A Day of Very Big Things
Topic: Beijing

Big Thing No. 1:

All the adoptive families attended a welcome ceremony at the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The ceremony was also attended by Minister  of Civil Affairs Li Xueju and Deputy Minister Dou Yupei, both instrumental in creating the international adoption program In China in the not-too-distant past.

 

The ceremony was lovely and very moving; our children were hailed as good will ambassadors, furthering friendly relations between the countries, and told they would always have two homes.  The staff at Bridge of Love Adoption Service (BLAS), who have organized this amazing tour, performed a dance with traditional costumes of the various regions, and then our children got up on stage and sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of their performance, because Liann dragged me up their with her.

Finally, the families were presented with gifts from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and gathered for a very large group picture. It really was a lovely ceremony to be involved with, and quite humbling to be thought of as a honoree.

Big Thing No. 2: The Olympic Venue

After we completed the ceremony at the MCA, we traveled to the point in Beijing where the Olympics had been held. Having been obsessed with the China Olympics from this year's opening ceremonies, I felt like I was meeting a celebrity. We only stayed a few minutes, but still managed to squeeze in a few shots of the Big Kahuna buildings of the 2008 Summer Games.

Big Thing No. 3: The Great Wall of China, Mutianyu Section

After partaking of lunch, we settled in for a long winter's nap on the bus and traveled about an hour out of Beijing to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China. It was a fascinating drive, very rural, with some of the most gorgeous landscape I've ever seen. This is the China that looks like no place else on earth. 

Liann was loving the Great Wall, scaling steps that were essentially half her size. Best of all, we got to ride up to the Wall in a cable car that she described as going "super fast." It didn't really go that fast, but she liked saying it. It was indescribably beautiful at the top; I kept turning and seeing new vistas that I wanted to take a picture of, knowing full well that it can't capture even a little bit of the awe and majesty of the place.

It was a spectacular - and exhausting - day. 

Day Two: In Which the Forbidden City Loosens Up a Bit
Topic: Beijing

Another wildly fun and exhausting day. Met up with many of the families at breakfast with no real plans in mind. Some of us finally decided to try to walk to the Forbidden City, since we hadn't gone in yesterday. At least one of the parents in the group has been to China several times, so we felt like we were in good hands. And it was terrific to be able to do something unstructured; I enjoyed the walks to and from enormously, just being able to see the people and sounds and sights of everyday China.

I meant to mention this in yesterday's post and forgot - the weather the past two days has been gorgeous and the sky absolutely blue. The environmental work that was done here in preparation for the Olympics really paid off; it's far less hazy from pollution than when I was here three years ago.

The Forbidden City was big and imposing and awe-inspiring, but with our less structured pace and the little girls chasing each other around, the pace was very relaxed. We kept to many of the side Halls, which had fabulous names like "The Hall of Mental Cultivation." And the Imperial Garden was so lovely with its rockery and trees - I could have stayed there all day.

Liann was a joy to everyone, and entertained countless people with her impressive skill at looking and the map and telling people where we were, all while walking. Something I could not do at all.

Now, sadly, I was having a wee bit of gastrointestinal distress, despite all my precautions. So my favorite part of the Forbidden City was not the Imperial Garden, or the Throne Room, but a smaller throne room. . .

Let me just say, it was well worth every star.

Upon returning back to the hotel, we enjoyed a brief respite, then sojourned back out, this time to the shopping mall connected to the hotel - nine floors of chaotic consumer sensory overload. It was magnificent. Best of all was the knowledge that even when you travel halfway around the world, some things remain the same.

Meanwhile, in the courtyard of the mall, someone was putting on some kind of dance competition. There was a pole involved, but let me reassure, participants remained fully dressed. As Liann watched the dancer below, she asked the question for the ages: "Can Daddy do that?"

After finding dinner at the mall (Dairy Queen was involved), all the families met at a brief orientation that outlined some of what is to come. Tomorrow, in addition to scaling the Great Wall of China, we will also be participating in a Homecoming Welcome Ceremony at the Ministry of Civil Affairs. It is a very big deal, and one I will be excited to report about tomorrow.

Until then. . . 

