Another post....

Today we met our guide and the driver at the hotel in Beijing and they took us to the airport for our two hour flight. We traveled to Hangzhou which is the capital city of Zhejiang province. We were met by Stephanie and our driver Xiou Mai at the airport and drive one hour to our hotel. After check in Stephanie went over the schedule and paperwork with us and gave us some helpful hints about tomorrow.

We have been traveling all day and are super wiped out. We decided to stay in the hotel for dinner because we were not interested in fighting the crowds for dinner. (Reference attached picture of the view from our window.) There are two resturants in the hotel so we chose the Chinese resturant with local cuisine. We were nervous after sitting down because Micah thought that it looked like there were some things on the menu that were very expensive...or were we reading it wrong? Also, not one person understood us and the waitstaff were arguing over who would wait on us. We tried to ask questions with no success so we just gave up and pointed at some things trying to make sure we were clear what we wanted. Some things on the menu such as the goose esopahagus, beef stomach, deeep fried pidgeon, snake, and octopus we wanted to be sure and stay away from. Chicken please! When the food came it was very fancy and yummy although full of bones. We were nervous about the bill arriving since they also brought us each a bowl of rice, some tea, and watermelon. It was a tense moment for me when the bill came and Micah paid. He laughed as we walked out and said "Ten dollars".

So tomorrow is the big day and neither of us know quite what to think. We are told that Levi is already on the train to come and meet us. It wil be an all night journey with many stops. The orphanage director and another staff person will come with him. We will leave the hotel at 8:40 to drive to the Civil Affairs office and our appointment is at 9. So that is 7 pm central and 8 pm eastern. We will have paperwork and be there for an hour or so depending on how many other families are there. Then we will grab some lunch I guess and head to the hotel for some rest and maybe later to the store if we need to buy anything for Levi that we did not bring. They said that they are calling him Haofeng at the orphanage so we will try to call him that I think. We will see. So, tomorrow will be very busy for us! We will try to get some sleep!

Here are some pictures of us at the Beijing airport ready to go, our room in Hangzhou with the pack-n-play all set up, and the view from our window...such a huge city!