Hi from Chongqing!

We are Here!! And today is the day!!! How could we sleep anyway?

Sorry about the delay in posting, just got the internet figured out.

Hoping to get the adapter/converter (called a transformer by our hotel staff) figured out.

It is 6:20 or so here and we woke up, actually Alex woke up, at around 5:00 am. And once awake we couldn't seem to go back to sleep. :( Of course this is an improvement from last night's sleep, Alex woke up twice, the first time he went back to sleep and the second at around 3:00 we were just up.

The flights here were interesting! The first flight from Newark to Nashville was on a smaller than I like plane. Mostly everyone on it was surprised as there was hardly anywhere to put your bags the overhead compartments were very limited. The descent was really hard on Alex, I tried gum and drinking but he was not really having it. He gave me back the gum as though it made it worse.
He continued to flick his ear and I suspect an ear infection. :( Since he already has runny nose and cough.

The big plane ride was great. It wasn't as bad as I thought. I really like the bigger planes a lot better. We didn't do as much sleeping as we would all have liked, Alex was awesome and fell asleep for about 2 - 3 hours.

Thank you all so much for praying for our safe journey!! We couldn't have asked for better.

Beijing was great - the Rosedale Hotel was very nice! I hope to post pictures soon. It was beautifully decorated for Christmas and everyone there was so nice.

We saw the newer terminal 3 that was just built in Beijing and that was really nice and new. The weight on domestic flights - somehow I missed this is a total of all bags. You are allowed 20 kilos per person - so ours for 3 people was well under weight.

When we got to Chongqing (that flight was 2hours 15 minutes was uneventful!) Michael was there waiting for us and has been great! Chongqing is a beautiful city and looking out of our 28th story hotel window looks a lot like staying in Times Square. They do turn off all the lights at some point - not that I was up to see when. The lights on some of the buildings change colors too. It is a really fascinating city - there is a green interspersed in the city still -that was surprising. Hoping to be able to upload pictures to show you soon.

We went to the grocery store which was truly an experience. I remember reading on someone's blog about how there are so many people that work at the grocery stores and are there to help you. They are literally at the end of every aisle if not more.
Customer service is big here!! We ate dinner after we took a nap. (I think passed out was more like it, at least for Al & I!!)
We ate here in the hotel at a Japanese restaraunt - the food was great.

Going to get ready for the BIG day!!

Joy :)