We left Portland on September 15th and traveled over 24 hours to Los Angeles, then to Anchorage, then to Shanghai, then finally to Beijing on September 16th.  Here are some pictures of Vicki waiting between flights and of our hotel in Beijing. 

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Here are some pictures around Beijing:

 
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While we had our 2 day stay in Beijing, we visited both the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China.

Here are pictures of the Forbidden City:

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More pictures of the Forbidden City:

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Some more pictures of the Forbidden City, also a picture of some of the American families we went on tours with:

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Pictures of the Great Wall of China:

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More pictures of the Great Wall and no, we didn't climb the wall (still getting over the long flight and didn't want to take any chances the day before getting Nicholas!):

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We left Beijing for Chengdu, the birthplace of Nicholas.  Here are some pictures when we arrived in our hotel in which we waited for the orphanage to bring Nicholas.  Finally, a couple of hours later, Nicholas arrives!

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Between some paperwork in processing Nicholas' adoption papers and passport, we went to one of the temples in Chengdu. The first picture is that of Vicki and Nicholas and the other 2 Portland families that we traveled with.  The second picture is that of our Chendgu guide (Bacon, yep that's his name!) and our guide throughout the China trip (Maria).  

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  We also visited a local park that had lots of bamboo.  Nicholas got a chance to visit with another Chinese baby (3rd picture).

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More pictures of the bamboo park, the last picture is what they call a paddleboat I guess! 

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The last tour in Chengdu was to the local zoo, in which there were Pandas (the last 2 pictures were that of a Red Panda, kind of looked like a cross between a fox and a racoon!)

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Our last stop in China was Guangzhou and we stayed at the White Swan hotel which was VERY nice!  Here we finished the paperwork at the US Consulate with Nicholas' visa and enjoyed some shopping in between.  The 3rd picture is a group of American families at the Hard Rock Cafe in Guangzhou.  It was nice to get a taste of America by this time!  We left Guangzhou on September 26th and it took about 16 hours to get back to Portland after a layover in Los Angeles.  Nicholas did pretty well on the trip but we were all glad to come home.  Take a look at the first pictures home!