Beijing - Day 2

This was our first full day in Beijing. We met a lot of the other families in our group. We have been emailing and keeping in touch with some of these families so it was nice to finally see them in person. We have such a neat group. We are not all here yet, but there are 16 families in our group. All of the families are adopting children with special needs. How cool is that?! The families that arrived in Beijing on Monday received their children then. It has been awesome seeing these families together with their children and how well their children are doing adapting to their new life. There is one family that got here that we did not get to meet. They had their child for a couple of days and decided her needs were much more severe than had been described. They made the very hard decision to take their child back to the orphanage and I believe they have gone home. Please pray for this family and this child. I can’t even imagine. Just heart wrenching.
After breakfast and a short meeting this morning with our group, we headed across the street to the bank. We found out that Isabella’s province would accept a wire transfer for the adoption “donation”. What a relief – no more carrying around a ton of money worrying something might happen to it. Our guide took care of everything and the money has been wired to Sichuan province.
I tell you what, just walking across the street here is more dangerous than anything I have done in a very long time. Green, red … doesn’t matter. And pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way. Just crazy!
When we got back to the hotel we took a short nap to try to catch up and feel a little more human. Our stomachs have been doing some somersaults, so it was needed. When we woke up there was a note under our door stating that we needed to have our temperature checked twice a day in the lobby while we are here. A few of the other families received the same notice, so we are assuming someone on the plane (although we were all on different planes) has the flu. It is another infrared camera that took our temp. Fine today for both of us. Please keep praying that we stay well. This time change has done a number on us.
We went to the acrobatic show this afternoon. That was really amazing to see. I did not know it at the time, but they scanned all of us for fevers prior to going in there also. We are the minority here and they do not want this flu here and since it originated in North America, they are very careful around us (at least that is the way it seems). And since we are the minority, even though we are here checking everything out, we are also the object of stares and pictures as well.
Tomorrow is the Great Wall and Cloisonne Factory. Please feel free to leave any comments to the blog or send us an email. Facebook is blocked, but we are able to update status on Michael's phone. We also can't text since it is expensive here. This building is in downtown Beijing and the locals call it the "Big Pants" building. This picture really does not do it justice because it is a HUGE building.

A picture of us before going into the acrobatic show.

Downtown Beijing
This is the little grocery store down the road from our hotel. Michael thought it was funny that it is an IGA ... not quite Tandy's (if you are from Rising Sun). The smells were interesting to say the least.

More updates tomorrow!!