet us. We get a lot of stares from the Chinese people having a large family. It has been interesting to watch. They are either very friendly or very rude. They are very intrigued with Meg and Samuel. Many are surprised we have a Chinese boy who is healthy. They know this because they come right out and ask. Lol. But they think he is very cute. Especially since we continues to tell everyone about Levi!

Day 1: October 27th

We arrived to our hotel, Beijing Jiajong Hotel, at 12:30am. We had a quick sleep because we had to meet our guide at 9am to go to the Great Wall of China. The Great Wall is amazing. Katie, Samuel, and I made it to the second tower up and stopped due to my bad knees. I couldn't believe how Samuel climbed up all those stairs and would have kept going if I had not stopped. Mark, Ethan, and Meg went all the way up!! Meg was a trooper!! Next we went to a government run Dim Sum restaurant. Inside this restaurant we got to observe Jade being carved into figurines. After lunch we visited a HuTong. A HuTong was an ancient city that the Emperors planned as residential areas in order to have complete power over the city. They all connected into the Forbidden city. This was a cool tour and we rode on Rigshaws through the city. We attended a tea ceremony and toured a bell tower while at the HuTong. We ended our day with an Acrobatic show at the Beijing Chaoyang Theater. They were amazing! We came home completely worn out but it was a fun day. Poor Samuel fell asleep after lunch and didn't wake up until we got back to the hotel. Climbing the Great Wall did him in!! It was fun watching Samuel meet people because everyone who talked with him he would tell, "My friend, Levi. In China." Of course they had no idea what he was talking about but he was so excited he had to tell everybody. He will be happy tomorrow when we finally meet Levi!!

On Our Way

Yes,this post is 3 days behind!! Internet was hard to connect too in Beijing but our hotel in Hohhot has better service. So, we left on October 25th for China. We picked up Katie from school and drove straight to the airport. Our flight left Columbus at 730 and arrived in Detroit at 830. Our final flight to Beijing left at 10:05. We arrived in Beijing at 11:05pm Friday night, October 26th. The kids all did amazing!! Samuel played on his IXL or watched movies. Then he slept for about 6 hours. When we landed he kept yelling, "In China! My friend Levi!"