We rolled into town Thursday pm after a long, loong flight from Hong Kong, 15.5 hours to be exact. Donna Haggerty met us at the airport, bless her and hung with me and the girls while Jamie retrieved the car from long term parking.
The flight was about what you would expect, 15 hours crammed into a tin can in tiny seats with two children and a variety of food stuff smeared or crumbled artistically about. Our travel agent's strategy (David Tam, Tam Travel in Chinatown) of booking seats A C D F payed off - we had two rows and could stretch out, at least the girls could - they both got nice naps on the plane. Jamie and I managed a few scattered minutes of snoozing.
A word of warning about the Hong Kong airport. After we had cleared inspection, I went and bought juice and water - and it was confiscated at the door of the airplane. You can take on a baby bottle so at least Lian had her nuby cup, but Lela was very thirsty.
Continental has a weird idea of child friendly meals. Their dinner was a spicy chicken patty with mashed potatoes, the snack a ham and tomato sandwich, served mouth scalding hot. Breakfast was closer to the mark with french toast. Luckily we were still toting 10 pounds of snacks, so they had cheese crackers and dried fruit as back up.
Off we flew into yesterday, backwards in time. We flew into the night over the Pacific, saw the mountains of Alaska bathed in the light of the still almost full moon and welcomed the sun somewhere over Canada. Then plunging down to New Jersey. We had to go through the new immigrant line with three other families that had adopted. Unlike our experience at JFK with Lela, they made an attempt to get us into quick lines and out smoothly. Baggage all showed up promptly and we shelled out the $3 for a cart to push it 500 feet - all through China, baggage carts are free. There was Donna waiting with a big welcome sign and camera, so we have an official photo of Lian becoming a citizen. The drive from NJ to LI was mercifully short, since it can be a 3+ hour epic depending on traffic. Lian wasn't crazy about the car seat but tolerated it.
They were both asleep when we pulled in to the driveway. I went in to calm down the dog and greet the cats since we'd been told Lian was afraid of animals. Sure enough, her first glimpse of them she screamed bloody murder. She seems less scared of the cats - who are totally uninterested in her, but the poor dog keeps trying to be friendly and getting locked in the kitchen for her efforts. It also seems better if one of us is holding her too. Hopefully this will pass quickly. It's going to be immersion shock therapy.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
More pictures !
Papa and girls eating !
Lian loving her medical exam !
Thank goodness for my Papa !
Lela enjoying time with our wonderful guide !
Dim sum anyone ?
We love to eat !
Spending time with Papa !
We love to eat !
Spending time with Papa !
Where to now Mommy ?
Sleeping beauties !
Isn't she adorable ?
Papa with Lian and Lela !
Decoration ?
Victory hotel lobby !
Night time fun with Papa !
More food with Papa !
Beautiful China !
THANK YOU !
We are blocked from our blog in China, so our good friend, Charlotte, is updating the blog for us. THANK YOU! We traveled with Charlotte when we adopted Lela. Her daughter, Raeghan, is only one day younger than Lela and they are SWI sisters.
Thanks for all your comments. We can read them via anonymouse.org, but can't reply.
Keep on commenting, we love to hear from you !!!!!
Thanks for all your comments. We can read them via anonymouse.org, but can't reply.
Keep on commenting, we love to hear from you !!!!!
9/22/07 ~ Careful what you wish for !
9/22/07 Careful what you wish for
Our first day in Guangzhou is Lian’s medical, paperwork and housekeeping. Everyone except me sleeps late. We have to bathe the girls as they are coated in a glue composed of everything they ate the previous day of travel. Downstairs, breakfast at the Victory is not the sensory overload of the Sofitel, but there is still plenty to select from. We rush back upstairs and assemble the paperwork and money we will need for the medical. This is not for Lian’s benefit – it is a modern day Ellis Island, to exclude the sick. We are a special needs group, so all our children have some major issue, though many are repaired. It isn’t Lian’s cleft we’re worried about, since we’re already approved for that, it’s her snotty nose and rattley chest. Our guide when we adopted Lela had drilled us that no matter if your child is dripping green slime, you say they are healthy.
As usual we are the last ones downstairs to join the group. There are 10 CHI families in town, half at the White Swan, half at the Victory – the cheapskates and second timers, we are both. Our guide, Connie, is wearing a charcoal chiffon baby doll dress with jeweled neckline today. I am wearing my last clean T-shirt and baggy shorts. We walk the block toward the medical clinic. But first we turn into a building to get the children’s US visa pictures. The photographer seems to be set up in an apartment hall way, as at one point a man with a bike loaded with leeks and other produce works his way through the crowd. We can’t get Lian to crack a smile.
Then on to the clinic. We crowd ourselves, strollers, crabby children and siblings in to an L shaped waiting closet. After an interminable 20 minutes or so, it is our turn. We know that drill. There are three stations. The medical is pretty cursory. First a physical exam, where the doctor looks into Lian’s mouth, eyes, nose. This is not received well, though she submits, and crying makes seeing her mouth easier. Taking off the shorts and diaper is accompanied by much wailing, but her backside full of Mongolian spots http://www.fwcc.org/mongolianspot.htm (Lian’s backside looks like this only more so) doesn’t phase a Chinese Dr. Then the weight and height, and on to the hearing test, which consists of seeing if she will turn to look at a squeaky toy.
Meanwhile, Lela is sitting quietly in the central area diligently working on her fairy sticker book and trying to pretend there are no doctors around. Connie sits and chats with her and a little girl about her age watches fascinated with the book. Between appointments, Lian decides to be the life of the party and commandeers a box of toys meant to occupy waiting children. She selects a Minnie Mouse doll that she uses to flirt with Jamie. She knows she’s being cute, as she will pause and look with a big grin to see if he is watching her.
On the way back to the hotel, I try and poke my nose into a shop but Lela has had it, and even the promise of princessy dresses fails to allure. She slumps whinely in the stroller. Lian is full of beans though, quickly spots a pile of rattles and attempts to drag them through the back of a shelf. We do a quick turn around in the hotel. We pile the mound of dirty laundry on the bed, do triage – we’ve only got 6 more days, then head out with about 40 pounds of laundry. First we hit the Beatrice friendship store, think 7-11 attached to a gift shop, for diapers, since we are down to the good US ones I am hoarding for the return flight. I had bought Huggies in Xi’an, my usual brand at home, but we had several leaks so back to the blue Pampers which I know from previous experience are fine. We stop at the first laundry we come to, Helen’s. They promise us a 35% discount, pick up at 1:30 tomorrow. We now have 30 minutes for lunch before meeting Connie for more paperwork, so we head to the deli at the White Swan. It faces onto the street and has a small cafe table seating areas outside. The menu is rapidly changing, about every 15 minutes brings a new selection, and we had imagined on our last trip that is was the leftover food coming out of the hotel restaurants. I get a German cold cut sandwich, which is a bun with a cold cuts wrapped around a pickle, cheese sandwich, apple pastry, and noodles with spinach. Lela has spotted the ice cream freezer right off the bat. Outside it is breezy and we battle to keep the flimsy paper plates from flying, but manage to eat. Lela gets her ice cream, strawberry. I try mango and Jamie has ginger. There is also a purplish taro flavor and champagne grape. Lian doesn't get one this time as she tends to wear her food, and we can still fool her, just make yucky faces when she points to the cups.
In the White Swan we take the elevator up to Connie’s room to do our last paperwork marathon. There is a strong sense of deja vu, not surprising, because we have done this before, but then we were the ones with a tiny baby in a stroller of sling. Last time Jamie did the paper work, but now he is the favored parent so I am stuck with it. He has to sign one paper then he and the girls are free to go. (Jamie reports that they went down to the WS playroom, which has very few toys in it now, where Lela found a compatriot and Lian rampaged. Then they strolled around a bit, paused briefly at the small playground – but no swings, Lela’s preference, so she only went down the slide a few times, back to the room and up to the roof top pool.) I am sitting on a bed with 9 other parents crammed into the room, about a 50/50 mix of boys and girls. We go through the remaining forms for the Consulate line by line. We get very punchy. Connie tells us we owe her a drink. It is almost 5 when we finish, but I have brought everything I needed and my forms and new bills get the Connie nod of approval. Even the US Consulate requires crisp new bills, I guess they don’t trust us. I wander back to the room through the familiar streets and muggy air. The room is empty. Where could they still be? Finally I realize that I am looking at their clothes and undies on the bed, and it’s unlikely they went out nude, AH HA the pool. I change and take the elevator to 9. The pool is on the roof top with a staggering view of the city. It’s breezy enough to feel cool. Jamie has Lela in a life preserver and is wearing Lian who is enjoying her first pool time, splashing and laughing (and I have not brought up the camera.) We have the roof to ourselves. After I have a few minutes in the pool, Lela announces she is freezing and clambers out. She wants to “esersize” and tugs at a door up a low platform.
Inside is a room full of exercise equipment that looks like it was picked up at garage sales. They even have a vibrating belt, which brings to mind rows of women in black leotards with cellulite and buttocks jiggling wildly. Lela and Lian are intrigued by the rowing machine, the one thing they can manage. The sun is setting into the haze, a glowing peach as we return to our room - which has quickly deteriorated. Lian has already stopped trying to tidy up, and is leaving her toys strewn about like the rest of the slobs she is now joined with. We stuff the girls into clothes, not a two minute process since they tend to sprint away after each article is applied, and go looking for food. Many of the restaurants we remember are closed and have become gift shops. We end up getting take out at the WS deli again. Back at the hotel we create a dining room with the two club chairs, desk chair and an end table. It’s messy meal but filling. Once you give Lian some food, it may not be removed or she wails, so we have learned to be careful with portion control.
Remember that we were concerned about her not talking? Well be careful what you wish for. She is chatting away, at top volume. We have no idea what she is saying, though it frequently features a loud “MA” which Jamie (who did take a Mandarin class) says can mean horse, mama or scolding depending on the tone. The tone sounds like scolding to me, and it’s blah, blah, blah all the time. The development report described her as a quiet gentle girl. HAH. Clearly the real Lian has just been waiting to come out. She is also trying out hitting and throwing things too, which we are trying to squelch. Jamie says “Boo How” (that’s phonetic spelling, not pinyan) meaning not good, and Lela quickly takes up the refrain, “Tell her boo how!”
Our first day in Guangzhou is Lian’s medical, paperwork and housekeeping. Everyone except me sleeps late. We have to bathe the girls as they are coated in a glue composed of everything they ate the previous day of travel. Downstairs, breakfast at the Victory is not the sensory overload of the Sofitel, but there is still plenty to select from. We rush back upstairs and assemble the paperwork and money we will need for the medical. This is not for Lian’s benefit – it is a modern day Ellis Island, to exclude the sick. We are a special needs group, so all our children have some major issue, though many are repaired. It isn’t Lian’s cleft we’re worried about, since we’re already approved for that, it’s her snotty nose and rattley chest. Our guide when we adopted Lela had drilled us that no matter if your child is dripping green slime, you say they are healthy.
As usual we are the last ones downstairs to join the group. There are 10 CHI families in town, half at the White Swan, half at the Victory – the cheapskates and second timers, we are both. Our guide, Connie, is wearing a charcoal chiffon baby doll dress with jeweled neckline today. I am wearing my last clean T-shirt and baggy shorts. We walk the block toward the medical clinic. But first we turn into a building to get the children’s US visa pictures. The photographer seems to be set up in an apartment hall way, as at one point a man with a bike loaded with leeks and other produce works his way through the crowd. We can’t get Lian to crack a smile.
Then on to the clinic. We crowd ourselves, strollers, crabby children and siblings in to an L shaped waiting closet. After an interminable 20 minutes or so, it is our turn. We know that drill. There are three stations. The medical is pretty cursory. First a physical exam, where the doctor looks into Lian’s mouth, eyes, nose. This is not received well, though she submits, and crying makes seeing her mouth easier. Taking off the shorts and diaper is accompanied by much wailing, but her backside full of Mongolian spots http://www.fwcc.org/mongolianspot.htm (Lian’s backside looks like this only more so) doesn’t phase a Chinese Dr. Then the weight and height, and on to the hearing test, which consists of seeing if she will turn to look at a squeaky toy.
Meanwhile, Lela is sitting quietly in the central area diligently working on her fairy sticker book and trying to pretend there are no doctors around. Connie sits and chats with her and a little girl about her age watches fascinated with the book. Between appointments, Lian decides to be the life of the party and commandeers a box of toys meant to occupy waiting children. She selects a Minnie Mouse doll that she uses to flirt with Jamie. She knows she’s being cute, as she will pause and look with a big grin to see if he is watching her.
On the way back to the hotel, I try and poke my nose into a shop but Lela has had it, and even the promise of princessy dresses fails to allure. She slumps whinely in the stroller. Lian is full of beans though, quickly spots a pile of rattles and attempts to drag them through the back of a shelf. We do a quick turn around in the hotel. We pile the mound of dirty laundry on the bed, do triage – we’ve only got 6 more days, then head out with about 40 pounds of laundry. First we hit the Beatrice friendship store, think 7-11 attached to a gift shop, for diapers, since we are down to the good US ones I am hoarding for the return flight. I had bought Huggies in Xi’an, my usual brand at home, but we had several leaks so back to the blue Pampers which I know from previous experience are fine. We stop at the first laundry we come to, Helen’s. They promise us a 35% discount, pick up at 1:30 tomorrow. We now have 30 minutes for lunch before meeting Connie for more paperwork, so we head to the deli at the White Swan. It faces onto the street and has a small cafe table seating areas outside. The menu is rapidly changing, about every 15 minutes brings a new selection, and we had imagined on our last trip that is was the leftover food coming out of the hotel restaurants. I get a German cold cut sandwich, which is a bun with a cold cuts wrapped around a pickle, cheese sandwich, apple pastry, and noodles with spinach. Lela has spotted the ice cream freezer right off the bat. Outside it is breezy and we battle to keep the flimsy paper plates from flying, but manage to eat. Lela gets her ice cream, strawberry. I try mango and Jamie has ginger. There is also a purplish taro flavor and champagne grape. Lian doesn't get one this time as she tends to wear her food, and we can still fool her, just make yucky faces when she points to the cups.
In the White Swan we take the elevator up to Connie’s room to do our last paperwork marathon. There is a strong sense of deja vu, not surprising, because we have done this before, but then we were the ones with a tiny baby in a stroller of sling. Last time Jamie did the paper work, but now he is the favored parent so I am stuck with it. He has to sign one paper then he and the girls are free to go. (Jamie reports that they went down to the WS playroom, which has very few toys in it now, where Lela found a compatriot and Lian rampaged. Then they strolled around a bit, paused briefly at the small playground – but no swings, Lela’s preference, so she only went down the slide a few times, back to the room and up to the roof top pool.) I am sitting on a bed with 9 other parents crammed into the room, about a 50/50 mix of boys and girls. We go through the remaining forms for the Consulate line by line. We get very punchy. Connie tells us we owe her a drink. It is almost 5 when we finish, but I have brought everything I needed and my forms and new bills get the Connie nod of approval. Even the US Consulate requires crisp new bills, I guess they don’t trust us. I wander back to the room through the familiar streets and muggy air. The room is empty. Where could they still be? Finally I realize that I am looking at their clothes and undies on the bed, and it’s unlikely they went out nude, AH HA the pool. I change and take the elevator to 9. The pool is on the roof top with a staggering view of the city. It’s breezy enough to feel cool. Jamie has Lela in a life preserver and is wearing Lian who is enjoying her first pool time, splashing and laughing (and I have not brought up the camera.) We have the roof to ourselves. After I have a few minutes in the pool, Lela announces she is freezing and clambers out. She wants to “esersize” and tugs at a door up a low platform.
