Mishaps in Beijing

We arrive in Beijing at 2:20 pm.....The adventure begins!

After we get off the plane, everyone boards the "people movers" to head through customs, etc. I tell Mark - let's NOT ride the "people mover" - lets walk! We had been sitting on a plane for 12 hours, I wanted to MOVE! So, we are walking, carrying all of our carry on baggage.....we go through the thermal scanners & guess what? My temp was reading high so the airport officials direct me to a separate area to get my temp taken (checking for swine flu!). Mark is not allowed to come into this area with me.....of course, my temp read fine!

Okay - now I'm nervous that I'm getting sick or something....but we go on through more check points. Guess what? There is another temp taking area - and they pull me into it AGAIN! Mark & I are a little concerned at this point because we know that if you have a high temp - you will be quarantined for up to seven days! Praise God - my temp reads fine again.

We finally get our bags & meet one of our Guides, Rosa, and head to the hotel. We are in the van with two other families from our group....Richard & Nancy (whom we flew to Beijing with) and Jason & Angela from Texas.

You must remember that we have not slept much at this point....we had about 16 hours of travel under our belts & we were pretty tired. That being said - we arrive at the hotel, grab our carry on bags & the bell boys grab our checked luggage - to be delivered to our rooms. In the hotel lobby we meet Kevin & Connie who had been in Beijing a day before we had gotten there.

We went to our rooms - which had a BEAUTIFUL flower arrangement from our guides waiting for us. Our luggage came soon thereafter. Rosa stops by our room & asks if we got all of our bags - "yes", we tell her and off she goes.

We know that the water is not safe to drink & since we've decided to stay awake until nighttime (trying to get on China time), we call Kevin & ask him to show us where we can get bottled water. He took us on quite the hike - to a market - where we bought two packs of bottled water & carried them back to our room.

It was at this point that I realized we did NOT have all of our bags! And the bag that was missing? The laptop bag - the laptop bag that my DEAR friend's son let us borrow for the trip! Not only that, but it was the bag that had ALL of our adoption documents in it!!!! Copies of passports, birth certificates, credit cards, plane tickets!!!!!!!! I felt HELPLESS! I had put this bag between two seats in the van on the way to the hotel & forgot to grab it when we got out.

Mark calls our guide, Rosa, and tells her what we have done. She tells us not to worry - she will get it back for us. How??? I couldn't imagine what van in all of Beijing even had it! We prayed & prayed. At midnight Rosa called our room, from the lobby, she had our bag....EVERYTHING still in it. God is so good!