January 12, 2007

Since Alyssa was running a fever and feeling just generally awful all over, Jeff volunteered to stay at the hotel with her and read a book while the rest of us went on the hutong tour in Beijing this morning. It was probably a very wise choice as she slept most of the day away. Before we left for China, people told my children that they were going on the trip of a lifetime; one they would always remember. I'm sure Alyssa will always remember this trip, but I'm not so sure it will be with the fond memories... more

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When we arrived at the bottom of the toboggan run, these two men were dressed up as Mongols and wanted to take a picture with you. Of course there was a fee. 10 yuan. After you took the photo, they clarified that they wanted 10... more

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The views were nice, but sadly nothing like the beautiful greens that are here in the summertime. Instead, all the trees are dead looking and grey. Taylor enjoyed messing around and saying things like "Mongols advancing to the North!" I would have enjoyed climbing much higher than we did, but with young ones and Alyssa ill,... more

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We were truly blessed as it was very cold outside today in the shade--10 to 15 degrees--but only about 25-30 degrees in the sun and with each of us wearing 4 layers we were warm enough as we hiked the Great Wall. There was no wind at all and the sky was a brilliant blue with no haze like we had in Guangzhou or Wuhan, so we couldn't have asked for a better day. The plan was for our day to only be a half-day tour, but with little ones... more

January 11, 2007

From our hotel in downtown Beijing to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall is a two hour drive, which was good because Alyssa is still not feeling well and didn't want to get out of bed. Since we had such a long drive I was able to dope her up with some ibuprofen and she slept most of the way there. I felt bad about dragging her along, but there was no way I was leaving her alone in a hotel room in China two hours away from where I would be.

I checked out her mouth and throat with a flashlight... more

January 11, 2007

It's good we arrived very late last night, as the hotel today by the light of day is not so wonderful. Read the title....drumroll please....The Beijing Golden Palace Silver Street Hotel, and you would think virtual mansion. Ooooh, aaaaahh, lovely.

The place is a dive. It fronts an alleyway, but I guess its redeeming quality is that it is only a 10 minute walk from the Forbidden City (we were told...more on that later) and a five minute walk to the Wang Fu Jing pedestrian district should you want to... more

After blogging about the heavy topic of racism for the past few days, I decided I really must finish our adoption story in China. So, sorry for getting sidetracked by a multitude of other topics in our lives, but I will finish our trip to China by picking up where we left off, which was leaving Guangzhou for Beijing.

January 10, 2007

When we got to the airport,in Guangzhou, Caleb thought we were leaving for America. We have asked the guides to explain things to him and what will be happening, but they don't always follow through. Since we haven't had a touring guide the past few days I asked a shopkeeper in Guangzhou to explain to Caleb what would happen, but apparently he... more

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We arrived to scatterbrained Raymond--our guide for our adoption paperwork--looking for us. He is a sweet man, but reminds me of the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland who is late for a very important date. He was angry that Helen did not escort us to the building as he had asked, so he had come downstairs looking for us. We got up to the fourth floor and met up with about 10 other families who were there for their swearing-in as well.

CNN has been doing a story on... more

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I almost wished we had the guide who met us at the airport when we came back from Wuhan. He was a sweet older man who had very poor English and who was holding up a sign smiling at us and waving. The problem was, the name on the sign was something like Pan XuXian. I told him that wasn't our name, but he seemed to know us. He said "7 in party?" and after a brief cell phone check of his text messages, he found one that had our name. We later laughed and wondered if his "7 in party" was a polite way of saying he knew us because he had been warned by his office, "Only white folks on... more

January 10, 2007

When we hurried back to the hotel after the pearl and jade market, we finished packing up our suitcases and headed downstairs to wait for our ride to the U.S. consulate to obtain Caleb's United States visa. Even though his adoption was finalized in China, without a visa he couldn't enter the U.S.

We were greeted at the hotel by Helen, the first guide we had when we arrived in China. Perhaps it was because we had already gifted her and tipped her, or perhaps it was because she did not want to have... more