We Made It

We made it safe and sound - it sure was a very, very long flight and we have been up for over 24 hours and are zombies. We met Yulin (director of the Agency) and she spoke to the group about what is going to happen on Monday - We have to be packed and in the lobby for 5:30am! She says it won't matter that it's so early because we will still be getting over the jet lag. They seem to be very good at herding the foreigners around - they met us at the airport no problem and walked us straight to the bus that brought us directly to the hotel. Oh, on the plane they served us noodle soup with chopsticks - we asked for forks - it was very heavy on the noodles but thought we would give it a try with the chopsticks and we did pretty good. Then you just drink the broth. Once at the hotel they checked us all in then we had to run back down to the lobby for the meeting with Yulin - she has to leave tomorrow but there will be a guide and bus to take us to the airport on Monday. We didn't want to go out for dinner so we asked if they could direct us to a grocery store to pick up some drinks and snacks. They had one of the guides walk us down the street to the store - she took us right in and walked around with us until we got everything we needed - she even carried the basket for us - she said they charge for bags so we put a couple of things in my purse/diaper bag and she insisted on carrying the water bottles - she said we had a long trip and she wanted to help us - real cutie. Well I think we are going to have a quick bite of snacks - a shower and bed - the only thing we want to do tomorrow is change some US $ to local currency and the Bank of China is open on Sundays - that's handy. We will let you know how that goes.