Inside is a room full of exercise equipment that looks like it was picked up at garage sales. They even have a vibrating belt, which brings to mind rows of women in black leotards with cellulite and buttocks jiggling wildly. Lela and Lian are intrigued by the rowing machine, the one thing they can manage. The sun is setting into the haze, a glowing peach as we return to our room - which has quickly deteriorated. Lian has already stopped trying to tidy up, and is leaving her toys strewn about like the rest of the slobs she is now joined with. We stuff the girls into clothes, not a two minute process since they tend to sprint away after each article is applied, and go looking for food. Many of the restaurants we remember are closed and have become gift shops. We end up getting take out at the WS deli again. Back at the hotel we create a dining room with the two club chairs, desk chair and an end table. It’s messy meal but filling. Once you give Lian some food, it may not be removed or she wails, so we have learned to be careful with portion control.
Remember that we were concerned about her not talking? Well be careful what you wish for. She is chatting away, at top volume. We have no idea what she is saying, though it frequently features a loud “MA” which Jamie (who did take a Mandarin class) says can mean horse, mama or scolding depending on the tone. The tone sounds like scolding to me, and it’s blah, blah, blah all the time. The development report described her as a quiet gentle girl. HAH. Clearly the real Lian has just been waiting to come out. She is also trying out hitting and throwing things too, which we are trying to squelch. Jamie says “Boo How” (that’s phonetic spelling, not pinyan) meaning not good, and Lela quickly takes up the refrain, “Tell her boo how!”
Last leg ~ 9/21/07
9/21/07 Last Leg
We are going to Guangzhou tonight. Check out is noon. Jamie thinks it will be easy, I think it will take most of the morning – guess who is right. We are now faced with internal travel weight limits, 44 lbs per checked bag, vs. the 50 lbs we were darn close to on our international flight. But we have shed some donations to the orphanage and by making our red carry-on weigh 35 pounds, we manage. It is now 11, enough time for a quick stroll but not much else. We go to the small park behind the hotel and break out the bubbles. Lela has a good time, but Lian doesn’t seem to get it. We also spot a new bird, a flicker/thrasher type with a long curved beak and equally long crest, giving a hammer-head appearance. (We are active with Audubon, but birding on an adoption trip is dicey at best. Still, it’s a life bird, whatever it is – we’ll look it up at home.)
Back to the room, consigning our pile of luggage to the bell hop and down to check out. I cash the last travelers check knowing it would be a multi-hour process in Guangzhou. The three families have decided we’ll do a late lunch by the Bell Tower, hoping we can find the recommended dim sum restaurant. First the Littles need a stroller so it’s back to the supermarket in a series of cabs. They have some kind of misadventure with the bill, but Sherry finally goes up and gets it straightened out. We walk to the restaurant, but now most of the children are seated at least. It is a huge multi floor establishment. We are seated at a large round table with the ubiquitous lazy susan. Plates of sautйed vegetables, spicy lamb skewers, curry, and crisp cucumber slices twirl around. We have a meat eater, Lian demands a spicy lamb skewer (via emphatic pointing) and gnaws on it through out lunch. Steamer after steamer of dumplings arrive. The chicken and duck are formed to look like birds. There are the usual pork, vegetable and shrimp, and unusual; walnut and one that tastes just like peanut butter and honey. The waitresses keep shuffling the dumplings into one steamer as new plates arrive, making keeping track of the contents like following a shell game. The finale is soup with miniature dumplings, cooked on a flaming burner at the table, though none of us can eat anything more. The waitress dishes it out and tells us that the number of dumplings in your bowl reflects what kind of luck you are going to have. I get one. We leave the table a shambles and head out for the plaza, intending to explore the Muslim Quarter. Lela and Will, the Littles 5-year-old have now hit it off. They jointly clamor for kites and water pets, a squishy ball that flattens out and resumes shape when tossed on a smooth surface. They are tossed on the sidewalk and quickly develop leaks. Sherry gets a phone call and looks panicked. She needs to go to pick up our children’s passports – but they want to see our paperwork, which is in the checked luggage. We end up all rushing back to the hotel, where we take over the lobby. Lela and Will invent games, discuss scary movies, and terrorize the staff. The bus arrives at 4:30 and is piled high with our luggage. Sherry arrives with the passports – the paperwork request was nothing, just because Lian is not from Xi’an. We all pile in and off to the airport. Once we clear the city the highway is open and we get there in under an hour. Sherry masterminds our check in and it goes smoothly – and we’ve managed our weight limit. But our strollers are checked here. In the next line a very loud altercation is going on. Security runs our carry on twice due to a mysterious round object, and we are off to the gate.
We prove to be a traveling side show, with 6 adults, blond teen and 5-year-old boys, 2 Chinese boys, and 2 Chinese girls. People are standing in their seats to look at us, clearly working hard to assign children to parents. We visit the airport gift and snack shop – you can buy same sets of the Terra –cotta warriors sets for 30 and 40 RMB, so wait until you’re past the check in. Mn’M’s for Lela and a much needed Coke for Moi. Jack finds chocolate Terra-cotta warriors. A huge mob is waiting by the gate, clearly they don’t check in by rows – but we do have assigned seats at least. 7:30 comes and goes. Finally at 8 we board, shoving our way through the crowd. They take away our suitcase carry-ons, leaving us backpacks and purses. Oh well. I am in a row of three between Lela and Lian. Jamie, lucky SOB, is across the aisle. We lift off only an hour late – our 9:20 arrival is now 10 something. As we lift off we can make out the rectangle of the city wall, lit up at night. For a short flight they serve a full dinner, noodles and veg. with chicken, which I have to pick our for Lela, rounded out with pickled tomatoes? roll, sponge cake, and cherry tomatoes. Lian as usual, eats with gusto. Trying to manage three trays and demands on both side means I don’t eat much. Lian is playing with her bag of toys, but unhappy that the tiny fan has quit working. Lift off doesn’t bother her, but she starts to cry on decent. Luckily Michelle one row ahead has ear numbing drops, which work fast. Lela falls asleep ten minutes before arrival as is her custom. We are all the last off the plane. Lela announces she has to go, and facing a quarter mile of walk ways with no WC signs visible, I take her behind a kiosk. Someone will have to mop it up. We claim our many bags and wheel out.
No one appears to be waiting until a very stylish woman approaches. It is Connie our new guide. Clutching a sign is clearly beneath her. She has been described as a high-heeled woman and even so I am not prepared for her splendor. Correct garb for picking up grubby adopters at the airport at night is full make up, subtly highlighted curls, flowing white pants and jeweled top, with strappy heels. She effortlessly snags a family that came in on another flight and shepherds us to the bus. On board we get a quick run down of the week’s line up, and speed into Guangzhou. The Victory is the first stop, so we and the Littles extract ourselves, get checked in and head up. Our room it a T shape and has two slightly bigger than twin bed, a roll away cot and crib, leaving not a lot of floor space. Jutting off the bedroom is a small room with desk and chairs. By the time we are settled snug in our beds (which are soft, unlike the White Swan which for a luxury hotel has beds like rocks) it is midnight.
We are going to Guangzhou tonight. Check out is noon. Jamie thinks it will be easy, I think it will take most of the morning – guess who is right. We are now faced with internal travel weight limits, 44 lbs per checked bag, vs. the 50 lbs we were darn close to on our international flight. But we have shed some donations to the orphanage and by making our red carry-on weigh 35 pounds, we manage. It is now 11, enough time for a quick stroll but not much else. We go to the small park behind the hotel and break out the bubbles. Lela has a good time, but Lian doesn’t seem to get it. We also spot a new bird, a flicker/thrasher type with a long curved beak and equally long crest, giving a hammer-head appearance. (We are active with Audubon, but birding on an adoption trip is dicey at best. Still, it’s a life bird, whatever it is – we’ll look it up at home.)
Back to the room, consigning our pile of luggage to the bell hop and down to check out. I cash the last travelers check knowing it would be a multi-hour process in Guangzhou. The three families have decided we’ll do a late lunch by the Bell Tower, hoping we can find the recommended dim sum restaurant. First the Littles need a stroller so it’s back to the supermarket in a series of cabs. They have some kind of misadventure with the bill, but Sherry finally goes up and gets it straightened out. We walk to the restaurant, but now most of the children are seated at least. It is a huge multi floor establishment. We are seated at a large round table with the ubiquitous lazy susan. Plates of sautйed vegetables, spicy lamb skewers, curry, and crisp cucumber slices twirl around. We have a meat eater, Lian demands a spicy lamb skewer (via emphatic pointing) and gnaws on it through out lunch. Steamer after steamer of dumplings arrive. The chicken and duck are formed to look like birds. There are the usual pork, vegetable and shrimp, and unusual; walnut and one that tastes just like peanut butter and honey. The waitresses keep shuffling the dumplings into one steamer as new plates arrive, making keeping track of the contents like following a shell game. The finale is soup with miniature dumplings, cooked on a flaming burner at the table, though none of us can eat anything more. The waitress dishes it out and tells us that the number of dumplings in your bowl reflects what kind of luck you are going to have. I get one. We leave the table a shambles and head out for the plaza, intending to explore the Muslim Quarter. Lela and Will, the Littles 5-year-old have now hit it off. They jointly clamor for kites and water pets, a squishy ball that flattens out and resumes shape when tossed on a smooth surface. They are tossed on the sidewalk and quickly develop leaks. Sherry gets a phone call and looks panicked. She needs to go to pick up our children’s passports – but they want to see our paperwork, which is in the checked luggage. We end up all rushing back to the hotel, where we take over the lobby. Lela and Will invent games, discuss scary movies, and terrorize the staff. The bus arrives at 4:30 and is piled high with our luggage. Sherry arrives with the passports – the paperwork request was nothing, just because Lian is not from Xi’an. We all pile in and off to the airport. Once we clear the city the highway is open and we get there in under an hour. Sherry masterminds our check in and it goes smoothly – and we’ve managed our weight limit. But our strollers are checked here. In the next line a very loud altercation is going on. Security runs our carry on twice due to a mysterious round object, and we are off to the gate.
We prove to be a traveling side show, with 6 adults, blond teen and 5-year-old boys, 2 Chinese boys, and 2 Chinese girls. People are standing in their seats to look at us, clearly working hard to assign children to parents. We visit the airport gift and snack shop – you can buy same sets of the Terra –cotta warriors sets for 30 and 40 RMB, so wait until you’re past the check in. Mn’M’s for Lela and a much needed Coke for Moi. Jack finds chocolate Terra-cotta warriors. A huge mob is waiting by the gate, clearly they don’t check in by rows – but we do have assigned seats at least. 7:30 comes and goes. Finally at 8 we board, shoving our way through the crowd. They take away our suitcase carry-ons, leaving us backpacks and purses. Oh well. I am in a row of three between Lela and Lian. Jamie, lucky SOB, is across the aisle. We lift off only an hour late – our 9:20 arrival is now 10 something. As we lift off we can make out the rectangle of the city wall, lit up at night. For a short flight they serve a full dinner, noodles and veg. with chicken, which I have to pick our for Lela, rounded out with pickled tomatoes? roll, sponge cake, and cherry tomatoes. Lian as usual, eats with gusto. Trying to manage three trays and demands on both side means I don’t eat much. Lian is playing with her bag of toys, but unhappy that the tiny fan has quit working. Lift off doesn’t bother her, but she starts to cry on decent. Luckily Michelle one row ahead has ear numbing drops, which work fast. Lela falls asleep ten minutes before arrival as is her custom. We are all the last off the plane. Lela announces she has to go, and facing a quarter mile of walk ways with no WC signs visible, I take her behind a kiosk. Someone will have to mop it up. We claim our many bags and wheel out.
No one appears to be waiting until a very stylish woman approaches. It is Connie our new guide. Clutching a sign is clearly beneath her. She has been described as a high-heeled woman and even so I am not prepared for her splendor. Correct garb for picking up grubby adopters at the airport at night is full make up, subtly highlighted curls, flowing white pants and jeweled top, with strappy heels. She effortlessly snags a family that came in on another flight and shepherds us to the bus. On board we get a quick run down of the week’s line up, and speed into Guangzhou. The Victory is the first stop, so we and the Littles extract ourselves, get checked in and head up. Our room it a T shape and has two slightly bigger than twin bed, a roll away cot and crib, leaving not a lot of floor space. Jutting off the bedroom is a small room with desk and chairs. By the time we are settled snug in our beds (which are soft, unlike the White Swan which for a luxury hotel has beds like rocks) it is midnight.
On our own 9/20/07
9/20/07 On our own
Today Sherry is taking the other families to tour their SWI about an hour away. We could go, but we have really pushed the girls, so we think a quieter day is in order. We decide to see the city wall on our own. We get a cab to the South wall, which Sherry has told us is the nicest section, no problem. Looking up at the imposing walls, we realize we neglected to ask how you get up on top. We walk through the gate and wander the park between the wall and surrounding canal. No stairs in sight. We do attract a group of ladies, who are fascinated with the girls, but no speaka da English. I begin to understand the plight of foreign tourists in the US. We back track and manage through gestures to ask and have conveyed that we somehow have to make our way across 4 lanes of speeding traffic to the base of the gate tower. We see a large group of tourists crossing and meet them half way to use as blockers. A group of Chinese pedestrians decide to use our kids as blockers so we pass in a large mob, effectively slowing traffic close to a stop.
This is the right place. We can buy 20 or 40 Yuan tickets. We opt for the 40’s though we have no idea what perks this offers, it’s all in Chinese.
The wall is one of the few intact left in China. It forms a 9-mile rectangle, built of rammed earth, quick lime and glutinous rice, which must be stickier than I thought, rising 39 feet high and 59 feet thick. We enter through a tunnel into an inner courtyard, and climb the step to the top, dragging the stroller behind. The view is amazing, with the skyscrapers of modern Xi’an surrounding the broad skywalk of the wall and its frequent guard towers. You can rent a bike to tour the wall or ride a jitney. We sit in the shade of the south gate tower and eat lunch. It now houses, surprise, a gift shop. Jamie and I take turns circling the area to look around. I go to the second floor of the guard tower. Looking down I hear loud wails. Jamie has told Lela no sucker if she doesn’t eat her sandwich. As I return I hear more loud wails. Now he has tried to pry a bag of trail mix out of Lian’s hands. We decide to walk down to the next guard tower. The jitney service is there, but we fail to negotiate a price that doesn’t feel like highway robbery (they want 80 RMB for a one way trip to the East gate and our cab to the wall only cost 8 RMB) and pack it in. Grabbing a cab back is easy. Lian gets her nap and Lela gets pool time.
Jamie has found a side street near the hotel with many restaurants, so we decide to try that. There are several restaurants, but one is packed, clearly the place to be. We enter and are seated, and presented with a menu. No pictures, no translation. OK. They assign us the head waitress, who is trying hard but doesn’t speak English. I finally tow her around the restaurant pointing at plates. We manage to convey with the help of arm waving and our restaurant cheat sheet that we want, but she finally cuts of off indicating that is enough food.
What arrives is delicious – a plate of huge broiled shrimp, vegetable dumplings (2 plates, since I must have pointed twice), a salad of crisp julienned vegetable, celery? in a wine vinegar dressing, noodles with a dark sauce – might be beans, and a very spicy but fabulous eggplant dish. We acquire a box of strawberry nectar for the girls and beer and tea for us. Lian shovels in everything but the eggplant, wielding her chopsticks with a strange at the end grip that seems to work for her. Lela eats shrimp and noodles, and even ventures a dumpling. My hands are orange from peeling shrimp. Lela starts to fade and goes to sit slumped in the stroller. The bill is a staggering 140 RMB, a little less than $20 bucks. Best meal in China so far.
