First Post From China (via Cincinnati)

Hi all!!

Well we arrived in China yesterday afternoon. The flight
was uneventful and everything went a smoothly as could be.
We were exhausted, but needed to stay awake so we took to
the streets of Beijing. We are at a different hotel in a
different area this time. It is really cool. tons of
shopping and street vendors. We went to a Peking Duck
restaurant for dinner. Eric had researched it before leaving
Tiffin and it all worked out great. It was just about a 10
minute walk. There was only 1 other caucasion couple there.
They carved the duck table side and you ate it wrapped in a
little rice wrapper with sauce. It was the best duck we have
ever had. We managed to stay awake until 9:00 ans slept
pretty well until 4:00 am. Today we are going to the Houtong
and the Great Wall. we will be out all day long.

We are 1 day closer to Max!! Only 2 days left. We met other
adoptive parents at the airport in New Jersey. It was really
neat being the "ones in the know" this time.
Everyone was asking us questions. We are part of a really
small group (only 9 familes) and we are the only ones
traveling to Chongqing. We will be with these people here in
Beijing and meet up again in Guangzhou.

It is very rainy here, and we were told it pretty much
would be the entire time. It is amazing how big Beijing
is...18 million people. What is even more amazing is that
Chongqing has 32 million just in the municipality!!
Not so many bikers here, we now see TONS of cars. That is
very different from the last time. One thousand private cars
are added to their registry in Beijing alone every month.
That is pretty amazing for a country that had NO cars like
10 years ago.

We are unable to access our blog from China. Like so many
other sites it has been blocked. We are emailing Meg and she
will act like the administrator updating it for us.
Actually, we have to go thru Mike to get to Meg because
Gmail is ALSO blocked in China. We will try again to access
it ourselves in Chongqing.

Please email comments to marycgriffin@hotmail.com,
we will LOVE hearing from you!

We were able to skype last night and get to do it with
Corinne today!! Yeah!! We really miss her but understand
that she is having a wonderful time with Grandma and
Grandpa Griffin

GMO!!!

Love, The Griffins