To Jinan~
We left the hotel and headed to the Beijing airport. We had not noticed when we arrived to the airport the late the night before how massive the Beijing airport is. It took us awhile to figure out where we needed to go to check in, but eventually we figured it out. If you go without a guide definitely get there early. We went through security and I quickly learned having lip-gloss in your pocket gets you an extra super duper screening.
The plane ride to Jinan was short. Only about an hour. We were greeted by our guide, Missy as we exited the baggage claim. She was so sweet and took us to our driver Mr. Lu who is not much on talking (He doesn’t speak English) but he has some serious driving skills.
The drive from the airport to our hotel took about an hour. I don’t even know how to put it into words. It was absolutely surreal and like it was out of a movie. There are people, cars, motorbikes, bikes just everywhere. Jinan seems like an older city mixed with some new. So many of the older buildings looked abandoned, but of you looked closely you could see they are apartment buildings with people living in them. The smog and the pollution are pretty bad. The sun as it set was bright red and a thick haze just hovers over the city.
Missy told us she had received a call from the orphanage director and asked would we like to meet Samuel tonight instead of tomorrow as planned. Of course!! We got to the hotel and Missy was a great help in checking us in. Navigating Beijing was not hard, but here in Jinan English is not as widely spoken. There aren’t many… if any Americans, so we would definitely be lost on our own.
We went to our room and it was filled with old cigarette smoke. It was bad, and Missy arranged for us to move to the room next door. We moved our bags and Missy said we should head for the lobby in 10 minutes to meet Samuel. The door closed and then there was a knock. She said we needed to leave right then and head downstairs…so off we went to meet our new son!!
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