Today Sherry is taking the other families to tour their SWI about an hour away. We could go, but we have really pushed the girls, so we think a quieter day is in order. We decide to see the city wall on our own. We get a cab to the South wall, which Sherry has told us is the nicest section, no problem. Looking up at the imposing walls, we realize we neglected to ask how you get up on top. We walk through the gate and wander the park between the wall and surrounding canal. No stairs in sight. We do attract a group of ladies, who are fascinated with the girls, but no speaka da English. I begin to understand the plight of foreign tourists in the US. We back track and manage through gestures to ask and have conveyed that we somehow have to make our way across 4 lanes of speeding traffic to the base of the gate tower. We see a large group of tourists crossing and meet them half way to use as blockers. A group of Chinese pedestrians decide to use our kids as blockers so we pass in a large mob, effectively slowing traffic close to a stop.
This is the right place. We can buy 20 or 40 Yuan tickets. We opt for the 40’s though we have no idea what perks this offers, it’s all in Chinese.
The wall is one of the few intact left in China. It forms a 9-mile rectangle, built of rammed earth, quick lime and glutinous rice, which must be stickier than I thought, rising 39 feet high and 59 feet thick. We enter through a tunnel into an inner courtyard, and climb the step to the top, dragging the stroller behind. The view is amazing, with the skyscrapers of modern Xi’an surrounding the broad skywalk of the wall and its frequent guard towers. You can rent a bike to tour the wall or ride a jitney. We sit in the shade of the south gate tower and eat lunch. It now houses, surprise, a gift shop. Jamie and I take turns circling the area to look around. I go to the second floor of the guard tower. Looking down I hear loud wails. Jamie has told Lela no sucker if she doesn’t eat her sandwich. As I return I hear more loud wails. Now he has tried to pry a bag of trail mix out of Lian’s hands. We decide to walk down to the next guard tower. The jitney service is there, but we fail to negotiate a price that doesn’t feel like highway robbery (they want 80 RMB for a one way trip to the East gate and our cab to the wall only cost 8 RMB) and pack it in. Grabbing a cab back is easy. Lian gets her nap and Lela gets pool time.
Jamie has found a side street near the hotel with many restaurants, so we decide to try that. There are several restaurants, but one is packed, clearly the place to be. We enter and are seated, and presented with a menu. No pictures, no translation. OK. They assign us the head waitress, who is trying hard but doesn’t speak English. I finally tow her around the restaurant pointing at plates. We manage to convey with the help of arm waving and our restaurant cheat sheet that we want, but she finally cuts of off indicating that is enough food.
What arrives is delicious – a plate of huge broiled shrimp, vegetable dumplings (2 plates, since I must have pointed twice), a salad of crisp julienned vegetable, celery? in a wine vinegar dressing, noodles with a dark sauce – might be beans, and a very spicy but fabulous eggplant dish. We acquire a box of strawberry nectar for the girls and beer and tea for us. Lian shovels in everything but the eggplant, wielding her chopsticks with a strange at the end grip that seems to work for her. Lela eats shrimp and noodles, and even ventures a dumpling. My hands are orange from peeling shrimp. Lela starts to fade and goes to sit slumped in the stroller. The bill is a staggering 140 RMB, a little less than $20 bucks. Best meal in China so far.
Speed Touring Xi'an
Since we’re already in Guangzhou, I am waaay behind in my travel diarrhea, not to mention details are beginning to grow dim as this is now several days ago, so we whiz quickly through the highlights of Xi’an, or as quickly as I can force myself to edit.
9/19/07 Speed Touring Xi’an - Great Mosque & Muslim Quarter, Bell & Drum Towers, and Great Goose Pagoda.
First order of the day is a paperwork session. Rich, Howie and I hustle after Sherry to a another “close by” building, the notary office. Here we check the official adoption documents before they are finalized. Good thing we do. I find a lot of typos, though if it were me writing documents in Chinese it would probably be worse. I have been turned into “Ennifer” at one spot, Lian has become Lana Rasmusen, the last child to be adopted, and left lingering at the police station after she was found from April 1 to the 11th. Sherry reviews every comma and makes sure it is all correct. Then we head back to the hotel. She will return to pick us up at 11:30.
It is only the Pines touring today, the other families not being such gluttons for punishment. The driver drops us off “near” our destination. The Great Mosque is reached by winding through the narrow souvenir packed alleys of the Muslim Quarter. Since every stall has approximately the same tourist goods, it gets a little numbing and we zip through (besides our luggage is probably overweight for our flight to Guangzhou already, we can’t really afford to buy much.) Thank God that Sherry knows where she is going, since there are no directive signs I can make out.
The Mosque and Muslim quarter are remnants from the days when Xi’an was the beginning of the Silk Road to the Middle East. That two way traffic brought Muslims to China. Sherry told us the actual Muslim population is probably less than 100, but they receive special tax exemptions from the government. Seems to be a little resentment there. Then a sudden transition to open sky and a long series of courtyard leading to a still active prayer room. Men wearing white caps and traditional long dark jackets lounge and smoke near the purification rooms. Then we plunge back through more alleys and out into a fruit market and open air. A huge structure confronts us, the Drum Tower. You can go up, but apparently we’re not going to, so we look and begin a long hike to the Bell Tower now located at the other end of a long shopping plaza, and surrounded by a four lane traffic circle. Vendors are hawking long kites, strings of 20 or more tiny kites, and have them sailing above the plaza and two Towers. We have to reach it through the subway underpass (more steps) since the traffic would be sure death. Here we do climb. You can ring the huge bronze bell on the first level – for 10 yuan. When we get to the top, which besides a commanding four way view of modern Xi’an, houses a beautiful collection of pottery and calligraphy, Lela announces she has to go. We rush back down only to find the nearest WC is back in the subway, so I herd her into a corner and whip on a pair of pullups, there being no place to allow her to go ala Chinese child style, IE slinging her rear end over a curb or some greenery, which we have had to do a few times. Hey, when you’re in China.....and a lot better than a child with dripping undies sitting on your lap.
Sherry announces time for lunch. As we drive to a restaurant Lian falls asleep. I carefully carry her in and waitresses scurry to make a bed out of pushed together chairs, so of course she wakes up the moment I put her down. When we are seated and handed picture menus, Sherry turns to head out. We tell Sherry we need translation, that photos of unidentified bits in a bowl are not adequate. We manage to order noodles, a tofu soup, sautйed veggies, rice and I splurge for spare ribs. It is way too much food, but we make a valiant effort, at least Jamie, Lian and I do. Lela has apparently decided she can survive China on goldfish, ice cream, suckers, and a few bites of plain noodles.
The Great Goose Pagoda, to differentiate it from the Little Goose Pagoda, is a farther ride just outside the city walls. It is part of an active Buddhist temple complex, originally built in 652AD, though it and all the other buildings have been rebuilt many times according to Sherry, who does know her local history. There are men working on white marble railings as we enter. Beautiful gardens with small shrines surround the pagoda. The pagoda is a rather austere brick structure, 210 feet high, built to store the library of sutras (religious scriptures) brought back from India by the monk Xuanzang. His actual 17 year pilgrimage to India, study of Buddhism and return with many artifacts and sutras is the basis for the famous epic, Journey to the West. Pictorial representations of his journey fill the walls of two side buildings. The name, Great Goose Pagoda, comes from a story of the conversion of a sect of meat eating monks to vegetarianism. It seems that after praying for food, a large goose fell from the air at their feet, and they took this to mean that the god was sacrificing himself for their benefit and were ashamed at their gluttony. All this is very interesting, but we have seen too much for one day. The girls are falling down on their feet. We take them back to the hotel, feed them peanut butter sandwiches and put them to bed and pass out ourselves.
By the way, when I say pass out, that is exactly what I mean. If you do not have children or sleep like a baby while traveling, then you may have never reached the advanced state of sleep deprivation that would qualify as cruel and inhumane if inflicted on a prisoner of war. This is where you are one minute reading a bedtime story and the next swirling in a nether world of fast action dreams, only to snap out of it to find yourself telling your child something like, “the basis for the principals of religion are esoteric” and receiving a baffled look as you should be reading about Cinderella, who rarely discusses religious philosophy.
9/19/07 Speed Touring Xi’an - Great Mosque & Muslim Quarter, Bell & Drum Towers, and Great Goose Pagoda.
First order of the day is a paperwork session. Rich, Howie and I hustle after Sherry to a another “close by” building, the notary office. Here we check the official adoption documents before they are finalized. Good thing we do. I find a lot of typos, though if it were me writing documents in Chinese it would probably be worse. I have been turned into “Ennifer” at one spot, Lian has become Lana Rasmusen, the last child to be adopted, and left lingering at the police station after she was found from April 1 to the 11th. Sherry reviews every comma and makes sure it is all correct. Then we head back to the hotel. She will return to pick us up at 11:30.
It is only the Pines touring today, the other families not being such gluttons for punishment. The driver drops us off “near” our destination. The Great Mosque is reached by winding through the narrow souvenir packed alleys of the Muslim Quarter. Since every stall has approximately the same tourist goods, it gets a little numbing and we zip through (besides our luggage is probably overweight for our flight to Guangzhou already, we can’t really afford to buy much.) Thank God that Sherry knows where she is going, since there are no directive signs I can make out.
The Mosque and Muslim quarter are remnants from the days when Xi’an was the beginning of the Silk Road to the Middle East. That two way traffic brought Muslims to China. Sherry told us the actual Muslim population is probably less than 100, but they receive special tax exemptions from the government. Seems to be a little resentment there. Then a sudden transition to open sky and a long series of courtyard leading to a still active prayer room. Men wearing white caps and traditional long dark jackets lounge and smoke near the purification rooms. Then we plunge back through more alleys and out into a fruit market and open air. A huge structure confronts us, the Drum Tower. You can go up, but apparently we’re not going to, so we look and begin a long hike to the Bell Tower now located at the other end of a long shopping plaza, and surrounded by a four lane traffic circle. Vendors are hawking long kites, strings of 20 or more tiny kites, and have them sailing above the plaza and two Towers. We have to reach it through the subway underpass (more steps) since the traffic would be sure death. Here we do climb. You can ring the huge bronze bell on the first level – for 10 yuan. When we get to the top, which besides a commanding four way view of modern Xi’an, houses a beautiful collection of pottery and calligraphy, Lela announces she has to go. We rush back down only to find the nearest WC is back in the subway, so I herd her into a corner and whip on a pair of pullups, there being no place to allow her to go ala Chinese child style, IE slinging her rear end over a curb or some greenery, which we have had to do a few times. Hey, when you’re in China.....and a lot better than a child with dripping undies sitting on your lap.
Sherry announces time for lunch. As we drive to a restaurant Lian falls asleep. I carefully carry her in and waitresses scurry to make a bed out of pushed together chairs, so of course she wakes up the moment I put her down. When we are seated and handed picture menus, Sherry turns to head out. We tell Sherry we need translation, that photos of unidentified bits in a bowl are not adequate. We manage to order noodles, a tofu soup, sautйed veggies, rice and I splurge for spare ribs. It is way too much food, but we make a valiant effort, at least Jamie, Lian and I do. Lela has apparently decided she can survive China on goldfish, ice cream, suckers, and a few bites of plain noodles.
The Great Goose Pagoda, to differentiate it from the Little Goose Pagoda, is a farther ride just outside the city walls. It is part of an active Buddhist temple complex, originally built in 652AD, though it and all the other buildings have been rebuilt many times according to Sherry, who does know her local history. There are men working on white marble railings as we enter. Beautiful gardens with small shrines surround the pagoda. The pagoda is a rather austere brick structure, 210 feet high, built to store the library of sutras (religious scriptures) brought back from India by the monk Xuanzang. His actual 17 year pilgrimage to India, study of Buddhism and return with many artifacts and sutras is the basis for the famous epic, Journey to the West. Pictorial representations of his journey fill the walls of two side buildings. The name, Great Goose Pagoda, comes from a story of the conversion of a sect of meat eating monks to vegetarianism. It seems that after praying for food, a large goose fell from the air at their feet, and they took this to mean that the god was sacrificing himself for their benefit and were ashamed at their gluttony. All this is very interesting, but we have seen too much for one day. The girls are falling down on their feet. We take them back to the hotel, feed them peanut butter sandwiches and put them to bed and pass out ourselves.
By the way, when I say pass out, that is exactly what I mean. If you do not have children or sleep like a baby while traveling, then you may have never reached the advanced state of sleep deprivation that would qualify as cruel and inhumane if inflicted on a prisoner of war. This is where you are one minute reading a bedtime story and the next swirling in a nether world of fast action dreams, only to snap out of it to find yourself telling your child something like, “the basis for the principals of religion are esoteric” and receiving a baffled look as you should be reading about Cinderella, who rarely discusses religious philosophy.
Terra-cotta warriors
9/18/07 Terra-cotta Warriors
Assemble at quarter to nine for the Terra-cotta warriors, Sherry told us. Since I have been up since four and Jamie likewise, that shouldn’t be a problem. The sleeping beauties still snooze peacefully, time to put an end to that. I put Lian in a little sundress, and me too, me too Lela. We have leisurely breakfast. Lian can manage spoon and fork just fine, but the restaurant has chosen huge heavy utensils. We finally snag some tea spoons for her. We’re ready at 8:45 and not last for once. Aboard the bus, Sherry tells us a bit about the site. It was built by the first Emperor of China, Qin, who unified the six countries. He also began construction of the Great Wall. Construction of the tomb took over 40 years and 750,000 people to create the arm and tomb. After his unexpectedly early death, his dynasty was overthrown and the tomb attacked, looted and burned. The upper portions erased, they disappeared from history for almost 2000 years until rediscovered by a farmer digging a well in 1974.
But first a shopping opportunity – we will stop at a factory that makes reproductions. The process is labor intensive with multi-part molds and firings. We do buy a set of small figures with a 20% discount for having cute Chinese girls, $160RMB. Sherry insists that these are superior to the ones will see hawked on the site.
On to the tomb. We all opt for the 6 yuan golf cart ride up to the entrance of the buildings protecting the excavated sites. The scenery of the surrounding mountains is magnificent, terraced green slopes marching along the horizon. There are several buildings housing excavation sites. First we see a movie about the building and rediscovery. It’s a circular screen and we stand in the middle, with the Emperor’s army thundering past. It would be even better if they could get the sound working, but we get the gist. Lela has her theater freak out (from a very traumatic experience involving hundreds of dancing Santas at Radio City Music Hall) and I have to carry her in screaming, but she enjoys it once she actually looks.
Then on to the main site. An enormous field house type structure covers the excavated warriors, who stand in ranks about 5 abreast, stretching back far into the distance. There is an elevated promenade around the perimeter, and we walk to the other end. The once brightly painted warriors each have an individual face, though they are made as types; archer, foot soldier, charioteer, commander, general – but only one Emperor. Now they march begrimed with dust from the amber sandstone and dry rusty earth that surrounds them. Towards the back a charioteer stands next to his four horses, the wooden chariot succumbed to rot long ago.
Then on to a building that covers an ongoing excavation. We look deep into a pit, where four horses have been uncovered and the fragmented remains of others lie in a jumbled heap. Around the perimeter where we walk are cases with one of each of the types to be viewed up close and personal The next building is more of a museum, with recovered artifacts. Did I mention we’d lost the group three times by now, pausing to look, then looking up to find no one familiar in sight. Finally lunch, at a large restaurant located on the grounds. We are seated at one large table with a lazy susan on which various dishes are placed. More selections line tables along the walls. At one station a chef is making noodles, stretching out the dough and pounding it down on the table. I try a little of everything, sacrificing my figure in the name of adventure. Some of it is a little strange. Some of it is a lot strange, but interesting, like the preserved melon in orange juice, at least I think that’s what it was.
