Day 2 (August 1st & 2nd - due to time change)

This day will get a little confusing due to the massive time change, but I'm just grouping it all as one day, even though it consists of both August 1st & August 2nd.

Our day began with the hustle and bustle of getting all our luggage and ourselves ready by 9AM sharp. We had to take a shuttle to the airport, where we began our flight check in. Our flight didn't leave till noon but since it was international, you're required to check in around 3 hrs early. I'm always a little nervous about the security part of flying, all of the checkpoints and whatnot that you have to go through. The process is much more in depth when the flight is international, but I quickly got over the nervousness.

This picture is most of our team gathered in the hotel lobby, ready to head to the airport. We just about took up the whole lobby!

Our seating arrangements were in alphabetical order so I was with the 2 other last name "L's" on the team. Next to me is Elizabeth, she was the youngest person on our team (just turned 15) and next to her is Katie. As you can see, I somehow managed to get the window seat. I was pretty excited about that!

We flew over some really neat places - Siberia, the North Pole, Greenland, Russia, and Mongolia. This picture was somewhere over Siberia or Greenland.

Russia!

The plane we flew on was SO NICE! We each had our own personal TVs with a few hundred different movies and tv programs to choose from. My TV quit working 3 hrs into the flight but Elizabeth was nice enough to share :) When we were almost to China, we synced Elizabeth and Katie's TVs to play Mulan at the same time. We took a picture of this, the scene with the Great Wall, because we couldn't believe that scenery in a movie we had all loved growing up was about to become reality to us! We were going to see this with our own eyes.

We landed in Beijing about 12 or 13 hrs later. It was around midnight for us, but in Beijing it was 3 in the afternoon. The airport was very different than I was expecting. We all expected there to be huge masses of people, but it was actually fairly empty. We had to go through customs - this time it was a little more nerve wracking. China is a little crazy about swine flu (we saw a lot of people walking around with masks, trying to protect themselves from the sickness) so we all had to go through this fever detector. If any of us had a fever, we would be quarantined and kept for who knows how long. Thankfully we all made it through!

Here is a picture of most of our team on the escalators. I'm on the left side towards the top in the blue shirt.

We had to gather all of our stuff (40 suitcases total!) and wait outside for our bus. The weather was humid like you wouldn't believe. Humidity in the US and humidity in China are not the same, I'll tell you that much!

The drive to our destination - Hope Healing Home, was full of excitement and amazement as we tried to take in all of our surroundings. It is a whole new world over there. When we arrived, these sweet little boys were looking through the window, anxious to meet us!

We had a quick tour and introduction to the people who run Hope Foster Home, then we were able to spend some time with the kids. They absolutely LOVE camera's. If you had your camera with, you were instantly attacked. It was so cute though, they were so full of curiosity.

This is Julie showing this sweet little boy Timmy a picture she took.

Here is Stephanie and Elizabeth with a sweet little baby girl.

This little boy - Joshua, was such a ham! He had the biggest smile ever, and these big chubby cheeks to show it off on. He was such a funny little guy.

This boy quickly became one of my buddies. He was such a fun little guy, eager to play and show you things.

This picture cracks me up! Joshua was looking so intently at the camera. I love his crossed legs!