Our last day in Beijing...and now in Chongqing!!!

What an enlightening day... We began our day checking out of our hotel and then we were off to the Hutong Area, which is downtown area of beijing. We went on a rickshaw ride through the alley ways of Hutong. Many of these homes are owned by the government or are handed down generation to generation. They are very small and are in a rectangle with a courtyard in the middle but there are several "houses" in each rectangle (i hope that makes sense). We had the opportunity to visit a family. They had a dining room, bedroom and kitchen - maybe 500 sqft. They served us tea and answered questions that we had. They have 1 daughter at the University, which they were very proud of. We also visited a market, which was an experience - we took lots of pics. Before we visited this home we climbed up the Bell Tower and saw beautiful view of Beijing - the stairs were extremely steep and there were a lot of them...

We were supposed to go to the Silk Alley but we decided that we wanted to go to The Hard Rock Cafe instead - it was pretty good and we bought the typical T-Shirts:) We had just a little bit of time to kill so we visited a shopping mall. It was interesting to see the brands and how it was set up. There were about 10 floors and each floor had it's own department - this was our first relaxed shopping experience! We just strolled around and weren't worried about bargaining or someone asking us to buy something:):)

Finally - we were off to the airport! YIPPEE!!! I am so glad we had Mary!!! She helped us check in our luggage and was able to get our luggage on with out paying extra. Then it was off to the security check - very different than ours. We didn't have to "strip" down. They were more worried about our water - they made us open them and they smelled them looking for gasoline! We didn't have to take our computer out or anything... The plane ride was okay but very hot! The kicker was they (all the chinese passengers) were asking for BLANKETS!!! We were all waving our newspapers trying to fan us off and get cool:) Mary explained that the Chinese get cold very easily and most of them are in pants and long sleeves while we are in shorts etc... Anyway, we were relieved and excited to land!! Each step sinks in more that we are getting closer and closer to our daughter!! Frederick, our guide here in Chongqing, was ready and waiting for us (there were 3 families that flew together from Beijing) He swooped us up and took us to our hotel. He told us a little bit about Chongqing. It is 1 of the 3 largest cities/municipalities in China with 30 million people. It is also Hilly, Hot and Humid - 3 H's - and he's right. The weather is much more humid here, while we were in Beijing there was NO humidity:) This area is on the Yangzte River, so there is alot of water in the air. This area is also much more Westernized than Beijing - just around our hotel and down the street it looks like New York City:) We are going to explore down there more in a few minutes...

We are staying at the Marriott, which is the nicest 5 star hotel i have EVER been in! It is beautiful! We have adjoining rooms with mom and the boys (although Brayden has been insisting on sleeping with me everynight -so we'll see how the rest of our trip goes:))

Tonight is the Moon Festival, so the area is really hopping - more than usual, i guess. Frederick is supposed to stop by our room this evening to bring us moon cakes and our itinerary. It sounds like we don't get our little girl until 4pm on Monday:( We were thinking Sunday night or Monday morning - oh well... we are getting closer - we do have a crib in the room and we just got back from buying formula and rice cereal. :):)

I'm sorry about the pics - i am running out of space on flickr and i may have to get another photo program. Maybe tonight, i will have time to do that...

God Bless from Chongqing:):)

Ps. i realized that i haven't been changing the time on the blog - this is the real time we posted here:):)