Well everyone, we're in China...

We departed from Philadelphia early this morning (depending on how you look at the time zones), connected through O'Hare, and are now in Beijing.  Customs and immigration took a while.  We have met up with part of our tour-group, and have done some minimal exporing around the hotel area.

The long-haul flight from O'Hare to Beijing took 13 hours in the air, more like a total of 14 counting all the boarding silliness.  That's a long damn time in a plane..  The first 6-8 hours weren't a big deal, but it was becoming a real problem at the end.  The crew was exceptionally friendly however, and a kindly passenger switched seats so that we could be together (we were slotted for different seating rows).

I have discovered a profound monetary difference over here. Exchange rate aside, the "value" is very slanted.  For example, I purchased four bottles of water and a bag of bizarre Chinese potato chips for the equivalent of $0.75 US ( 6 Yuan).  Imported items from the US are quite expensive though.

More to follow.  It's 8:55 PM here (early morning EST), and I've been up for about 30 hours.  Jessa has been up for about 50.