On the way out we are assaulted by hawkers with boxed sets of warriors, one dollar. I stop, though Sherry has expressly forbidden us to talk to “those people.” She was right, turns out its a scam of getting one of the figures not the set. I do buy a set for more than I should, but still less than $5. The Littles are much better bargainers, getting a whole set for $1 US. Oh well, it’s not like it was gold futures. I also buy a wall hanging of bright appliquйs probably for more than I should, about $12 US. Back on the bus with punch drunk children and home to the hotel.
Lian has a late nap and I take Lela to the pool. We play Princess Ariel, (Little Mermaid,, Disney version for those without small girls) and I get to be the evil sea witch, also pinch hitting as Ariel’s sister or King Triton as required. (You can’t play Cinderella in a pool!) Back downstairs, we find Lian grieving in Jamie’s arms. Our arrival snaps her out of it. We dither about dinner, go out walking to look. Up the nearest main drag we pass a children’s clothing shop. We stop to ask for shoes. She doesn’t have Lian’s size but directs us to a shoe store around the corner. None of this happens in English. The shoe store is huge, opening onto the pavement. By pointing at Lian’s feet, we get sent upstairs to the children’s dept. As I have reported, we emerged successfully with pink mesh tops for Lian and extra fancy princess sandals for Lela. On the walk back we get ice cream bars. Lian steadily works on hers though it is mostly running down her fist. It’s already late so we just mop the girls off, read a quick story and it’s bed time for all.
Assemble at quarter to nine for the Terra-cotta warriors, Sherry told us. Since I have been up since four and Jamie likewise, that shouldn’t be a problem. The sleeping beauties still snooze peacefully, time to put an end to that. I put Lian in a little sundress, and me too, me too Lela. We have leisurely breakfast. Lian can manage spoon and fork just fine, but the restaurant has chosen huge heavy utensils. We finally snag some tea spoons for her. We’re ready at 8:45 and not last for once. Aboard the bus, Sherry tells us a bit about the site. It was built by the first Emperor of China, Qin, who unified the six countries. He also began construction of the Great Wall. Construction of the tomb took over 40 years and 750,000 people to create the arm and tomb. After his unexpectedly early death, his dynasty was overthrown and the tomb attacked, looted and burned. The upper portions erased, they disappeared from history for almost 2000 years until rediscovered by a farmer digging a well in 1974.
But first a shopping opportunity – we will stop at a factory that makes reproductions. The process is labor intensive with multi-part molds and firings. We do buy a set of small figures with a 20% discount for having cute Chinese girls, $160RMB. Sherry insists that these are superior to the ones will see hawked on the site.
On to the tomb. We all opt for the 6 yuan golf cart ride up to the entrance of the buildings protecting the excavated sites. The scenery of the surrounding mountains is magnificent, terraced green slopes marching along the horizon. There are several buildings housing excavation sites. First we see a movie about the building and rediscovery. It’s a circular screen and we stand in the middle, with the Emperor’s army thundering past. It would be even better if they could get the sound working, but we get the gist. Lela has her theater freak out (from a very traumatic experience involving hundreds of dancing Santas at Radio City Music Hall) and I have to carry her in screaming, but she enjoys it once she actually looks.
Then on to the main site. An enormous field house type structure covers the excavated warriors, who stand in ranks about 5 abreast, stretching back far into the distance. There is an elevated promenade around the perimeter, and we walk to the other end. The once brightly painted warriors each have an individual face, though they are made as types; archer, foot soldier, charioteer, commander, general – but only one Emperor. Now they march begrimed with dust from the amber sandstone and dry rusty earth that surrounds them. Towards the back a charioteer stands next to his four horses, the wooden chariot succumbed to rot long ago.
Then on to a building that covers an ongoing excavation. We look deep into a pit, where four horses have been uncovered and the fragmented remains of others lie in a jumbled heap. Around the perimeter where we walk are cases with one of each of the types to be viewed up close and personal The next building is more of a museum, with recovered artifacts. Did I mention we’d lost the group three times by now, pausing to look, then looking up to find no one familiar in sight. Finally lunch, at a large restaurant located on the grounds. We are seated at one large table with a lazy susan on which various dishes are placed. More selections line tables along the walls. At one station a chef is making noodles, stretching out the dough and pounding it down on the table. I try a little of everything, sacrificing my figure in the name of adventure. Some of it is a little strange. Some of it is a lot strange, but interesting, like the preserved melon in orange juice, at least I think that’s what it was.
On the way out we are assaulted by hawkers with boxed sets of warriors, one dollar. I stop, though Sherry has expressly forbidden us to talk to “those people.” She was right, turns out its a scam of getting one of the figures not the set. I do buy a set for more than I should, but still less than $5. The Littles are much better bargainers, getting a whole set for $1 US. Oh well, it’s not like it was gold futures. I also buy a wall hanging of bright appliquйs probably for more than I should, about $12 US. Back on the bus with punch drunk children and home to the hotel.
Lian has a late nap and I take Lela to the pool. We play Princess Ariel, (Little Mermaid,, Disney version for those without small girls) and I get to be the evil sea witch, also pinch hitting as Ariel’s sister or King Triton as required. (You can’t play Cinderella in a pool!) Back downstairs, we find Lian grieving in Jamie’s arms. Our arrival snaps her out of it. We dither about dinner, go out walking to look. Up the nearest main drag we pass a children’s clothing shop. We stop to ask for shoes. She doesn’t have Lian’s size but directs us to a shoe store around the corner. None of this happens in English. The shoe store is huge, opening onto the pavement. By pointing at Lian’s feet, we get sent upstairs to the children’s dept. As I have reported, we emerged successfully with pink mesh tops for Lian and extra fancy princess sandals for Lela. On the walk back we get ice cream bars. Lian steadily works on hers though it is mostly running down her fist. It’s already late so we just mop the girls off, read a quick story and it’s bed time for all.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Family pictures !
Mommy and girls !
Sisters Lela and Lian !
Daddy and girls !
Hi Daddy !
Jamie lifting weights !
Family of four 4ever !
Look at that smile ! 
Daddy and girls !
Yum, we love food !
Big kisses from Daddy !
Sleeping Lian ! 
Computer time with Daddy !
All About Lian
All about Lian
We interrupt this travelogue to introduce the star, the reason we’ve traveled to the other side of the planet. Who is this little person we’ve welcomed into our family? She has a definite personality. When we got her she had clearly been prepared, but after a long disorienting train ride from the SWI and abrupt transition, was in a state of shock. She can make her face a mask with just worried eyes peeping out. She was compliant, sitting, holding on, getting her picture taken, walking holding hands, but we could sense she was going through the motions. Jamie got the first giggle, playing horsey and tickle me, and he is clearly her favorite.
There is clearly a little brain in there, working, working. Even the first night when we brought out some little toys, she quickly mastered the different buttons on the toy radio. She sat on the floor and played with the little cars after Lela grudgingly allocated two. She appropriated a gallon zip lock to store her toys, and loves to dump them out and put them in again. She took to bedtime story right away. Her favorite book is Good Dog Carl which she will bring over and hold up. It doesn’t have any words just pictures of the misadventures of a friendly Rottweiler and the baby he is supposed to be looking after. She flips the pages back and points to the pictures to hear the words, baby, bread, grapes, swim etc. She also snuggles up to listen to Lela’s story, usually a princess or Clifford the Big Red Dog, and points to the pictures. She likes to help, so when I make one of my periodic but mostly futile efforts to tidy up the slum we call our room, she trots around, picking things off the floor and handing them to me.
The bath made her a little nervous at first, but now she jogs over to get in and loves to play with the cups and spoons we brought. The shower is another story. She has a cold and some chest congestion so Jamie decided to take her in the shower to steam. Even though we’d been told she was showered at the SWI, but like Lela, she hates to get her face wet, it was wailing and crying the entire time. Now we just steam the whole room while she’s in the bath.
The first two days her afternoon nap triggered grieving, once with me, once with Jamie, for over an hour. The third day she fell asleep while we were in the van, I carried her into a restaurant and she woke up abruptly when I laid her down on a chair. I could see panic for a second or two until she realized that we were there, and then she was OK.
I think the turning point was two nights ago when we went out at night to stroll and see if we could do some shopping. Only one pair of shoes we brought with us fit her, the sneakers, and they will be too hot in Guangzhou. We were directed to a shoe store and bought her hot pink mesh tops with light up heels. She dragged Jamie all over the selling floor testing them out. We also found Lela the most princessey sandals ever, also pink, with glitter straps, lace bow and big jewel, on sale for 25RMB about 3$, so everyone was happy. We got ice cream bars on the way back and Lian walked the whole way, ice cream dripping, shoes flashing red sparks in the dark. Shoes and sweets, the way to a girl’s heart.
However, all is not sweetness and light. Lela is having a tough time transitioning from only to older. We have several tantrums a day, usually over a refusal to carry her the entire time we tour some sight, having to share her stroller, a toy, not getting instant gratification, IE ice cream, being told no when she want to supplant Lian in one of our laps. Rationally we know this is very hard on her, but it’s pretty hard to stay rational when she’s screaming and kicking at our feet. We sincerely hope this too will pass, QUICKLY. We are trying not to make comparisons or tell her she’s being bad, but not easy. We are trying to make quality time for her, like taking her out with one of us while Lian has her afternoon nap. It doesn’t help that Lian has not taken to her, and when Lela does try to reach out, she often gets pushed away, or if she offers to share a toy, Lian adds it to her hoard. Lian has lived in a group of kids all her life; she’s got skills and strategies that Lela entirely lacks. Lela is learning the hard way that if she doesn’t pick up her toys, they are fair game – maybe we’ll have a cleaner house.
When we first got her I started to have concerns about her hearing, since her response to aural stimuli was slow or non existent. While she was sitting in my lap facing out, I let out a wolf whistle and she only turned when my breathe stirred her hair. Now I think that was mostly shock. She clearly can hear, though I think she probably needs ear tubes and her cold doesn’t help. For the first two days, we didn’t hear a peep out of her other than crying. Then the third night when we put her down to bed, she started chatting away in Chinese. So we know she can if she wants. Yesterday evening, I think she was actually making an attempt. Her palate repair is still new and healing, so it will take a while. She still drinks like she has a hole in the roof of her mouth, biting at the liquid rather than sipping.
But she manages to consume mass quantities, until we have to shut her off for fear she’ll get sick. The only thing she’s refused was some very spicy eggplant. She doesn’t like to give things up. She found a bag of trail mix in the back pack, wailed when it was removed and only ceased when bribed with a handful of cashews. We’ve had the same reaction when Lela snatched away one of her toys.
But we have made the transition from strangers. Last night at a restaurant, a woman tried to pick her up and she wailed and clutched at Jamie, so I think we are on our way to being a real family.
We interrupt this travelogue to introduce the star, the reason we’ve traveled to the other side of the planet. Who is this little person we’ve welcomed into our family? She has a definite personality. When we got her she had clearly been prepared, but after a long disorienting train ride from the SWI and abrupt transition, was in a state of shock. She can make her face a mask with just worried eyes peeping out. She was compliant, sitting, holding on, getting her picture taken, walking holding hands, but we could sense she was going through the motions. Jamie got the first giggle, playing horsey and tickle me, and he is clearly her favorite.
There is clearly a little brain in there, working, working. Even the first night when we brought out some little toys, she quickly mastered the different buttons on the toy radio. She sat on the floor and played with the little cars after Lela grudgingly allocated two. She appropriated a gallon zip lock to store her toys, and loves to dump them out and put them in again. She took to bedtime story right away. Her favorite book is Good Dog Carl which she will bring over and hold up. It doesn’t have any words just pictures of the misadventures of a friendly Rottweiler and the baby he is supposed to be looking after. She flips the pages back and points to the pictures to hear the words, baby, bread, grapes, swim etc. She also snuggles up to listen to Lela’s story, usually a princess or Clifford the Big Red Dog, and points to the pictures. She likes to help, so when I make one of my periodic but mostly futile efforts to tidy up the slum we call our room, she trots around, picking things off the floor and handing them to me.
The bath made her a little nervous at first, but now she jogs over to get in and loves to play with the cups and spoons we brought. The shower is another story. She has a cold and some chest congestion so Jamie decided to take her in the shower to steam. Even though we’d been told she was showered at the SWI, but like Lela, she hates to get her face wet, it was wailing and crying the entire time. Now we just steam the whole room while she’s in the bath.
The first two days her afternoon nap triggered grieving, once with me, once with Jamie, for over an hour. The third day she fell asleep while we were in the van, I carried her into a restaurant and she woke up abruptly when I laid her down on a chair. I could see panic for a second or two until she realized that we were there, and then she was OK.
I think the turning point was two nights ago when we went out at night to stroll and see if we could do some shopping. Only one pair of shoes we brought with us fit her, the sneakers, and they will be too hot in Guangzhou. We were directed to a shoe store and bought her hot pink mesh tops with light up heels. She dragged Jamie all over the selling floor testing them out. We also found Lela the most princessey sandals ever, also pink, with glitter straps, lace bow and big jewel, on sale for 25RMB about 3$, so everyone was happy. We got ice cream bars on the way back and Lian walked the whole way, ice cream dripping, shoes flashing red sparks in the dark. Shoes and sweets, the way to a girl’s heart.
However, all is not sweetness and light. Lela is having a tough time transitioning from only to older. We have several tantrums a day, usually over a refusal to carry her the entire time we tour some sight, having to share her stroller, a toy, not getting instant gratification, IE ice cream, being told no when she want to supplant Lian in one of our laps. Rationally we know this is very hard on her, but it’s pretty hard to stay rational when she’s screaming and kicking at our feet. We sincerely hope this too will pass, QUICKLY. We are trying not to make comparisons or tell her she’s being bad, but not easy. We are trying to make quality time for her, like taking her out with one of us while Lian has her afternoon nap. It doesn’t help that Lian has not taken to her, and when Lela does try to reach out, she often gets pushed away, or if she offers to share a toy, Lian adds it to her hoard. Lian has lived in a group of kids all her life; she’s got skills and strategies that Lela entirely lacks. Lela is learning the hard way that if she doesn’t pick up her toys, they are fair game – maybe we’ll have a cleaner house.
When we first got her I started to have concerns about her hearing, since her response to aural stimuli was slow or non existent. While she was sitting in my lap facing out, I let out a wolf whistle and she only turned when my breathe stirred her hair. Now I think that was mostly shock. She clearly can hear, though I think she probably needs ear tubes and her cold doesn’t help. For the first two days, we didn’t hear a peep out of her other than crying. Then the third night when we put her down to bed, she started chatting away in Chinese. So we know she can if she wants. Yesterday evening, I think she was actually making an attempt. Her palate repair is still new and healing, so it will take a while. She still drinks like she has a hole in the roof of her mouth, biting at the liquid rather than sipping.
But she manages to consume mass quantities, until we have to shut her off for fear she’ll get sick. The only thing she’s refused was some very spicy eggplant. She doesn’t like to give things up. She found a bag of trail mix in the back pack, wailed when it was removed and only ceased when bribed with a handful of cashews. We’ve had the same reaction when Lela snatched away one of her toys.
But we have made the transition from strangers. Last night at a restaurant, a woman tried to pick her up and she wailed and clutched at Jamie, so I think we are on our way to being a real family.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The next day ...............
9/17/07 Bureaucracy is a French word for Hell.
After a refreshing three hours of sleep I awake at 1am. Hah, this time I know where the Ambien is hiding. While I wait for it to work, I read Lian’s medical dossier sitting in the closet since the blankety-blank bathroom is artily designed with a frosted glass wall and sliding door on the bedroom side, so the light can’t be turned on at night. As I garnered from my first quick scan, there is almost no information about her palate surgery. It does say that she will take a favorite toy and go off to play with it by herself so she doesn’t have to share. Hum, sounds like she and Lela are going to be the mountain and the immovable object. Start to feel woozy at 2, hit the sack again and wake at 7am. No one else is up and we have to be out of here in an hour.
