We have made it to China!! We are exhausted, hot, disheveled...but really no worse for the wear! The airplane was really not too horrid, although the last few hours were not super fun :) It is almost five o'clock and the plan is to get something to eat and get to bed early!

The hotel room is nice, except for the lingering smell/residue of cigarette smoke. Sarah and I journaled all of the funny events of our journey to look back on later...

Most importantly I am just 3 days from meeting Junie! Agh! And I miss my Lyons girls already :)

Tomorrow we go the the center of Beijing, with our guide Devan. We'll tour the Forbidden City, Tianamen Square, and the Hutong tour, where I am improbably excited to ride in a rickshaw - there will be photos. If I can figure out how to post a photo, I will post one of us at the airport in Chicago - most exciting event there was watching the Chinese scramble to buy all the duty-free cigarettes they could carry. I suspect this may be contributing to the general haze - the sky is basically white, it is 99 degrees and very, very humid :)