Hello from China!

We all made it here safely, thank God! Sorry I was not able to post last night, it was a long and crazy day. The traveling wasn't as bad as I had anticipated... including our flight from Seattle to Beijing, which I think they were able to scale back to only 10 hours! I couldn't help but sleep on the flight, even though I wanted to stay up so once I got to the hotel I'd be nice and tired. But luckily by the time we got through customs, met our guide, got our luggage, got to the hotel, and checked in, it was 1 am, and we all were exhausted. We were told that our flight for Chenzhou left from Beijing at 8:30 the next day, and we had a wake-up call for 5 am! So we quickly got ready and went to bed, and we slept just great:)
Today we woke up and got ready, met everyone in the lobby and we headed to the airport. We had a nice 3 hour flight to Changsha with lots of turbulence, and then hopped onto our bus that would take us to Chenzhou. It ended up being about a 4 1/2 hour bus drive... consisting of lots of pictures, hairdos from Hannah (Bliss's 5 yr. old who is actually from Chenzhou), and music to pass the time. About halfway through the drive we stopped to get some food and stretch our legs. We had one of our first encounters with the squatty potties, and it was really funny to see everyone's reactions from having to use them. Charlie stated that if she could do that, she could do anything. haha. We stopped and ate at a small restaurant where everyone wanted their picture with us. It was like we were famous or something. I remember that from me previous trips, but I don't remember it quite that crazy. haha. But it was really funny, and everyone got a kick out of it. We had some sort of beef and ginger noodle soup. It wasn't as bad as I had anticipated, but we found out that noodles are hard to eat with chopsticks. But alas, we finished it and were on our way. The drive here was actually really pretty. The Hunnan province is very hilly and green. We saw lots of rice patties too. The scenery was just beautiful. Once we got into the city it was crazy to ride around and see how insane it is to drive here. I guess I forgot just how insane that is too. There are no lights, no signals, no lines (and when there are, they are never followed... we saw lots of crossing into oncoming traffic), people leisurely crossing the streets, bikes almost being run over, and lots and LOTS of horns blowing. I'm sitting in my hotel room now, and that's all I hear!
It's pretty hot here. I'm assuming it's in the upper 80's, low 90's. Hopefully we won't be too hot tomorrow at the orphanage, and hopefully it will have AC. Thankfully we have it in our hotel room:)
Blogger is actually blocked from where I am, so my mom will be posting this... but I hope to be able to post the next few days. We'll just see how it all works out. Pictures will come also! I'm on the hotel computer, so there is no way to upload pictures yet... I'm still working on getting my computer hooked up.
Anyways, that's all I can say for now... it's time to go to dinner! Wish us all luck;) haha. Until next time...