End of Beijing; Nanning, day 1

We ended our night in Beijing, eating at an excellent Thai restaurant, Jimmy's. I had pad thai and Susie had some mixed vegetables in curry sauce. They were both really good. We think Susie's was cooked in some sort of shrimp sauce though because as soon as we got back to the hotel, she started having horrible stomach pains. She is allergic to shrimp and it causes horrible GI cramping and pain. Not good when we have to get up in 5 hours for our flight. Anyway, I headed out to the streets of Beijing to see if I could buy any medication that might make her feel better. Well I had no luck and all the stores were closed. (It was ~9:45pm). I tried to talk with the hotel front desk without luck. It is a bit scary that without our guides around, you are really stuck without any way to communicate. Once I got back to the room and gave her the bad news, she was feeling a bit better and fell asleep.

We were up at the wee hours of 3:00am to get ready for the day. Actually Susie got up at 2:00, thinking it was already 3:00. She didn't realize the correct time until after she was out of the shower. Oops! Our bags were picked up at 4:00am and we headed to the lobby to eat our "boxed breakfasts." This consisted of a hard boiled egg, danish and salad....what? Then it was off to the airport to catch our flight to Nanning. We were sad to leave some of our travel buddies behind, but we will meet up with them again in Guangzhou. There are 4 total families here with us in Nanning and they are all great. Our flight went well and we arrived into the mountains of Guangxi. It is absolutely beautiful here. It was strangely emotional for us to arrive and see our daughter's home province. I can't quite explain how amazing it is to be here. Beijing was very much what I pictured China to look like. Nanning looks much like what I would picture Vietnam or Cambodia to look like. We are only ~100 miles north of Vietnam, so that is probably why the similarities exist. The city is just so different from Beijing. Not quite as busy (Beijing has 15 million people, Nanning has ~1 million), but the traffic is crazy. I would never survive as a driver here. There are also thousands of motor bikes. Some people appear to have all their possesions on their bikes! The cars and bikes don't stop just because you are crossing the street either. Watch out!! We are getting a lot more looks and stares here. I suspect that will only get worse once we have Maeve with us.

Our hotel is really nice. It is a very classy, upscale hotel right in the middle of a fairly poor, market area. Very odd, but cool. The rooms are a bit outdated, but nice enough. We were greeted with a crib (circa 1952) in our room. A great reminder of why we are here! The room has an internet connection, so I am happy. Thank goodness our guide, Micheal, is with us the whole time here (he is staying just down the hall) because no one speaks English around here. Guangxi is a very rural province, so they don't really get tourists or Westerners here. Micheal is very nice and funny. He will be a big help to us over the next few days. We got to the hotel around 12:30pm. We got checked in, settled into our room and then napped until 3. We then met our guide and some other families to walk to the local market to pick up water and some snacks. We can't drink the tap water here. Not sure what we will do for dinner tonight. Susie is nervous about eating due to last night's events, so we may play it safe and find the local Pizza Hut. That is a cab drive away though, so I am nervous to be out on our own without our guide.

Tomorrow we get Maeve. (Around 2:30 pm our time, which is 12:30am Midwest time!) We are very excited. Hopefully all goes well. After seeing this city and all its beauty, yet severe poverty, we just can't get Maeve in our arms fast enough. We will post as soon as we get a chance tomorrow! Until then...

**Update** We ended up taking that taxi to the downtown shopping area. We met another family who just flew in today. They live in Shang Hei (sp?). The dad is from the US and the mom is from China. They were looking for a taxi at the same time as us, so we all shared one. They are also here with their 3.5yr old daughter who was also adopted from China. We had a great time with them at dinner and they taught us some good phrases to use in Mandarin.