Early Morning musings...

It's 4:00 am and I can't sleep. I feel much more coherent than I did last night at 9:30! The girls are still asleep which is a good thing. They were both pretty exhausted last night. For the most part they are being really good explorer even though Josi thought her legs were going to fall off during the Temple of Heaven tour. Neither were terribly impressed with my attempt to order dinner last night. We found a KFC without biscuits which in Cadi's mind is no less than criminal! The other thing I realized is that hot milk and whole milk sound identical when spoken by a chinese woman and heard by an American woman! We did bring the hot milk home, poured hot chocolate mix into it and had very creamy cocoa.

It is so wonderful to see the bond that has formed between Cadi and Katie who were both adopted on the same day. They seemed to instantly like each other and they are truly delighting in each other's company. I dearly love Katie's mom, Jeri. She was the veteran back in 1998 who had already made the trip and took me under her wing and showed me the ropes back then. It was very sweet to see her again and give her a hug yesterday morning. We spent the entire day together renewing old friendships and for the girls forming new ones. Our group yesterday also included Susan and her daughter Avery who seem like old friend. Josi and Avery hit it off too so that was great that Josi has a friend close to her age. Unfortunately we are not in the same group as either of those families. We have been divided by the age of the "Yangster" so our three families are in three different groups. I'm sure this will help us branch out and meet new people. There are families here from 6 different countries. I think they are Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, England, the U.S. and I can't right now think of the final country. So far the oldest girl we have met is 17.

We are met by many bold stares as we walk through the streets of Beijing. We are definitely a rare sight. Starting in the airport in SeaTac both of my girls have commented on how they have never "seen this many Asian people" and yesterday while we were in the store one of the other girls said, "HereI look like all the people and you are the one who looks different." There is a lot to process here and I am so glad that we are starting on some of the processing.

P.S.-One thing I forgot to say was how beautiful the weather was here yesterday. Probably in the 50s and today it's supposed to be get up to 60 degrees! We are not going to freeze on the Great Wall!