Saturday, January 20, 2007

First of all, I'll start with the best news. We should meet Becca on Monday morning at about 9:30 (Beijing time) !!!

Okay, on to today's events. Today was our first and only full day in Beijing, and it was crammed full of sightseeing. We started the day with the breakfast buffet here at the hotel. Most of the food was Western style (typical for what you would find in the USA for breakfast), although there were some noodles and rice on the menu., as well as veal and Spanish sausages. For some reason, there was corn-on-the-cob as well as baked beans on the buffet.

We finally met up with our entire group in the lobby. There are 5 other families, and 2 have their boys with them, so that makes 14 of us total. It is a nice size travel group. I can't imagine having to get 30 or more families all ready at the same time. We are traveling with a woman and her sister from St. Louis, a family from Kansas City, another family from California, and the other two couples are from Arizona and Virginia. We had a good time today, although most of us are a bit tired.

We began the day by going to the CHI (Children's Hope International) offices here in Beijing. Lina, our coordinator, gave us a tour of the office and a video presentation about China and her provinces, including the Anhui Province where are babies are. The best video was the one of all of the families on Gotcha Day. Several of us were teary eyed after that one!

Then we drove through Beijing on the way to Tian' anmen Square and The Forbidden City. In addition to Lina, we had with us Lee, who was our guide for the day, and Ariel, a friend of Lina's. They all added much local knowledge to our tour. At Tian'anmen Square, we were photographed almost as much as we were taking pictures. We definitely stand out in the crowd here. One little boy of about 4 just stopped and stared at us, while a group of teenaged girls grabbed cell phones to photograph us.

The Forbidden City is absolutely huge! There are over 8,000 buildings there that were once used by the Emperor and his family (and his mistresses). The buildings are absolutely beautiful, and we were able to see the bedrooms and a prayer room of the Emperor. Towards the end of our tour, we went into the Imperial Garden, which are a little barren in the winter, of course. We had our picture taken in front of the Unity Tree. The last Emperor and Empress of the Qing Dynasty had their photo taken here after their wedding, and the tree is said to symbolize loyal love. How sweet!

Next, we went to lunch and had the specialty of the area, Peking Duck (Beijing was formerly Peking). We sat at a big table with a lazy susan in the middle, and they just kept bringing out more food. Sweet and sour pork, spring rolls, egg rolls, kung pao chicken, and the duck. We learned from our guide that the ducks are carved into exactly 108 pieces, a multiple of the number 9, a favorite of the Chinese (numbers 6 and 8 are also considered lucky). The food was delicious, and I was surprised that it was similar to the Chinese food we eat at home.

I was very surprised to find that in such a large, fancy restaurant in a huge city, they have "squatty potties." For those of you unfamiliar with these, they are not the Western toilets that we are used to. They are like urinals that are flat on the floor with an opening in the center that one must, well, squat over. Let's just say this....after a long day on the road, you find yourself in some situations that you swore you would never do. And, yes I did! We do have a picture of the toilet, but it didn't seem to fit in with the flow of photos today.

So, what do you do after a huge meal? Go to the Great Wall. What an impressive sight. We both started out climbing the wall, but Victor lasted longer than I did. I blame my cough for keeping me down! Those steps are really difficult. They are spaced so unevenly...some literally are a few inches high while others are 2 feet high. I did not feel comfortable at all unless I was hanging onto a rail, which is hard to do with so many other tourists there. Victor reports that at a higher point on the Wall, the views were spectacular and that the photographs do not do it justice.

On our way back to the hotel, we passed by the soon to be Olympic Village. Beijing is the host for the 2008 Summer Olympics. There is still much work to be done, but we did see the Olympic Stadium and the building that will host the swimming/diving events. They are both very impressive.