We give them both a quick bath, which Lian is a little unsure about. I don’t push washing her hair even though it smells like a pit BBQ smoker. We manage to get down to breakfast by 8:45. It is not child friendly, but we do get a high chair for Lian. I remember to bring her bib, good thing, since she turns out to be a vigorous if messy trencher woman. I shuttle back and forth to the buffet, bringing yogurt, breads, juice and fruit. The line for eggs is too long and Lela throws the first of many fits when informed she will not be getting an omelet. We go back upstairs to collect our stuff – at 8:15. Back down in the lobby, we need to cash more traveler’s checks or we won’t have enough for today’s fees. The hotel can manage $200, but the cashier has not yet arrived with fresh supplies – it is 8:30 on a Monday and they aren’t a bank. Sherry decides we will have to make do with US $ when the cashier shows up. Success, we have enough.
We get to the registrar’s office around the corner at 9, late again. There are more papers to sign, fees for the registrar and notary, questions from both about our qualifications and willingness to adopt. Lian cries when we take off her shoe to press her footprint on the paperwork, the first sound we’ve heard. The other woman from HanZhong, not the house mama, is there to receive our “donation.” We have never been introduced so I have no idea if she is part of the Caring For China or the official SWI. I do get to ask her what degree Lian’s palate is classified under the Chinese system and she says Second Degree – whish is good, meaning medium severity. But when I ask her to confirm that the marks all over her backside are Mongolian Spots, she doesn’t know, so I wonder how much real contact she has had with Lian. I remember at the very last minute to present the gifts we have hauled along, little gift bags with candies, nail polish, and body lotion. We decided to donate the children's clothing we brought to the Xi'an CWI, since we know it will get to the Caring For China volunteers, as the other families will be taking it personally.
Sherry decrees that it is now too late to go to the police station to do the passport paperwork and we will have lunch first, which means dropping us off in an area that has restaurants. We collectively mutiny and insist that we must go grocery shopping NOW. We take one of her “not to far” cross country treks to a large grocery. We insist that the bus must come and meet us at the grocery, at the front door. No more hikes. No one is impressed with the guiding or driving in Xi’an so far.
We stock up on bottled water, peanut butter, bread, jam, soda pop, juice boxes, milk boxes, apples and grapes. I head upstairs to locate diapers, and get baby lotion and bubble bath too. We check out for 284RMI, less than $40. Sherry meets us outside and summons the bus, which pulls right up. Now we only have 40 minutes for lunch – but hey, we all have peanut butter and jelly, so life is good. Lian chows down on her PB&J sandwich and doesn’t go into anaphylactic shock, so no peanut allergies, more good news.
We all assemble smartly on time – but the director, whom we have “tipped” 200 RMB apiece to grease the wheels, is late. We arrive at the police station after a half hour ride. It is relatively small and low key. We quickly have a picture taken and are on our way. Sherry announces a change of plans – we will see the terra-cotta warriors tomorrow as there is some paperwork we have to do Wednesday morning.
Back at our room, I realize that Lian should have had a nap two hours ago. Jamie and Lela go off to the pool and I put her in her crib. She starts to sniffle and reaches up to me when I hold out my arms, then she starts to wail. I cuddle her on the bed while she cries. She is grieving the loss of everything familiar and loved in her life, which is good, it means she was loved and was attached to her caregivers – and is capable of new attachment. She cries herself to sleep and naps for about 20 minutes, but resumes crying when she wakes up, sees me, and realizes it was not just a bad dream. Unlike Lela, who fought us, she allows me to hold her, another good sign. She continues to cry until Jamie and Lela come back, which shocks her out of it, especially the sight of Lela bouncing off the walls. An hour and a half in the pool with Papa has failed to burn of her excess energy or calm her nerves.
After debating a solution to dinner we order room service. Like room service everywhere it is absurdly overpriced. For about $30 US, or 5 days average salary in China, we get a panini, bowl of noodles, and some fried rice. But it is there, and we don’t have to go out or try and interpret a Chinese menu. Lian eats as much as we put in front of her – I finally cut her off on her third helping, worried she will make herself sick. She also seems to have taken much more to Jamie than me, which is fine for now, since he has more attention to give her. I’m trying to be tour guide, photographer and keep Lela from losing it. He gets some giggles out of her playing tickle me and she happily climbs in his lap. Still no talking though. We give the girls a bubble bath and I remember the stacking cups, which are a big hit. I manage to wash her hair with no fussing. A story and we are all in bed by 9:30. Good night.
After a refreshing three hours of sleep I awake at 1am. Hah, this time I know where the Ambien is hiding. While I wait for it to work, I read Lian’s medical dossier sitting in the closet since the blankety-blank bathroom is artily designed with a frosted glass wall and sliding door on the bedroom side, so the light can’t be turned on at night. As I garnered from my first quick scan, there is almost no information about her palate surgery. It does say that she will take a favorite toy and go off to play with it by herself so she doesn’t have to share. Hum, sounds like she and Lela are going to be the mountain and the immovable object. Start to feel woozy at 2, hit the sack again and wake at 7am. No one else is up and we have to be out of here in an hour.
We give them both a quick bath, which Lian is a little unsure about. I don’t push washing her hair even though it smells like a pit BBQ smoker. We manage to get down to breakfast by 8:45. It is not child friendly, but we do get a high chair for Lian. I remember to bring her bib, good thing, since she turns out to be a vigorous if messy trencher woman. I shuttle back and forth to the buffet, bringing yogurt, breads, juice and fruit. The line for eggs is too long and Lela throws the first of many fits when informed she will not be getting an omelet. We go back upstairs to collect our stuff – at 8:15. Back down in the lobby, we need to cash more traveler’s checks or we won’t have enough for today’s fees. The hotel can manage $200, but the cashier has not yet arrived with fresh supplies – it is 8:30 on a Monday and they aren’t a bank. Sherry decides we will have to make do with US $ when the cashier shows up. Success, we have enough.
We get to the registrar’s office around the corner at 9, late again. There are more papers to sign, fees for the registrar and notary, questions from both about our qualifications and willingness to adopt. Lian cries when we take off her shoe to press her footprint on the paperwork, the first sound we’ve heard. The other woman from HanZhong, not the house mama, is there to receive our “donation.” We have never been introduced so I have no idea if she is part of the Caring For China or the official SWI. I do get to ask her what degree Lian’s palate is classified under the Chinese system and she says Second Degree – whish is good, meaning medium severity. But when I ask her to confirm that the marks all over her backside are Mongolian Spots, she doesn’t know, so I wonder how much real contact she has had with Lian. I remember at the very last minute to present the gifts we have hauled along, little gift bags with candies, nail polish, and body lotion. We decided to donate the children's clothing we brought to the Xi'an CWI, since we know it will get to the Caring For China volunteers, as the other families will be taking it personally.
Sherry decrees that it is now too late to go to the police station to do the passport paperwork and we will have lunch first, which means dropping us off in an area that has restaurants. We collectively mutiny and insist that we must go grocery shopping NOW. We take one of her “not to far” cross country treks to a large grocery. We insist that the bus must come and meet us at the grocery, at the front door. No more hikes. No one is impressed with the guiding or driving in Xi’an so far.
We stock up on bottled water, peanut butter, bread, jam, soda pop, juice boxes, milk boxes, apples and grapes. I head upstairs to locate diapers, and get baby lotion and bubble bath too. We check out for 284RMI, less than $40. Sherry meets us outside and summons the bus, which pulls right up. Now we only have 40 minutes for lunch – but hey, we all have peanut butter and jelly, so life is good. Lian chows down on her PB&J sandwich and doesn’t go into anaphylactic shock, so no peanut allergies, more good news.
We all assemble smartly on time – but the director, whom we have “tipped” 200 RMB apiece to grease the wheels, is late. We arrive at the police station after a half hour ride. It is relatively small and low key. We quickly have a picture taken and are on our way. Sherry announces a change of plans – we will see the terra-cotta warriors tomorrow as there is some paperwork we have to do Wednesday morning.
Back at our room, I realize that Lian should have had a nap two hours ago. Jamie and Lela go off to the pool and I put her in her crib. She starts to sniffle and reaches up to me when I hold out my arms, then she starts to wail. I cuddle her on the bed while she cries. She is grieving the loss of everything familiar and loved in her life, which is good, it means she was loved and was attached to her caregivers – and is capable of new attachment. She cries herself to sleep and naps for about 20 minutes, but resumes crying when she wakes up, sees me, and realizes it was not just a bad dream. Unlike Lela, who fought us, she allows me to hold her, another good sign. She continues to cry until Jamie and Lela come back, which shocks her out of it, especially the sight of Lela bouncing off the walls. An hour and a half in the pool with Papa has failed to burn of her excess energy or calm her nerves.
After debating a solution to dinner we order room service. Like room service everywhere it is absurdly overpriced. For about $30 US, or 5 days average salary in China, we get a panini, bowl of noodles, and some fried rice. But it is there, and we don’t have to go out or try and interpret a Chinese menu. Lian eats as much as we put in front of her – I finally cut her off on her third helping, worried she will make herself sick. She also seems to have taken much more to Jamie than me, which is fine for now, since he has more attention to give her. I’m trying to be tour guide, photographer and keep Lela from losing it. He gets some giggles out of her playing tickle me and she happily climbs in his lap. Still no talking though. We give the girls a bubble bath and I remember the stacking cups, which are a big hit. I manage to wash her hair with no fussing. A story and we are all in bed by 9:30. Good night.
Family night !
Lian and nanny !
Lian makes 4 !
Lian makes 4 !
9/16/07 Family Night
Housekeeping note – Mr. Perfect proofreader would like me to let you know that while Lela’s favorite dessert is ice cream, her favorite desert is the Gobi.
So how did our Family Day go? Well, “near fiasco” springs to mind – but let’s start at the very beginning.
Sleep was the concept, not the reality. As we rolled along in the dark, I lay there jammed between the metal bed guardrail and Lela the human thrashing machine, wondering where I had stashed my Ambien. Lela slept soundly until about 5. We pulled back the curtains and watched the sun rise over the countryside, a mix of steep mountains scraped with white chalk, plunging gorges, farms of corn, sunflowers, peach trees, and unidentifiable vegetables terraced into every conceivable slope. Part of the land is carved down into sandstone, with pillars and levels of soft golden stone catching the early sun. The houses we pass are made of yellow brick, presumably from the sandstone. We see early risers, one man doing toe touches atop a giant pile of coal, farmers hoeing the fields, two women and a man clearing a slope I would call a cliff. We pass cities hazed with smog, huge coal and nuclear power plants on one side and the steep green mountains on the other. The train begins to wake up as we near Xi’an for our 8:20 arrival. We get a cup of over brewed green tea from the stewardess (no bargain at 10RMB.) Jamie and Lela head off in search of the dining car. It is a snack car for passengers, with drinks, cookies, and other packaged food – but the staff are getting hot noodles and congee. They do find Lela’s favorite Chinese rice cookies.
We dress and perform our ablutions in the toilet or washroom. Someone stole both rolls of toilet paper about 10 minutes into the trip, but luckily we have lots of wipes. The water tap has that international “don’t drink” symbol, the X’ed glass, so we are glad we brought 4 bottles.
Lela, having a new audience in Elizabeth is regaling her with one of her games, where she makes up the rules, half the words and they can change at will. Given that Elizabeth’s high school English is as rusty as our French, God knows what she actually understands, but she is a good sport and finds it amusing. Actually the whole train finds Lela amusing and her pig tails and cheeks get little tweaks as she trots along the corridor sticking her nose in. The compartment next to us has two Chinese moms with three children. Lela spends some time playing with the 18 month old and scores a Chinese version of a moon pie.
After chugging through increasingly denser suburbs, we reach the Xi’an train station. It’s not nearly as imposing as the Beijing station, that looked like a set for a 1930’s film noir. We hump the luggage off (keeping track with a tune set to the 12 days of Xmas – 4 oversized suitcases, 3 bulging back packs, 2 assorted carry-ons, and an umbrella stroooler =10.) There is no one there on the platform to meet us. A porter takes our bags up to the exit. There are lots of people with signs, but none for Pines. We circle around, looking, looking. The porter is getting impatient. Just when we are about to give up and get a cab, a young woman with a sign saying “James Matthew” approached. It’s our new guide, Sherry. She says we have to walk to the car. This proves to be a hefty half mile NYC paced walkathon along the side of the Xi’an city wall. The batteries in my camera chose this minute to die. Finally we are in the van, on the way on the hotel. I can hardly wait for a bath. I feel like I have been covered with fly paper, sticky on one side, scratchy on the other.
The Sofitel is vast and we arrive at the wrong wing. After an underground hike, we finally arrive at the right check-in desk and find our room won’t be ready for 15 minutes – which means about an hour. We have to give them a $300 cash deposit, as our credit card is still not working. On the bright side, they cash our travelers check with no problems. After three days Lela’s bowels start to work again, necessitating many dashes across the lobby. The lobby, well let’s just say some designer really sold a concept. It is aggressively moderne, with lacquer red womb chairs and sofas, a screen of crystal ball beads dangling from the ceiling, artfully placed modern sculpture, and strange upright objects of red pleated silk, bringing to mind gift-wrapped pod people.
Finally in our room. We find out we are getting Lian at 5, and the other families are flying in that afternoon. We unpack, get a crib sent in, organize paperwork, tidy up. Lela and I take a bath in the huge tub and I take a shower too. Ah, clean again. If only I could do the same for our clothing which is getting limited. Lela falls asleep and Jamie goes out to see if he can find food. He returns with some very spicy tofu thing and noodles with diced veggies also very spicy. I correctly predict Miss blander the better will not eat it. Jamie and Lela go down to the swimming pool. I was going to join them or take a nap but never got the time to do either. My eyes feel like an ad for Visine and my brain is got that lovely cotton-wool sleep deprivation thing going on. They return, and with the hotel technical desk on the phone, Jamie finally gets the internet connection going. Then suddenly it’s 4:45 – time to go!
We meet the other families, the Littles and Schwartzes, in the lobby. I know Michelle and Anne from the internet chat groups and their blogs. Nice to finally connect. We pile into our van, which zooms out of the courtyard and stops at the next corner where the registrars office is located, a ride of about 2 minutes.
We all wait nervously. Shery tells us that Lian will be coming a half hour latter, since the train from HanZhong (pronounced more like HanChong to my ears) doesn’t get in until 5:10. Since I have a half hour and realize I have left my list of questions at the hotel, I run back, ok, jog wheezily, over acres of slippery pavement (it has now started to rain)and grab that and the passports Sherry forgot to tell us to bring. The two little boys from the Xi’an CWI arrive to meet their families. They play with them on the floor – I take lots of pictures for the Schwartzes. The Littles have their two sons, Jack and Will, with them and Jack does the honors with their camera. 5:40 comes and goes. Sherry is calling on her cell - “they are coming.” 6pm – they have arrived – but not here. 6:30 - rush hour traffic is holding them up – yeah, on a Sunday night. 6:45 - they don’t answer her call. Lela is more nervous than we are and goes into hyper drive, but luckily makes friends with the three children who are there with the registrar and Xi’an director, and they play outside in the parking area. She gets filthy. We all are becoming nervous wreaks. I mentally play every bad scenario I have ever thought of, including the one where we have inadvertently offended the powers that be and its all a cruel hoax.