 

Day One: Sisterhood of the Traveling Fulingers
Topic: Beijing

Fun with Flying
Topic: Travel day

Ni hao, everyone! It's currently 2:55 am China time, but as I've gotten 6 hours of sleep and am still on U.S. Pacific time, mostly at the moment, we're just killing time until breakfast.:)

To backtrack to our travel day a little. We arrived at SeaTac to find another traveling Fuling family had already beaten us: Maya and her mom Laurie. It's always so neat to meet other families with the same heritage and history.

Then onto the flight, a twelve hour nonstop on Hainan Airlines. I'd been hoping Liann would get a few hours sleep on the flight; sadly, she napped about an hour and that was all she wrote. However, she was the most wonderful travel partner a mom could ask for, and had lots of fun watching travelogues about China and short little odd Chinese cartoons on the seat's television. And of course, many Spongebob episodes from my laptop. The plane was not crowded, but the coveted middle 4-seat areas were claimed from the get-go.

The only minor setback to the trip was in the pre-arrival meal, when Liann - overtired I think - got sick in her seat. Fortunately, I had an abundance of Wet Wipes and we were able to get cleaned up with a minimum of discomfort, and Liann seemed fine after and continues to seem so.

We were picked up at the airport and experienced the Beijing traffic as we traveled to our hotel, the Joy City Hotel. According to our guide, traffic - always a challenge in Beijing - has gotten even worse. I want to say he said something like 4 million cars driving through daily, but don't quote me. I could have been jet lagged:). Although it did seem like we saw a quarter of that number on our drive to the hotel. The weather last night was very temperate - mid 50s - and the lights of the city were brilliant and quite lovely. Liann and Maya made each other giggle uncontrollably throughout the ride.

Liann and I have a beautiful corner room up on the 11th floor.of the Joy City Hotel. She was fast asleep about 20 seconds after her head hit the pillow (and some FINE pillows they are).

Today, when everyone else wakes up, we are touring the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and - hooray - SHOPPING! So leaving you on that cliffhanger - What will Toddie buy and for whom? - I'll report in later.

China Sequel - A Preview

So, a new China adventure awaits. Liann's orphanage, the Social Welfare Institute in Fuling, is moving to a new location within Fuling. All children adopted from this orphanage have been invited back to China to participate in a week-long Homecoming Celebration. Since Director Yang is also retiring, the celebration will also be a tribute to her leadership.

Needless to say, we had not planned on traveling back to China this early. But this seemed like an opportunity we could not pass up. So on November 19, Liann and I will be traveling to join more than 40 other Fuling families in this amazing celebration.

I will try to blog and post pictures as much as I can. I welcome your questions and comments and support throughout the trip.

Home Sweet Home
Well, the night before we left, I went to post my final entry from China to discover that my blog had been vaporized. Fortunately, I heard from home that it was still able to be accessed, but it did mean that I couldn't post that last day. So I shall try to rectify the situation with a final post now.

Our last day in China was very bittersweet. We gathered all the babies for a final group shot in the hotel before we headed over to the American Consulate.

I'm not sure what to call the consulate ceremony - not really a citizenship ceremony, since the girls didn't become citizens until setting ground in the US - but a ceremony none the less, where we said "I do" and everything. I was surprised to find myself tearing up - I think it was the final confirmation that Liann was now ours forever.

The rest of the day was spent packing and repacking for a departure time the next morning of seven am. While I was excited to be coming home, and especially to see Will, whom we'd missed beyond belief, I felt sad to be leaving Liann's homeland.
The flight home was very long, but not as bad as expected. Mother and daughter exchanged a few sharp words about the necessity of said daughter going to SLEEP, even in the midst of other babies crying. Eventually Liann complied and slept about 5 hours overall - GOOD baby.

We have no pictures of us at home yet that I am willing to show you. This has been very hard on Will, so to be accurate I would need to show him in mid-head bang, with Liann looking at him like he's nuts. I choose not to do this. Will is making slow but sure progress toward accepting the situation and his sister. Today they actually rolled a ball to each other for about 30 seconds. A major milestone and the foundation of hopefully the Downs-Downs peace accord.

So the honeymoon is over and now, the real work of becoming a family begins.

