Part 1

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

Yes, I do feed my son even though it doesn’t look like it. People have asked me what it was like to travel to China with children to bring home their new brother. I thought for today’s Friday Funny that I would share with you my oldest son’s idea of funny. These were taken, believe it or not in the Civil Affairs office in Wuhan, China, right after we signed for the first 24 hours of custody of Caleb before the adoption paperwork was completed. Caleb took my digital camera and started snapping away,... more

part 1 part 2

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

part 1

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

We finally found a shop inside a jewelry type mall that had pearls and I was afraid they would be incredibly high priced, but after much hunting through strands and bargaining, I was able to bring their price down to what I felt was acceptable. They were very shiny and beautiful and I bought 7 strands. I have wanted black pearls for years, but the only nice quality ones were their individual pearls for sale and they wanted 10 yuan, or about 1.30 per pearl and absolutely would not budge on their price. They said that 10 yuan was still wholesale and that individual pearls are their best quality and that is why they are not on strands. I could see that a necklace of those was going to be pricey... more

continued from part 1

Since we weren't seeing any pearls yet, I asked a young guy about 20 years old who was selling jade in a store if he spoke English. He said yes, and our conversation consisted of this:

"Can you tell me where I can find people who are selling pearls?"

"Yes, yes, pearl"

"Ummm...yes, pearls. Can you tell me where I can buy some pearls?"

"What is pearl? It is like jade?"

"No, pearls are white. They are not a stone like jade. They grow in oysters. You know, in the ocean....water. They take them out and make necklaces", all said while... more