7pm, an older lady carrying a little girl dressed in yellow with yellow pom-poms on her pigtails appears in the door. I am so relieved I start to cry. I have dragooned Sherry to translate my questions to Lian’s Ayi, who turns out to be her house mama. We are interrupted by the second woman from the SWI, who insists that all the information is in the books they give us, one a picture book, the other a medical and developmental report. There is still almost nothing about her cleft other than the scant sentences we have already gotten, but that is going to be it. They strap Lian into our stroller and leave. Wham, bam, here’s your kid. Sherry hustles us out the door, as all the officials want to go home and the photographer for our visa and adoption decree pictures has been waiting since 5. The bus driver has gone home, so we will walk – not too far she says. About half way through the forced death march across broken sidewalks, 12”curbs, speeding traffic and an underpass, Lela is whining to ride in the stroller, and I realize this is ridiculous – I haven’t held my daughter yet. We switch. Lian is wide-eyed but compliant, holding on to me. She has a runny nose and a little rattley cough. We stop so I can put Lian in the sling we brought and lose the group. They send back Jack. Juggling umbrellas, children, stroller and backpacks, we arrive at the photographer’s. The building common lights are off for the night, so we climb two flights of slippery wet marble stairs in the dark. We ask Jack to take a picture of the four of us while we wait for our turn, first family picture about an hour into our adoption. Back outside the families rebel and insist on taking cabs back to the hotel. Since we are the stragglers (a pattern that will continue) Sherry rides back with us, reiterating we must be ready to go by 8:15 the next morning. Back at the hotel, we’re not done yet. We still need to fill out paperwork for tomorrow and it’s all in Chinese. We commandeer a desk in the lobby, and go over the papers along with the Schwartzes. The Littles have wisely gone up to their room. We finally come up with one black ink pen between us (blue is not acceptable) discover we will need glue sticks to affix our passport pictures (luckily the concierge desk pulls that rabbit out of their hat) and get most of it filled out. Our attention being diverted, Lela is twirling around and zooming the stroller and slams full speed into a pillar, getting a real goose egg on her noggin. She wants me to comfort her, and I have Lian strapped to my chest. I manage to cuddle both of them, but Lela has her first premonition of the real future – and she doesn’t like it. She wants 100% of mama, 100% of the time.
We finally make it back to our room. It’s after 9. We have no dinner to offer but cheese crackers, goldfish, nasty leftover tofu, and some cookies, but that is going to have to do. I dig out a little musical toy we brought for Lian. Lela shows her how to work the buttons, which she quickly masters. We hear the first of hundreds of renditions of “I’m a little tea pot.” What was I thinking? They play with toy cars on the floor while we try and finish the paperwork, and Lela elicits a tiny smile when she lets out her whiskey and cigarette soaked belly laugh. I am wondering if Lian has a hearing loss from ear infections (very common with cleft kids) since her response to sound is very slow and she has not made a peep – or maybe she’s still in shock. We get both our girls into nighties, brush their teeth, forget to wash any other parts, read a bedtime story which must be total gibberish to Lian, and pop her into her crib. I’m not sure when she fell asleep because I passed out immediately. Thus endeth the first day.
Housekeeping note – Mr. Perfect proofreader would like me to let you know that while Lela’s favorite dessert is ice cream, her favorite desert is the Gobi.
So how did our Family Day go? Well, “near fiasco” springs to mind – but let’s start at the very beginning.
Sleep was the concept, not the reality. As we rolled along in the dark, I lay there jammed between the metal bed guardrail and Lela the human thrashing machine, wondering where I had stashed my Ambien. Lela slept soundly until about 5. We pulled back the curtains and watched the sun rise over the countryside, a mix of steep mountains scraped with white chalk, plunging gorges, farms of corn, sunflowers, peach trees, and unidentifiable vegetables terraced into every conceivable slope. Part of the land is carved down into sandstone, with pillars and levels of soft golden stone catching the early sun. The houses we pass are made of yellow brick, presumably from the sandstone. We see early risers, one man doing toe touches atop a giant pile of coal, farmers hoeing the fields, two women and a man clearing a slope I would call a cliff. We pass cities hazed with smog, huge coal and nuclear power plants on one side and the steep green mountains on the other. The train begins to wake up as we near Xi’an for our 8:20 arrival. We get a cup of over brewed green tea from the stewardess (no bargain at 10RMB.) Jamie and Lela head off in search of the dining car. It is a snack car for passengers, with drinks, cookies, and other packaged food – but the staff are getting hot noodles and congee. They do find Lela’s favorite Chinese rice cookies.
We dress and perform our ablutions in the toilet or washroom. Someone stole both rolls of toilet paper about 10 minutes into the trip, but luckily we have lots of wipes. The water tap has that international “don’t drink” symbol, the X’ed glass, so we are glad we brought 4 bottles.
Lela, having a new audience in Elizabeth is regaling her with one of her games, where she makes up the rules, half the words and they can change at will. Given that Elizabeth’s high school English is as rusty as our French, God knows what she actually understands, but she is a good sport and finds it amusing. Actually the whole train finds Lela amusing and her pig tails and cheeks get little tweaks as she trots along the corridor sticking her nose in. The compartment next to us has two Chinese moms with three children. Lela spends some time playing with the 18 month old and scores a Chinese version of a moon pie.
After chugging through increasingly denser suburbs, we reach the Xi’an train station. It’s not nearly as imposing as the Beijing station, that looked like a set for a 1930’s film noir. We hump the luggage off (keeping track with a tune set to the 12 days of Xmas – 4 oversized suitcases, 3 bulging back packs, 2 assorted carry-ons, and an umbrella stroooler =10.) There is no one there on the platform to meet us. A porter takes our bags up to the exit. There are lots of people with signs, but none for Pines. We circle around, looking, looking. The porter is getting impatient. Just when we are about to give up and get a cab, a young woman with a sign saying “James Matthew” approached. It’s our new guide, Sherry. She says we have to walk to the car. This proves to be a hefty half mile NYC paced walkathon along the side of the Xi’an city wall. The batteries in my camera chose this minute to die. Finally we are in the van, on the way on the hotel. I can hardly wait for a bath. I feel like I have been covered with fly paper, sticky on one side, scratchy on the other.
The Sofitel is vast and we arrive at the wrong wing. After an underground hike, we finally arrive at the right check-in desk and find our room won’t be ready for 15 minutes – which means about an hour. We have to give them a $300 cash deposit, as our credit card is still not working. On the bright side, they cash our travelers check with no problems. After three days Lela’s bowels start to work again, necessitating many dashes across the lobby. The lobby, well let’s just say some designer really sold a concept. It is aggressively moderne, with lacquer red womb chairs and sofas, a screen of crystal ball beads dangling from the ceiling, artfully placed modern sculpture, and strange upright objects of red pleated silk, bringing to mind gift-wrapped pod people.
Finally in our room. We find out we are getting Lian at 5, and the other families are flying in that afternoon. We unpack, get a crib sent in, organize paperwork, tidy up. Lela and I take a bath in the huge tub and I take a shower too. Ah, clean again. If only I could do the same for our clothing which is getting limited. Lela falls asleep and Jamie goes out to see if he can find food. He returns with some very spicy tofu thing and noodles with diced veggies also very spicy. I correctly predict Miss blander the better will not eat it. Jamie and Lela go down to the swimming pool. I was going to join them or take a nap but never got the time to do either. My eyes feel like an ad for Visine and my brain is got that lovely cotton-wool sleep deprivation thing going on. They return, and with the hotel technical desk on the phone, Jamie finally gets the internet connection going. Then suddenly it’s 4:45 – time to go!
We meet the other families, the Littles and Schwartzes, in the lobby. I know Michelle and Anne from the internet chat groups and their blogs. Nice to finally connect. We pile into our van, which zooms out of the courtyard and stops at the next corner where the registrars office is located, a ride of about 2 minutes.
We all wait nervously. Shery tells us that Lian will be coming a half hour latter, since the train from HanZhong (pronounced more like HanChong to my ears) doesn’t get in until 5:10. Since I have a half hour and realize I have left my list of questions at the hotel, I run back, ok, jog wheezily, over acres of slippery pavement (it has now started to rain)and grab that and the passports Sherry forgot to tell us to bring. The two little boys from the Xi’an CWI arrive to meet their families. They play with them on the floor – I take lots of pictures for the Schwartzes. The Littles have their two sons, Jack and Will, with them and Jack does the honors with their camera. 5:40 comes and goes. Sherry is calling on her cell - “they are coming.” 6pm – they have arrived – but not here. 6:30 - rush hour traffic is holding them up – yeah, on a Sunday night. 6:45 - they don’t answer her call. Lela is more nervous than we are and goes into hyper drive, but luckily makes friends with the three children who are there with the registrar and Xi’an director, and they play outside in the parking area. She gets filthy. We all are becoming nervous wreaks. I mentally play every bad scenario I have ever thought of, including the one where we have inadvertently offended the powers that be and its all a cruel hoax.
7pm, an older lady carrying a little girl dressed in yellow with yellow pom-poms on her pigtails appears in the door. I am so relieved I start to cry. I have dragooned Sherry to translate my questions to Lian’s Ayi, who turns out to be her house mama. We are interrupted by the second woman from the SWI, who insists that all the information is in the books they give us, one a picture book, the other a medical and developmental report. There is still almost nothing about her cleft other than the scant sentences we have already gotten, but that is going to be it. They strap Lian into our stroller and leave. Wham, bam, here’s your kid. Sherry hustles us out the door, as all the officials want to go home and the photographer for our visa and adoption decree pictures has been waiting since 5. The bus driver has gone home, so we will walk – not too far she says. About half way through the forced death march across broken sidewalks, 12”curbs, speeding traffic and an underpass, Lela is whining to ride in the stroller, and I realize this is ridiculous – I haven’t held my daughter yet. We switch. Lian is wide-eyed but compliant, holding on to me. She has a runny nose and a little rattley cough. We stop so I can put Lian in the sling we brought and lose the group. They send back Jack. Juggling umbrellas, children, stroller and backpacks, we arrive at the photographer’s. The building common lights are off for the night, so we climb two flights of slippery wet marble stairs in the dark. We ask Jack to take a picture of the four of us while we wait for our turn, first family picture about an hour into our adoption. Back outside the families rebel and insist on taking cabs back to the hotel. Since we are the stragglers (a pattern that will continue) Sherry rides back with us, reiterating we must be ready to go by 8:15 the next morning. Back at the hotel, we’re not done yet. We still need to fill out paperwork for tomorrow and it’s all in Chinese. We commandeer a desk in the lobby, and go over the papers along with the Schwartzes. The Littles have wisely gone up to their room. We finally come up with one black ink pen between us (blue is not acceptable) discover we will need glue sticks to affix our passport pictures (luckily the concierge desk pulls that rabbit out of their hat) and get most of it filled out. Our attention being diverted, Lela is twirling around and zooming the stroller and slams full speed into a pillar, getting a real goose egg on her noggin. She wants me to comfort her, and I have Lian strapped to my chest. I manage to cuddle both of them, but Lela has her first premonition of the real future – and she doesn’t like it. She wants 100% of mama, 100% of the time.
We finally make it back to our room. It’s after 9. We have no dinner to offer but cheese crackers, goldfish, nasty leftover tofu, and some cookies, but that is going to have to do. I dig out a little musical toy we brought for Lian. Lela shows her how to work the buttons, which she quickly masters. We hear the first of hundreds of renditions of “I’m a little tea pot.” What was I thinking? They play with toy cars on the floor while we try and finish the paperwork, and Lela elicits a tiny smile when she lets out her whiskey and cigarette soaked belly laugh. I am wondering if Lian has a hearing loss from ear infections (very common with cleft kids) since her response to sound is very slow and she has not made a peep – or maybe she’s still in shock. We get both our girls into nighties, brush their teeth, forget to wash any other parts, read a bedtime story which must be total gibberish to Lian, and pop her into her crib. I’m not sure when she fell asleep because I passed out immediately. Thus endeth the first day.
Leaving on a sleeper train
/15/07 Leaving on a sleeper train.
(Technical problems, exhaustion and whiny children have prevented posting until now 9/19, but that’s all fixed now, at least the technical end.)
The Z19 overnight Express pulled out of Beijing North right on time, 9:21pm. We had another action packed day. Though Angela wasn’t picking us up until noon, we still had to pack, shop for our trip, get $ changed and check out. Gazing at the room strewn with luggage, new stuff, and laundry it didn’t seem possible. Jamie and Lela went out shopping for batteries since I had fried the recharger plus water and juice, and more Chinese currency. Then they went swimming again. (I never got to see the pool. Wah.) Most of the packing was done when they got back, and we were downstairs and checked out when Angela arrived, a minor miracle.
We checked the bags and walked around the corner for lunch to a Mongolian style restaurant. Lamb and beef are the mainstays but we managed to find suitable choices for all, lamb ribs for the meat eaters, a delicious mixed mushroom soup, fat noodles for the insatiable noodle head, Ms. Lela, and an eggplant and green bean stir fry. While we ate, there was live music and performance of Mongolian traditional songs and dancing (somewhat brought up to the 21st century with a mixer, amps and an applause track) on a small stage right next to us. It was a bit loud but fun. Lela finally got her wish to have Angela eat with us.
We walked back to the hotel and met our driver, loaded down the van with our bags and headed to the Temple of Heaven. The grounds around it are manicured with rows of trees each a unique character of twisted limbs and rippled bark. It is a popular place for retired people to gather and dance and sing.
The Temple is reached by a climb up yet another step flight of brick stairs. Lela was fading and insisted on staying in the stroller, so we carted her up, getting many amused stares. The Chinese don’t use strollers – either the child walks or they carry them – but we did see several children her age being dragged along in the process of meltdown.
The Temple is a spectacular circular building with three levels of roof in celestial blue tile. At every ancient site in China even the shape of the building has a symbolic meaning. (Modern ones too - the curved shape of our hotel mimics the shape of ancient gold and silver ingots, a cupped palm, to bring wealth.) The platform is square, representing the earth and the building is round like the heavens. The three roofs were the Lord of the Heaven, the Emperor, and then the common people. Everything has been restored, and the painting on all the ceilings, pillars and beams gleamed. Lela succumbed and slept through the tour of the Temple and other buildings, back to the van, (garnering many smiles and one lady telling us via Angela how beautiful she was - my opinion too) and almost all the way to the Acrobatic Show.
At the Acrobatic show, Lela got her promised ice cream (Mongolians not running too big on dessert menus). Jamie tried the corn flavor that was yellow and shaped like an ear of corn. It had a shell that did indeed taste a lot like creamed sweet corn over vanilla. Lela and I whimped out with strawberry.
We had balcony seats. All was fine until the show started and a paper dragon “flew” across the stage. Lela had her usual theater melt down, and wanted to leave, but I would not budge. Finally the lure of dancers in elaborate Chinese princess costumes was too much, she peeked and was hooked. The show may be touristy but the skill of the performers is amazing. Once she discover she liked it she became their main cheering section.
After the show we headed across town in the now familiar congested roads. Our station was not the one near our hotel, but Beijing West, a new station. We passed Tianamen Square, lit up with hundreds of people out for an evening stroll. Even though it was only 6:45, Angela was getting anxious about the time. We stopped for dinner at a dim sum place the driver recommended. Lela had enough noodles (according to me, not her) so we got a steamed shrimp and vegetable dish for her and three kinds of dumpling for the grown ups. She began giving demonstrations of her acrobatic skills by carrying a pop bottle balanced in her hand around the table. Angela rushed us out and off to the train station. It’s huge building with a modern base and traditional temple roof grafted on. Angela leapt out, nabbed a porter - they are red caps in China too, but baseball caps. He horsed all our luggage down to the train after a brief pause in the soft sleeper waiting room. We managed to cram it under the berths. We didn’t know if we would be sharing yet. Angela waited with us, while Lela gave her an extended good bye and asked her to come and visit (down to sleeping on the sofa) Another guide approached her and began a discussion. One of her charges was not able to manage the upper berth she had booked and could we share? So Elizabeth from Paris is now sleeping across from me. We had an interesting mangled English, French, Italian and Spanish conversation. Jamie read Ariel for the 100th time and Lela fell asleep on the upper bunk. Jamie lay down but didn’t fall asleep. He shifted over to the other upper bunk so I’m going up there now to sleep with Lela.
