A Typical Beijing Day

The last 24 hours have been a pretty typical Beijing day.  Our flight landed on time at PEK international.  The terminal we came into was enormous.  The biggest I have ever seen and it was a ghost town.  Completely empty.

Steve and I both agreed that it was a little unsettling.  Immigration and customs were a joke.  The security was nothing like I thought it would be.  We got our luggage and met our driver/guide Ping outside.  I love this man.

He is very honest and will answer any questions you ask of him  He is very opiniontated about the world he lives in  It took about 45 minutes to get to our Hostel

We are staying at the fly by knight courtyard hostel.  That's right we are rocking this backpack style.

I should say we have a private room and bathroom with western toilet, but still it is back in the hutong and pretty awesome.  If you have ever been to Haiti, it is on a road like you have when you turn off the main one.  So small you can barely fit a vespa, but they drive trucks and mini-buses through them.  Pretty awesome.

We got checked in.  Dumped out all the luggage and rearranged everything.  By 9pm we were both dead to the world.  We both slept on the most comfortable bed ever.  Like seriously after the rocks we slept on in HK, this was like a fluffy cloud.  I woke up at 6 am.  I dreamt of a boy coming to us all night.  He was there and ready and willing.  It was a good dream.

We got up, took showers, skyped with family, had breakfast and were ready to start a typical day in Beijing, China...

Holy hell yeah right.  This is what really happened.

I woke up at 6 am... shower, breakfast, skype, check and double check that we have everything.  WACAP guide met us in the hutong to get a ride with us.  This made me laugh and I will write about why another time.  At 9 am we were off.  Squeezing our way out of the hutong once again.

It took about 40 minutes to get to the orphanage  We left the clean showy areas of Beijing for the outskirts, the slums.  It took about 15 minutes to sign some forms promising to return him to the orphanage if we didn't like him or he was bad, and to promise to call them if he gets sick (really).  Then with no warning he was standing in front of us.  He is a tiny little thing.

He came up and gave me and Steve hugs and told us he loved us.  He was scared to death.  Then they showered us with weird gift and we all walked hand in hand out to the van.

I will say that I have heard horror stories about gotcha day from this particular orphanage, but from our experience, he seemed really cared for.  They sent him off with a ton of his stuff.  Great care was put into making sure he had all his school books and pens.

They walked us out to the van and said their goodbyes and it was clear they were sad to see him go.

We got our family photo taken for the paperwork tomorrow.  Then we headed out to find him a proper pair of shoes.  He appears to have some sort of clubbed left foot.  They never mentioned it, but there is something funky with the left foot and he needed more support.  So we found him a pair of high tops and ate some lunch, then decided to spend the afternoon at our hostel.

The hostel has a black puppy named Obama (very serious) and Jack's personality began to show as he played with the puppies, ate some chips, and rocked the beach ball with Steve.  Then he had a one hour conversation with a sweet girl he knew from the orphanage that is now in the states.  It was awesome to watch him come alive as they talked and laughed.

He is showered and clean and we are ready for bed.  Have I mentioned how in love I am???

Tomorrow we sign the official paperwork and he is ours forever.