Day #4 Beijing/Great Wall/Ceremony-More Pictures!

Here are more pictures from the Olympic Venues. Notice Peiton wearing her Chow's Gymnastics Shirt!

Day #4 Beijing/Great Wall/Ceremony

Today we met the whole travel group. There are 10 other families from my orphanage. First we went to a ceremony in the morning then we went to the great wall then to the Olympic site. The great wall was fun, we took a cable car to the top and walked down. The stairs were really steep in some places. After lunch we went to the Olympic site and saw the birds nest, watercube and the gymnastics place. There were many people trying to sell us stuff there, it was fun.

Peiton

At the Civil Affairs office Peiton was given a gift from the Minister of Civil Affairs. He is in charge of all the social welfare institutes in china as well as the CCAA. He really seemed to enjoy the children. There were many people taking pictures at the event. We made the CCTV news which is broadcast through out China. On the great wall Peiton hung out with Elly, who is from Indiana and 7 years old.

Jim

Day #3 Dinner with Nelson

We met Nelson for dinner tonight. He loved the photo album we presented him. He said helping with adoptions has provided a lot of meaning to his life. He was very happy to see how the children have grown up. We will see him again when we return to Beijing on December 1st before we head back home. Jim

Day #3 Beijing

Today we went to the drum tower and the bell tower. They are both over 500 years old. These were used so people could know the time of day. We had to climb 60 steps straight up to get to the top of drum tower and 72 steps for the bell tower. After that we took a rickshaw through some Hutongs. Hutongs are really old houses with small alleys. We saw the house where Mao used to live. He used to be the leader of China. Tonight we will have dinner with Nelson and tomorrow we will go to the Great Wall.

Peiton and Jim

Don't forget to send me Comments on the blog so I can read them... Peiton. I really like getting them. Abbey-thanks for your comments. The weather is like Iowa, but a little colder.

Day #2 More Pictures from this day

Some more pictures from our day.

Day #2 Beijing

We woke up very early and had a great breakfast at the hotel. I had hot chocolate, bacon and fruit were great. After breakfast we went swimming then took a cab to go shopping and we walked a very long ways. We took another cab to the zoo and saw a few pandas, tigers and lions. The weather has been cold outside. My dad bought me a panda hat.

After the zoo we took a ride on a bike to McDonalds for lunch. I had chicken nuggets and fries.

We will meet Nelson, our friend, for dinner tomorrow night. Nelson was our tour guide who accompanied our family on our trip to adopt Meilin. We love and miss everyone...Jim and Peiton

Arrived in Beijing!

We made it to China in time after a 2 hour fog delay in Des Moines. It was a long flight, but Peiton did get some school work done. It took an hour to reach the hotel due to rush hour traffic. The hotel is nice and it has a pool and a bowling alley. Check out the photo of the picture of the can of Pringles- yuck! Time to go to bed.