Becky and I are back from a full day of sightseeing and hitting the internet cafe before hading out to see an acrobat show tonight - busy schedule and it's wonderful!

So, to try and give you a taste of where we are and where we've been: currently, we're gasping for air in a 20 by 25 smoke-filled room of computers packed in tight rows, each one being used for video games of one kind or another. We're definitely the only Americans here, and likely the some of the only ones they'll have in here today, given the fact that nothing is in English! We're brave troupers, however, and something silly like language isn't going to get in the way of us communicating! So last night we propped our eyes open with toothpicks and headed for hte hotel bar for our "free beverage" which was a lovely little 3 oz glass of beer (it's celebrate German beer month in the hotel bar, so very cosmopolitan). We ordered a few little dishes and were both asleep by 9:15, I think! My eyes flew open at 4 am and tho I tried desperately to go back to sleep for the next two hours, seven hours of sleep is apparently all I need these days. Our hotel room is lovely, we're on the 14th floor and apparently missed some street protest happening last night - a bunch of people lying in the main road. Our guide says perhaps it was a protest againt the government's reclamation of their homes - they are compensated but not given the option to keep thier homes. Or it could have been something else - who knows - it certainly isn't reported on the news. Our mattresses are super hard but incredibly comfortable, the people at the hotel very nice. The breakfast buffet was kind of hilarious - real chinese chinese food, american chinese food like fried rice, sushi, bacon, sausage, fruit, croissants, tomato-mozzarella salad, porridge, cereal, pasta salad, potato salad, smoked fish - you name it, they had it. Multi-cultural to a manic degree.

We met the rest of today's tour group - five other "families" here for adoptions, and went to the Summer Palace, the Panda House at the zoo, and the Temple of Heaven. It's a lovely, eclectic group of people here - a few first-timer parents, a beautiful little 4 year old girl who was adopted by her single physician mom two years ago and is back for a new sister with mom, grandma, and grandma's best friend in tow, a couple whose two children are 16 and 19 and are ready for round two, a couple who have a 5 year old, a couple who have a three year old and a six year old. And they are from everywhere - TX, AZ, FL, IL, MA, etc. Dctors, police men, retired military, and some we haven't discovered. Personalities so far are lovely, and no-one yet demonstrating that they're the overly dramatic or intolerant types. Becky and I did enjoy watching everyone select the super-expensive French import water at the grocery store while we penny-pinched on the CHinese brands - we all seemed fine this morning. More families arrived today and tomorrow we'll tour the Great Wall, The Forbidden City and Tiannaman Square. Today was a really nice start, we had a lovely guide who spoke good English and travelled in a nice bus. The Summer Palace was our first stop and it was beautiful. Interesting to learn the mythology and meaning behind some of hte most famous CHinese symbols. A highlight of the day was when a group of CHinese tourists rushed our group, cameras drawn, to get their pictures taken with the Americans - happened a few times during the day to lesser degrees. I have such appreciation for being a minority and think it's good to have this experience to know a bit how the Chinese children will feel in the less ethnically diverse communities.

Lunch was at a touristy place, but as a tourist, well-appreciated - some dances during our meal, and a nice selection of food. We were taken to a government pearl store where we were nearly physically assaulted and certainly stalked by the staff in an attempt to get us to buy their jewels - successful with over half the gorup, but we stood our ground, waiting to get to our final destination. The Pandas were interesting at the zoo - in a lazy, siesta-time kind of way. It would certainly be amazing to be in the wilds of the Szechuan province and happen upon one accidentally... Hope they're able to keep them safe.

Beijing is amazingly huge, adn the amount of development is astounding - cranes like big storks standing sentinel around the city. I've never imagined so many cranes existed in the world, much less in one place. At one work site I was amused to see the typical road crew of one guy working while five more leaned on their shovels - better hurry up for the 2008 Olympics! One of our guides said the young generation in Beijing have a new name: Apartment Slaves as they spend such a high portion of their wages on purchasing a place to live that will only technically be thiers for 70 years before it must be re-bought through the government. Cars and bicycles crowd the roads and it amazes me here, as it did in Central America, that everyone (especially pedestrians) survive unscathed.

We haven't seen clear sky - the sun is a red ball beneath layers of pollution from the cars and the dust kicked up by the construction, but the colors of the people and the buildings are just as vivid. One more day of sightseeing and SUnday we fly to the Hunan province and from that afternoon on, Cerys is with us! Of course we are all drawn to each and every child like moths to flame - the joy everyone seems to take in their children is really endearing. We saw a little boy not much older than Sawyer running around in a pair of overalls slit from back to front to expose his most private of parts to the world - hilarious. ANd rather convenient for the pit toilets that are everywhere. Tom, you'd never stop laughing.

Ok, gotta log off as we're running out of time. Love to everyone. Miss you all,