(Technical problems, exhaustion and whiny children have prevented posting until now 9/19, but that’s all fixed now, at least the technical end.)
The Z19 overnight Express pulled out of Beijing North right on time, 9:21pm. We had another action packed day. Though Angela wasn’t picking us up until noon, we still had to pack, shop for our trip, get $ changed and check out. Gazing at the room strewn with luggage, new stuff, and laundry it didn’t seem possible. Jamie and Lela went out shopping for batteries since I had fried the recharger plus water and juice, and more Chinese currency. Then they went swimming again. (I never got to see the pool. Wah.) Most of the packing was done when they got back, and we were downstairs and checked out when Angela arrived, a minor miracle.
We checked the bags and walked around the corner for lunch to a Mongolian style restaurant. Lamb and beef are the mainstays but we managed to find suitable choices for all, lamb ribs for the meat eaters, a delicious mixed mushroom soup, fat noodles for the insatiable noodle head, Ms. Lela, and an eggplant and green bean stir fry. While we ate, there was live music and performance of Mongolian traditional songs and dancing (somewhat brought up to the 21st century with a mixer, amps and an applause track) on a small stage right next to us. It was a bit loud but fun. Lela finally got her wish to have Angela eat with us.
We walked back to the hotel and met our driver, loaded down the van with our bags and headed to the Temple of Heaven. The grounds around it are manicured with rows of trees each a unique character of twisted limbs and rippled bark. It is a popular place for retired people to gather and dance and sing.
The Temple is reached by a climb up yet another step flight of brick stairs. Lela was fading and insisted on staying in the stroller, so we carted her up, getting many amused stares. The Chinese don’t use strollers – either the child walks or they carry them – but we did see several children her age being dragged along in the process of meltdown.
The Temple is a spectacular circular building with three levels of roof in celestial blue tile. At every ancient site in China even the shape of the building has a symbolic meaning. (Modern ones too - the curved shape of our hotel mimics the shape of ancient gold and silver ingots, a cupped palm, to bring wealth.) The platform is square, representing the earth and the building is round like the heavens. The three roofs were the Lord of the Heaven, the Emperor, and then the common people. Everything has been restored, and the painting on all the ceilings, pillars and beams gleamed. Lela succumbed and slept through the tour of the Temple and other buildings, back to the van, (garnering many smiles and one lady telling us via Angela how beautiful she was - my opinion too) and almost all the way to the Acrobatic Show.
At the Acrobatic show, Lela got her promised ice cream (Mongolians not running too big on dessert menus). Jamie tried the corn flavor that was yellow and shaped like an ear of corn. It had a shell that did indeed taste a lot like creamed sweet corn over vanilla. Lela and I whimped out with strawberry.
We had balcony seats. All was fine until the show started and a paper dragon “flew” across the stage. Lela had her usual theater melt down, and wanted to leave, but I would not budge. Finally the lure of dancers in elaborate Chinese princess costumes was too much, she peeked and was hooked. The show may be touristy but the skill of the performers is amazing. Once she discover she liked it she became their main cheering section.
After the show we headed across town in the now familiar congested roads. Our station was not the one near our hotel, but Beijing West, a new station. We passed Tianamen Square, lit up with hundreds of people out for an evening stroll. Even though it was only 6:45, Angela was getting anxious about the time. We stopped for dinner at a dim sum place the driver recommended. Lela had enough noodles (according to me, not her) so we got a steamed shrimp and vegetable dish for her and three kinds of dumpling for the grown ups. She began giving demonstrations of her acrobatic skills by carrying a pop bottle balanced in her hand around the table. Angela rushed us out and off to the train station. It’s huge building with a modern base and traditional temple roof grafted on. Angela leapt out, nabbed a porter - they are red caps in China too, but baseball caps. He horsed all our luggage down to the train after a brief pause in the soft sleeper waiting room. We managed to cram it under the berths. We didn’t know if we would be sharing yet. Angela waited with us, while Lela gave her an extended good bye and asked her to come and visit (down to sleeping on the sofa) Another guide approached her and began a discussion. One of her charges was not able to manage the upper berth she had booked and could we share? So Elizabeth from Paris is now sleeping across from me. We had an interesting mangled English, French, Italian and Spanish conversation. Jamie read Ariel for the 100th time and Lela fell asleep on the upper bunk. Jamie lay down but didn’t fall asleep. He shifted over to the other upper bunk so I’m going up there now to sleep with Lela.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
9/15/07
9/15/07 Adios Beijing
Last day in Beijing. Of course, after two days of touring in rain and fog, today the sun is coming out. Our guide will not meet us until noon. We have to pack, shop for things like more batteries, and change some $. We will have lunch, then tour the Temple of Heaven, see an acrobatics show, or as Lela puts it a “bats” show, dinner and then board our overnight train for Xi’an. Tomorrow we get Lian! It seems unreal after all this time that we are only a day away. We probably won't be posting until after Family Day, and I promise pictures are coming soon.
Last day in Beijing. Of course, after two days of touring in rain and fog, today the sun is coming out. Our guide will not meet us until noon. We have to pack, shop for things like more batteries, and change some $. We will have lunch, then tour the Temple of Heaven, see an acrobatics show, or as Lela puts it a “bats” show, dinner and then board our overnight train for Xi’an. Tomorrow we get Lian! It seems unreal after all this time that we are only a day away. We probably won't be posting until after Family Day, and I promise pictures are coming soon.
9/14/07
9/14/07 On a Clear Day
The forecast for today is scattered showers – that doesn’t sound too bad. We’re going to the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. Angela picks us up at 8 and we are almost ready. It’s raining pretty steadily – perhaps it will clear up this afternoon. After a circuitous exit from central Beijing, jammed with rush hour traffic, which makes us feel right at home, we are on a highway heading north. But first we are first diverted to a Cloisonnй factory, which our guide book (DK Eyewitness travel – great book, lots of pictures and maps, drawback – it weighs 2 pounds) specifically warns against. From the many tour busses pulled up, clearly part of the fleecing the tourist routine. The hand manufacturing process is interesting to watch. Then we are herded into the mammoth showroom. A tiny Lela sized bangle is 45Yuan ($5.75 US), about two dollars more than I would expect to pay for it in Chinatown. I do buy her a small bell with a panda on it. I tell Angela that since we are from NYC, there isn’t much here that we couldn’t get for about the same at home. She seems unhappy to get that news. Another tourist want to take Lela’s picture with Angela, thinking they are mother daughter. We visit the bathrooms, Lela is disappointed it isn’t a “squatty potty” of which she has become enamored since our first experience at the Forbidden City. Jamie vanishes, but since I have lost track of him in many foreign lands, I know he couldn’t take the shopping and went outside. And there he is.
Now we are finally off to the Great Wall. As we start to climb into the mountains the weather is even worse, with fog joining the rain. Suddenly drifting out of the mist is a dragon spine of crenellated wall and towers along the mountain ridge, far above. It’s misting rather than raining, and visibility is poor. We start the climb. We pass the famous chain of locks, where relatively recent legend has it that it will bind true love together. Also a carved quote from the Chairman to the effect that “To climb the Great Wall does not make you a hero.”
The steps are irregular, going from 3 to 15 inches high. Many, especially the outer ones by the hand rail, have been worn into a slippery trench. The wall varies from only a few feet wide, enough for two way foot traffic to a broad platform. It is very steep. I am very out of shape. Panting and wheezing I get to the first guard tower where Jamie, Lela and Angela are waiting, look fresh and smiling, if a bit soggy. Lela should look fresh, Jamie carried her most of the way while she chanted, “I think I can, I think I can.” They decide to go on to the next tower which can only be seen intermittently like a Chinese Brigadoon. I decline on the grounds that dying of a heart attack is not my idea of how to have fun on vacation, and besides there are no photo ops in a wall of fog. Not to mention that my fear of heights inspired vertigo is kicking in and I still have to go back down the first climb. Even though it’s not what I had imagined, it still has an eerie beauty, with glimpses of the towers fading in and out of the cool white breathe of the mountain like phantoms from another time.
Back at the base, Lela has had too much time to hang around the souvenir shops. She is demanding a stuffed panda. Her reasoning is sound. Even though she has a panda, she doesn’t have one here. And her panda at home needs a friend. I give in and also get her a Great Wall T-shirt. The child who only wears pink or purple chooses flaming orange.
On to lunch which is “amazing” located in a jade factory. Seeing the carving process is interesting, but the prices are clearly gouged, make that gauged to the pocket books of “rich” westerners. We don’t buy anything. The lunch is pretty good. Angela has gotten the picture. There is an appetizer of melon in mayonnaise, better tasting than it sounds, an egg and tomato dish that Lela loves, tofu in a mild sauce, steamed broccoli and baby bok choy, and a noodle soup that arrives too late. Desert is watermelon and fresh Chinese dates, that taste like a lady apple. Lela’s desert is an ice cream bar, the freezer having been spotted when we arrived.
We reboard our van for the Ming Tombs. We start to see some real countryside – and it’s full of corn fields and apple orchards. The apples are individually bagged and many orchards are netted. No wonder the produce we see is beautiful.
The tombs are the resting place for 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors. The grounds are quiet and elegant, though clearly prepared for a mob scene during the height of tourist season. We walk along side the funerary walk where the Emperor took his last journey. We pass by the Gate of Heaven. Angela explains that it is custom that you should not walk under it or you may be going to heaven sooner than you wish. Lela sees someone walk through. This sets off a Q & A that lasts the rest of the visit. Angela is earning her money, and we get a break.
We get to the entrance of one of the fully excavated tombs. This is a day of extremes. First to the top of the mountain with the Great Wall. Now we go down, down, down 270 feet below ground level. Nope - no elevators. Knees like jello by the bottom. The tombs are high vaulted rooms. Reproductions of an emperor and empresses' coffins and funerary goods are on display. People have thrown money at many of the displays for good luck. The exit, thankfully, is a at lower elevation. We buy some pink and pale green apples from vendors by the parking lot. They are crisp and juicy. Lela falls asleep on my lap as we struggle thorough Friday night rush hour in a rain storm. Jamie snoozes in the van too.
Back at the hotel I fall asleep and Jamie and Lela go to check out the swimming pool. Lela walks through the foot bath in her jeans. They have to buy bathing caps. Lela swims the pool about 6 times with a rubber float. This is the first time she’s been in a deep pool without a life vest.
Back in the room we decide we are not hungry and prepare to watch the day’s slide show that I have downloaded to our computer. It is too long for Lela who wants the computer to play her Princess CD. Jamie nods off. I get Lela to sleep and plug in my battery recharger, forgetting about power conversion. It begins to melt. Kiss that baby goodbye. Finally we are all asleep.
The forecast for today is scattered showers – that doesn’t sound too bad. We’re going to the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. Angela picks us up at 8 and we are almost ready. It’s raining pretty steadily – perhaps it will clear up this afternoon. After a circuitous exit from central Beijing, jammed with rush hour traffic, which makes us feel right at home, we are on a highway heading north. But first we are first diverted to a Cloisonnй factory, which our guide book (DK Eyewitness travel – great book, lots of pictures and maps, drawback – it weighs 2 pounds) specifically warns against. From the many tour busses pulled up, clearly part of the fleecing the tourist routine. The hand manufacturing process is interesting to watch. Then we are herded into the mammoth showroom. A tiny Lela sized bangle is 45Yuan ($5.75 US), about two dollars more than I would expect to pay for it in Chinatown. I do buy her a small bell with a panda on it. I tell Angela that since we are from NYC, there isn’t much here that we couldn’t get for about the same at home. She seems unhappy to get that news. Another tourist want to take Lela’s picture with Angela, thinking they are mother daughter. We visit the bathrooms, Lela is disappointed it isn’t a “squatty potty” of which she has become enamored since our first experience at the Forbidden City. Jamie vanishes, but since I have lost track of him in many foreign lands, I know he couldn’t take the shopping and went outside. And there he is.
Now we are finally off to the Great Wall. As we start to climb into the mountains the weather is even worse, with fog joining the rain. Suddenly drifting out of the mist is a dragon spine of crenellated wall and towers along the mountain ridge, far above. It’s misting rather than raining, and visibility is poor. We start the climb. We pass the famous chain of locks, where relatively recent legend has it that it will bind true love together. Also a carved quote from the Chairman to the effect that “To climb the Great Wall does not make you a hero.”
The steps are irregular, going from 3 to 15 inches high. Many, especially the outer ones by the hand rail, have been worn into a slippery trench. The wall varies from only a few feet wide, enough for two way foot traffic to a broad platform. It is very steep. I am very out of shape. Panting and wheezing I get to the first guard tower where Jamie, Lela and Angela are waiting, look fresh and smiling, if a bit soggy. Lela should look fresh, Jamie carried her most of the way while she chanted, “I think I can, I think I can.” They decide to go on to the next tower which can only be seen intermittently like a Chinese Brigadoon. I decline on the grounds that dying of a heart attack is not my idea of how to have fun on vacation, and besides there are no photo ops in a wall of fog. Not to mention that my fear of heights inspired vertigo is kicking in and I still have to go back down the first climb. Even though it’s not what I had imagined, it still has an eerie beauty, with glimpses of the towers fading in and out of the cool white breathe of the mountain like phantoms from another time.
Back at the base, Lela has had too much time to hang around the souvenir shops. She is demanding a stuffed panda. Her reasoning is sound. Even though she has a panda, she doesn’t have one here. And her panda at home needs a friend. I give in and also get her a Great Wall T-shirt. The child who only wears pink or purple chooses flaming orange.
On to lunch which is “amazing” located in a jade factory. Seeing the carving process is interesting, but the prices are clearly gouged, make that gauged to the pocket books of “rich” westerners. We don’t buy anything. The lunch is pretty good. Angela has gotten the picture. There is an appetizer of melon in mayonnaise, better tasting than it sounds, an egg and tomato dish that Lela loves, tofu in a mild sauce, steamed broccoli and baby bok choy, and a noodle soup that arrives too late. Desert is watermelon and fresh Chinese dates, that taste like a lady apple. Lela’s desert is an ice cream bar, the freezer having been spotted when we arrived.
We reboard our van for the Ming Tombs. We start to see some real countryside – and it’s full of corn fields and apple orchards. The apples are individually bagged and many orchards are netted. No wonder the produce we see is beautiful.
The tombs are the resting place for 13 of the 16 Ming Emperors. The grounds are quiet and elegant, though clearly prepared for a mob scene during the height of tourist season. We walk along side the funerary walk where the Emperor took his last journey. We pass by the Gate of Heaven. Angela explains that it is custom that you should not walk under it or you may be going to heaven sooner than you wish. Lela sees someone walk through. This sets off a Q & A that lasts the rest of the visit. Angela is earning her money, and we get a break.
We get to the entrance of one of the fully excavated tombs. This is a day of extremes. First to the top of the mountain with the Great Wall. Now we go down, down, down 270 feet below ground level. Nope - no elevators. Knees like jello by the bottom. The tombs are high vaulted rooms. Reproductions of an emperor and empresses' coffins and funerary goods are on display. People have thrown money at many of the displays for good luck. The exit, thankfully, is a at lower elevation. We buy some pink and pale green apples from vendors by the parking lot. They are crisp and juicy. Lela falls asleep on my lap as we struggle thorough Friday night rush hour in a rain storm. Jamie snoozes in the van too.
