Forbidden City & Great Wall 11/6/2004

November 6, 2004

It was pretty amazing to see all of the CHI families gathering in the hotel lobby. There were 42 families multiplied by two people, which equals 84 people. Many brought additional familiy members, so you get the idea that we are a big group.

We ran across a couple from NYC. AR had met the husband yesterday in the hotel gym. They exchanged pleasantries then, but neither was aware that they were each here for adoption. Small world, right? Even funnier, when he and his wife met me, they remembered me from the travel adoption meeting in NYC in September. "You were running around showing everyone your referral photo." Yep, that is me. Guilty as charged, hee hee.

We divided into two groups~ the Jiangxi Province (Us) and Guahdong Province and went on separate busses. We had already met our coordinator, Sabrina, who picked us up at the airport. She was going to travel with us for our whole adoption trip (except back to the U.S.). We were pleased because she was so nice.

We drove to Tiannamen Square first. Honestly, it wasn't much to look at. I guess I was expecting to see tanks or something, but it was really just an open area flanked by government buildings that we could not go into. Chairman Mao's body lay in state and thousands of Chinese people waited in line to see him to pay their respects. It would have been cool to do that, but it wasn't on our agenda.

There were a LOT of people in this area. Each guide held up a colored flag so that we would be able to find them by spotting the flag. It was tough to keep the whole group together.

The Forbidden City has a huge picture of Chairman Mao's face on it. Inside the city were the Emperor's palaces, so we walked from the South gate to the North gate. There was a strabucks in the middle of Forbidden City. It is true, capitalism has infiltrated China. I call the photo above, Forbidden Starbucks!

We stomped around the palaces and they all had doors that you had to step up and into. Not easy to traverse. We did quite a bit of walking and I wanted to conserve some energy for walking up the Great Wall, which was to be visited after lunch.

Lunch was dinner of roasted Peking duck for 80+ people. Apparently the place we went to was the place for duck. I let our guide Sabrina know that I was a vegetarian and she informed the waiters. I was provided with plenty of veggies. The broccoli was the best I ever ate in my life. It was crunchy and tender and bright green. We had several glasses of beer, which was probably a mistake because we were off to climb Great Wall.

Most of us were quiet or fell asleep during the hour drive to the Great Wall. It may have been the beer, the heavy lunch, the walking that was done all morning or jet lag, but we were all pretty pooped. Despite this we made our ascent.

The walk was difficult because the steps were uneven. One step would be a normal step and the next would be the equivalent to two steps, so you had to use your hands to grasp onto the steps or hang onto the wall as you climbed.

I made it to the third level and gave up. AR made it to the second level. Only three from our group went to the top. We did get some great photos. Coming down the stairs was harder than going up, if you can believe that!

We arrived at the hotel at 6 pm and had an orientation meeting from 7-8:30 pm. We had to pack our bags that we were checking tomorrow when we got back to the hotel. No rest for the weary because they were collecting it at 10 pm.

At the orientation meeting we received an update on our daughter. She has 8 teeth! Still we were told that she was not on solid foods and only formula. We were told that she was a deep sleeper. I sure hope that part is true!

We ate pizza at the hotel for dinner and waited for our luggage to be collected. We were in bed by 10 pm. This was our last night as a childless couple. Tomorrow we meet the babies!

Dinner in Beijing

November 5, 2004

One of our traveling companions was given the name of a restaurant that was supposed to have great food at low prices, so we all met at 6pm in the lobby to go. She had the address written in Chinese. We called two cabs to take the lot of us.

After our cab driver took off, we noticed that he smelled of alcohol. He may not have been drunk, but he surely must have been on a bender within the past 24 hours. Ar had the joy of sitting next to him in the front seat of the cab. The driver slapped his leg and it was all rather weird.

We had no idea how far away the restaurant was. We were driving and driving and then we were on the outskirts of town in a less than desirable place. We finally arrived at our destination and it was smack dab in the middle of a residential area. It had a bright neon sign that said, "Restaurant." The other cab had not arrived. It was cold so we went inside to wait.

The others showed up and we were seated at a large round table. The menu was adventurous~Rabbit, ell, shark fin, pungent sauces...I selected the tomato and egg soup and veggie dumplings. Everyone shared all of the food and it was delicious and plentiful.. We were all drinking Tsingtao beer. The bill for 7 of us was #321 yuan, which was about $40. That us what I call a real bargian.

We asked the restaurant to call us two taxis and they did. As soon as we exited the restuarant, they locked the doors. It was only 8 pm, but I gues sthey wanted to go home. No cabs showed up. We banged on the doors and finally someone came to see what the ruckus was about. We asked them to call for two cabs again and this time they arrived. The ride back to the hotel was uneventful, and we were pretty happy with that. Tomorrow we have the group tour so we will be heading to bed pretty early~9 pm.

Exploring Beijing

November 5, 2004

So much for taking it easy! We met up with two more adoptive familes. As a group of 9 adults and one five-year-old, we rented a bus and a driver from the hotel to take us to the Summer Palace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace . The bus only cost us $10 a person, so it was quite a bargain. I felt better about traveling in a group. Most of the other families would be arriving throughout the day. Today was technically a free day and tomorrow was a scheduled tour of the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China.

The Summer Palace was teeming with tourists, mostly Chinese. As soon as we got off the bus, we were greeted with "Hello guys." "Hello, want to buy postcards?" and they were in our faces. After we got past these people we were beset by people wanting to be our tour guide. We politely but firmly said no.

I had my first experience with a squat toilet also known as squatty potty. Basically it is a hole in the ground. You are supposed to straddle it, squat and go. Well, I kind of cheated as I was afraid I would pee on myself. I took one leg out of my pants and underwear, squatted and peed. As I squatted, my sunglasses fell off of my shirt neckline and flew under the door. I hear a chattering of laughter. When I came out an older woman was cleaning the floor. She was laughing and pointing to the glasses. I laughed too and picked them up.

We walked up thousands of stairs and then walked down a thousand stairs. Lots of walking here and it was nice to get back on the bus and go to the hotel. We all planned to meet for dinner later this evening.

Arriving in Beijing, China

November 4, 2004

When we landed in China, there was a lot of confusion. We met our friends from New Hampshire and collected our luggage. The airport is big and there were lots of people so we somehow lost each other. After clearing customs, we found them again and stood waiting for a representative from our adoption agency to meet us. While waiting I purchased several phone cards that we could use to phone home. We finally found Sabrina, our CHI representative. SHe took us to a van and it was a 40 minute ride to the hotel.

The Beijing Novotel Peace Hotel http://www.beijinghighlights.com/hotels/peacehotel/index.htm is a 5 star hotel. We checked in and our friends finagled it so that we were in the room next to them.. We stayed in room 1114 and they were in room 1117. We dropped our stuff in the room and all four of us went to dinner. We thought we would take it easy tomorrow and just hang around and shop near the stores by the hotel because November 6th was our big touring day of the Great Wall of China!