Jet Lag City

Well here's an unexpected twist in our plans: China has blocked the blogspot.com and facebook.com web sites so we can't post updates for you! I didn't have anything bad to say about the country until they blocked us from saying anything bad about the country :) If you're reading this before March 25th then it's because we e-mailed our commentary to someone who could post it for us.

Bunches of bicycles and cars parked on the sidewalks

The blue light on my phone charger is like a spotlight illuminating the dark room. It's lunch time! At least that's what my body thinks. We're 13 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Ann and Emma seem to be sleeping peacefully. I realized early in our trip that planning my sleep time the way I do on most red-eye flights was probably futile; Emma's body clock would rule the day.
We've been in Beijing one full day now, having gotten to our hotel last night at about 1 in the morning local time. We skipped the Tiannemen Square and Forbidden City tours today to relax and acclimate to our new time zone. I don't know where the time has gone. All I can say we did is to eat, take a nap, and walk around the block.

Ann & Emma in front of our hotel

The trip to China went very well. We started with airline tickets showing all of us sitting separately. The Delta agent said that was all she could do and we could probably work it out at the airport (or hand Emma's bottle to someone sitting on her row!) We ended up having a whole row to ourselves on the first leg to Seattle and two whole rows (6 seats) from Seattle to Beijing! Thank you Lord.
Emma had trouble going to sleep on the first flight, having never slept outside her crib. But, when she's asleep, Emma sleeps very soundly. On the second flight she went to sleep stretched across two seats and slept 7 hours until we intentionally awakened her. She fell off onto the floor twice without ever waking up so we finally just put a blanket under her and let her sleep there.

Walking around in Beijing

Now we're ensconced in a "5-star" hotel with lots of marble and very elegant styles. What really makes it stand out is that there seems to be many more staff than guests here and they are very pleasant and helpful. On our trip to Korea Ann was the rock star attracting little bevies of girls who would stand and stare at her blond hair. But now Emma has totally stolen the spotlight. After breakfast we had five of the restaurant staff lined up in front of Emma with their camera phones watching her sing "Hokey Pokey" and exuberantly spin in circles and shake her hands. They're enamoured with her. I understand entirely :)