Back at the hotel I fall asleep and Jamie and Lela go to check out the swimming pool. Lela walks through the foot bath in her jeans. They have to buy bathing caps. Lela swims the pool about 6 times with a rubber float. This is the first time she’s been in a deep pool without a life vest.
Back in the room we decide we are not hungry and prepare to watch the day’s slide show that I have downloaded to our computer. It is too long for Lela who wants the computer to play her Princess CD. Jamie nods off. I get Lela to sleep and plug in my battery recharger, forgetting about power conversion. It begins to melt. Kiss that baby goodbye. Finally we are all asleep.
Continued 9/13/07
To be Continued.....9/13/07
Then on to the Hutong tour. This is the old districts of Beijing with low one-story buildings mostly built of gray brick, that were originally built for one family around a courtyard, but as the population expanded the courtyards were filled in with additional buildings which may now house 15 families, and leaving a maze of narrow alley ways. The tour is by rickshaw, which are now pedicabs. As it was raining the cabs were plastic draped to preserve the velvet “surrey with a fringe on top.” Only two to a cab, so Jamie rode with our guide, June, and Lela and I rode in a second cab. This was going to be a problem as we had barely enough cash left to tip for one guide and driver.
We careened through the twisted alleys, barely missing pedestrians and other cyclists – which seems to be the approach to all types of traffic. Cutting off is an art form in Beijing, but despite hair-raising close calls, we haven’t seen an accident. There seems to be massive amounts of demolition and building going on. Lela began to fade. We stopped to meet a home owner, Mr. Li, and he offered us tea and small snacks. June and Mr. Li told us about the Hutong. He has a three room house, the living room were we were, about 10x10 and a bedroom on each side. The kitchen is traditional charcoal brazier outside the door and there are neighborhood toilet/bathing facilities. The government took ownership of the houses after the revolution, and the residents are renters. The lease is lifelong and can be passed down, but the house can’t be sold. Much of the renovation we saw was in response to the upcoming Olympics, and large renovations are paid for by the government. Lela fell asleep in my lap, so I sat while Mr. Li and June took Jamie for a walk around the immediate neighborhood. On the way back Lela revived and we run into the Hutong version of a traffic jam. Two vans are having a face down in a narrow alley and no one could get around. Rickshaws begin to pile up and finally we turn back, try a couple of other alleys and finally make it back to the square where our van awaits. Jamie borrows 20 Yuan from Angela to pay the guide and drivers. We are now broke. Back to the hotel.
The driver brought us in the back way and we decide to walk in that direction, which looked interesting. We look at one restaurant, stroll up the adjacent avenue a couple of blocks. Beijing is lively after dark. Families are out on the sidewalk, kids play, restaurant barkers beckon, and construction projects run all night. Throw in the penchant for neon everywhere possible and it has a carnival effect. But even a carnival can’t keep Lela awake now, so we take her back to the hotel, change her limp little body into pj’s (another night without brushing teeth) and put her to bed. Jamie goes out again to get some food and a Beijing Olympics T-shirt for Lian. Lela, crafty beyond her years, gave that idea her seal of approval adding, “And if it’s too big, I can wear it while she grows up.” Jamie comes back with....some candy, which we need like a hole in the head. However, we have massive amounts of snacks (but no chocolate), so I have an energy bar for dinner. I try to post to our blog – I can get on but all the instruction language is in Chinese! I think I managed to post in English, but can’t figure out how to change the language back to English. We are all in bed at a reasonable hour.
Then on to the Hutong tour. This is the old districts of Beijing with low one-story buildings mostly built of gray brick, that were originally built for one family around a courtyard, but as the population expanded the courtyards were filled in with additional buildings which may now house 15 families, and leaving a maze of narrow alley ways. The tour is by rickshaw, which are now pedicabs. As it was raining the cabs were plastic draped to preserve the velvet “surrey with a fringe on top.” Only two to a cab, so Jamie rode with our guide, June, and Lela and I rode in a second cab. This was going to be a problem as we had barely enough cash left to tip for one guide and driver.
We careened through the twisted alleys, barely missing pedestrians and other cyclists – which seems to be the approach to all types of traffic. Cutting off is an art form in Beijing, but despite hair-raising close calls, we haven’t seen an accident. There seems to be massive amounts of demolition and building going on. Lela began to fade. We stopped to meet a home owner, Mr. Li, and he offered us tea and small snacks. June and Mr. Li told us about the Hutong. He has a three room house, the living room were we were, about 10x10 and a bedroom on each side. The kitchen is traditional charcoal brazier outside the door and there are neighborhood toilet/bathing facilities. The government took ownership of the houses after the revolution, and the residents are renters. The lease is lifelong and can be passed down, but the house can’t be sold. Much of the renovation we saw was in response to the upcoming Olympics, and large renovations are paid for by the government. Lela fell asleep in my lap, so I sat while Mr. Li and June took Jamie for a walk around the immediate neighborhood. On the way back Lela revived and we run into the Hutong version of a traffic jam. Two vans are having a face down in a narrow alley and no one could get around. Rickshaws begin to pile up and finally we turn back, try a couple of other alleys and finally make it back to the square where our van awaits. Jamie borrows 20 Yuan from Angela to pay the guide and drivers. We are now broke. Back to the hotel.
The driver brought us in the back way and we decide to walk in that direction, which looked interesting. We look at one restaurant, stroll up the adjacent avenue a couple of blocks. Beijing is lively after dark. Families are out on the sidewalk, kids play, restaurant barkers beckon, and construction projects run all night. Throw in the penchant for neon everywhere possible and it has a carnival effect. But even a carnival can’t keep Lela awake now, so we take her back to the hotel, change her limp little body into pj’s (another night without brushing teeth) and put her to bed. Jamie goes out again to get some food and a Beijing Olympics T-shirt for Lian. Lela, crafty beyond her years, gave that idea her seal of approval adding, “And if it’s too big, I can wear it while she grows up.” Jamie comes back with....some candy, which we need like a hole in the head. However, we have massive amounts of snacks (but no chocolate), so I have an energy bar for dinner. I try to post to our blog – I can get on but all the instruction language is in Chinese! I think I managed to post in English, but can’t figure out how to change the language back to English. We are all in bed at a reasonable hour.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Beijing !
Beijing 9/13/07
Our guide, Angela, is going to pick us up at 8am. We have a 7 am wake so that should work out. Lela is up and full of beans at 5am, so we are up too, but rather beanless. Room is a mess. The weather outside is in the mood for thunderstorms, Lela counts between lightening flashes. Jamie and Lela go down for breakfast while I shower and tidy up. The buffet breakfast is a nice international selection ranging from curries, baked beans, salad and cold cuts, beer (and a couple guys drinking it) to omelets, congee, fried noodles and fresh fruit, not to mention a groaning bread board. Lela is on her second omelet and fried noodles. I go with the more conservative waffle, bacon and yogurt. We spot our guide waiting in the lobby. We’re still not ready. She announces a change of plans, instead of the Great Wall, because of the weather, we will go to Tianenman Square and the Forbidden City. I grab about 350 Yuan ($45 US) for the day since our lunch and admissions are all paid for.
We drive down Changdua Avenue where our hotel is located, the Jianguo Garden. (We haven’t seen the garden yet – or the promised swimming pool for that matter.) The Avenue bisects the City from the Square. We park on a side street, pile Lela into her stroller and walk along the side of the square. We’re used to the scale of NYC, but the immensity of open space provokes a different kind of awe. Tour groups swarm about following their flag or umbrella bearing queen bees. Umbrellas as a signal may be problematic today – everyone has one. It has cooled off overnight, and though still almost 100% humidity, not uncomfortable – unless you are wearing a plastic raincoat that condenses on the inside. Angela points out various buildings and monuments. We arrive at the first gate of the Forbidden City, with a giant poster of Mao over the door. Door is a feeble word for the 20 foot high arched tunnels protected by massive knob studded red doors with 8” high thresholds to keep out the evil spirits.
In the outer square are souvenir booths, and a military detail barracks (complete with astro turf basketball court.) and many buildings swathed in scaffolding, under renovation for the Olympics – less than a year to go now. The stucco walls are painted a rusty ox blood red and the roofs are built up of yellow tiles.
Angela buys our tickets (60yuan, but Lela is free) and we head into another massive tunnel through another weighty structure into the second courtyard. We walk along the perimeter wall, which gives a misleading impression of narrowness. The walls contain pavilions or rostrums as Angela calls the. Several have displays of military costumes and gear. Lela is still in her stroller, which gets a lot of looks, or perhaps it’s the combination of us, her and the stroller – we haven’t seen another one yet. Jamie and I horse her up and down steep flights of marble stairs where no ramps exist. It has a fitting historic resonance – sedan bearers for our little empress Angela calls us. There are ramps of brick, carefully built so the upper edge of each brick protrudes above its upper cousin, creating a lip and providing traction – and making a wild clickety clack rumble when a stroller is whizzing over.
I am snapping away, and then sprinting to catch up. Luckily I have Jamie - I would never see Angela, but I can always find him in a crowd. I am intrigued by the textures and decorations. Many of the painted beams have been renewed in brilliant blues, golds, and reds – writhing dragons, chrysanthemum clouds and other mythical beasts. The pagoda eaves of each building have a string of creatures staring down over the courtyard and the roof beams are finished with a yellow dragon tile. This courtyard has it’s original stone blocks – and a group of a dozen hand weeders, swathed in pastel rain ponchos, crouched in a row working their way toward the center.
Through another wall/door/tunnel and we enter the living quarters. Here the spaces are much more intimate and it’s very maze like. Lela is fascinated by the description of the six Chinese cardinal directions; front, back, left, right, up, down, and how the resonance between the number six and word for deer, the symbol of the Empress, create the concept of a safe place. She somehow merges it with the thousands of dragon representations and starts a monologue on dragons, directions and safety that amuses a large touring group. I have managed to fill a 1 gig memory card already. Wanna see my slide show?
We exit the rear of the complex and our driver picks us up. we are taken to a restaurant for lunch. They have not gotten the idea of vegetarian yet. I get a pork with zucchini and peanut dish and a pepper beef with onions, both delicious, but I can only eat a bit of each. Jamie and Lela get noodle soup only with a discussion, and two plates of steamed vegetables. We will have to talk to Angela. After we get ice cream bars at a corner shop before climbing back in the van. we drive out to where the Olympic stadiums are being constructed. One is an amorphous flowing bulge, bound to shape by a cat’s cradle of steel ribbons. People are stopping their cars on the highway to be photographed in front of it. Then on to a tourist trappe, a tea ceremony demonstration. We do enjoy the demonstration of 5 different teas (except Lela) Then the pressure is on to buy. We do buy some flower ball tea. They are hand tied balls that “flower” into beautiful shapes when hot water is added. We almost wipe out our cash.
To be Continued.....
Our guide, Angela, is going to pick us up at 8am. We have a 7 am wake so that should work out. Lela is up and full of beans at 5am, so we are up too, but rather beanless. Room is a mess. The weather outside is in the mood for thunderstorms, Lela counts between lightening flashes. Jamie and Lela go down for breakfast while I shower and tidy up. The buffet breakfast is a nice international selection ranging from curries, baked beans, salad and cold cuts, beer (and a couple guys drinking it) to omelets, congee, fried noodles and fresh fruit, not to mention a groaning bread board. Lela is on her second omelet and fried noodles. I go with the more conservative waffle, bacon and yogurt. We spot our guide waiting in the lobby. We’re still not ready. She announces a change of plans, instead of the Great Wall, because of the weather, we will go to Tianenman Square and the Forbidden City. I grab about 350 Yuan ($45 US) for the day since our lunch and admissions are all paid for.
We drive down Changdua Avenue where our hotel is located, the Jianguo Garden. (We haven’t seen the garden yet – or the promised swimming pool for that matter.) The Avenue bisects the City from the Square. We park on a side street, pile Lela into her stroller and walk along the side of the square. We’re used to the scale of NYC, but the immensity of open space provokes a different kind of awe. Tour groups swarm about following their flag or umbrella bearing queen bees. Umbrellas as a signal may be problematic today – everyone has one. It has cooled off overnight, and though still almost 100% humidity, not uncomfortable – unless you are wearing a plastic raincoat that condenses on the inside. Angela points out various buildings and monuments. We arrive at the first gate of the Forbidden City, with a giant poster of Mao over the door. Door is a feeble word for the 20 foot high arched tunnels protected by massive knob studded red doors with 8” high thresholds to keep out the evil spirits.
In the outer square are souvenir booths, and a military detail barracks (complete with astro turf basketball court.) and many buildings swathed in scaffolding, under renovation for the Olympics – less than a year to go now. The stucco walls are painted a rusty ox blood red and the roofs are built up of yellow tiles.
Angela buys our tickets (60yuan, but Lela is free) and we head into another massive tunnel through another weighty structure into the second courtyard. We walk along the perimeter wall, which gives a misleading impression of narrowness. The walls contain pavilions or rostrums as Angela calls the. Several have displays of military costumes and gear. Lela is still in her stroller, which gets a lot of looks, or perhaps it’s the combination of us, her and the stroller – we haven’t seen another one yet. Jamie and I horse her up and down steep flights of marble stairs where no ramps exist. It has a fitting historic resonance – sedan bearers for our little empress Angela calls us. There are ramps of brick, carefully built so the upper edge of each brick protrudes above its upper cousin, creating a lip and providing traction – and making a wild clickety clack rumble when a stroller is whizzing over.
I am snapping away, and then sprinting to catch up. Luckily I have Jamie - I would never see Angela, but I can always find him in a crowd. I am intrigued by the textures and decorations. Many of the painted beams have been renewed in brilliant blues, golds, and reds – writhing dragons, chrysanthemum clouds and other mythical beasts. The pagoda eaves of each building have a string of creatures staring down over the courtyard and the roof beams are finished with a yellow dragon tile. This courtyard has it’s original stone blocks – and a group of a dozen hand weeders, swathed in pastel rain ponchos, crouched in a row working their way toward the center.
Through another wall/door/tunnel and we enter the living quarters. Here the spaces are much more intimate and it’s very maze like. Lela is fascinated by the description of the six Chinese cardinal directions; front, back, left, right, up, down, and how the resonance between the number six and word for deer, the symbol of the Empress, create the concept of a safe place. She somehow merges it with the thousands of dragon representations and starts a monologue on dragons, directions and safety that amuses a large touring group. I have managed to fill a 1 gig memory card already. Wanna see my slide show?
We exit the rear of the complex and our driver picks us up. we are taken to a restaurant for lunch. They have not gotten the idea of vegetarian yet. I get a pork with zucchini and peanut dish and a pepper beef with onions, both delicious, but I can only eat a bit of each. Jamie and Lela get noodle soup only with a discussion, and two plates of steamed vegetables. We will have to talk to Angela. After we get ice cream bars at a corner shop before climbing back in the van. we drive out to where the Olympic stadiums are being constructed. One is an amorphous flowing bulge, bound to shape by a cat’s cradle of steel ribbons. People are stopping their cars on the highway to be photographed in front of it. Then on to a tourist trappe, a tea ceremony demonstration. We do enjoy the demonstration of 5 different teas (except Lela) Then the pressure is on to buy. We do buy some flower ball tea. They are hand tied balls that “flower” into beautiful shapes when hot water is added. We almost wipe out our cash.
To be Continued.....
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Lian on left in yellow
about 14 months, with her friend Hailey
Lian at 6 months
Who could resist that smile?
Lian at 4 months
Right after surgery for her lip
Sha'anxi Province Map
HanZhong in lower left
China Map
Sha'anxi Province in center