Thank you all for reading our diary and participating in our trip to China. We have felt all your prayers and good wishes.

DVDs and Massages
Hi all - I just got back from a two and a half hour Chinese full body massage that Zhou arranged at the health salon for me and a couple other of the women (just for the record, it was very professional - all clothes stayed on AND we were covered by towels), which was had for 120 yuan - that's approximately $15 to you and me. So although I was pummeled to within an inch of my life, it felt fabulous. So let me recount the day before I forget how to type.

It was a very mellow day with nothing scheduled. Greg and Liann and I walked around Shamian Island, went shopping in the morning and just played in the room. She's happiest when it's just us three hanging out, I think.



In the afternoon, Liann and I had some mommy-daughter time while Zhou took the boys out DVD shopping. Greg came home with 23 DVDs that cost 75 cents each, including some movies that have not yet been released, like War of the Worlds - hmmmm. . . . It's kind of a crapshoot as to which will work and which won't, but for 75 cents, who really cares. We'll have screenings upon our return for $5 a head :). Add to the day a lovely dinner with Zhou and a couple other families at the Victory's wonderful Chinese restaurant, and an indescribably wonderful massage, and I'd say it was a pretty fine day.

Busy Day
Whew - a very busy day. We began at the hotel; this is Liann snuggling while we wait with Uncle Zhou.



Then we hopped on a bus that took us into the heart of Guangzhou to the handcrafts museum. It was really amazing; rooms full of sculpture, painting, and my personal favorite, the silk embroidery painting. Each "painting" can take from 2 months to a year to complete, depending on the size and complexity. The thread just shimmers on the canvas. It is something to behold. The building itself was also really interesting, with borders painted and sculpted with Chinese fables.



Next it was onto the Jade Market, which was also next to the Temple of Five Hundred Buddhas. We were able to have one of the monks bless Liann while we were here. We were the only ones in our travel group to take up the offer of a blessing; my thought was, I'm not about to turn down a blessing for my baby, whatever the source, and also, I look at it as a blessing from her homeland. The temple was incredible, row upon row of Buddhas. At one point (I never said I was bright. . .) I asked Zhou, "How many Buddhas are in here?" Duh. The blessing itself was very moving, but very LOOONG. Kind of like a Catholic wedding mass, where you start to pray for it to end. The monk sang several prayers, then flicked some water on Liann with a leaf, then sang some more prayers. There was a fly that kept landing on my leg - I think it was one of the Buddhas sent to test me.



Then it was off to the pearl market. The pearl market is in a mall big as Richmond Mall filled with nothing but bead and pearl and gems and other jewelry makings. I was in heaven.



We celebrated the success of commerce by lunching at Pizza Hut, where my favorite image was diners building elaborate stacked towers of watermelon chunks - they are only allowed one trip to the salad bar, so people very creatively work around that restriction by building very tall engineered fruit structures.

Tomorrow should be much more relaxed. We won't know what to do with ourselves. . .

Medicals
After a good night's sleep, we were all rarin' to go this morning. We left our nice air conditioned room, stepped outside, and the heat and humidity was like an assault. BAM! My hair, which was in a braid, still somehow managed to completely frizz out; within seconds our clothes were damp with sweat. Absolutely amazing.



So our first stop this morning was the medical examination needed for Liann and the other babies to get their Visas to come home. We had something of a minor miracle occur in that there was nobody else in the waiting room but us, so it was a very quick in-and-out thing. Zhou said he's never seen that happen before. We did find out that our daughter, heretofore who has not cried for more than a few seconds, is capable of a long, loud sustained wail. She did not like having her temperature taken or being weighed, just like her brother. She is 22.2 lbs. But she was pronounced hearty and healthy, so that's done.



After a good nap, the girls gathered in our room for a play date while the daddies left for Zhou's room to fill out paperwork. As far as toy-taking goes, Liann is more of the takee than the taker, but she can still voice her opinion with a loud short "MAH" that you can hear all the way down the hall.



We went to a place called Lucy's for dinner with some of the other families, which serves Western food (although Greg and I still ordered Chinese) and plays sad 70 and 80s pop songs - it's a little jarring. In the middle of the meal, while we were sitting outside (under an umbrella), there was suddenly a deluge of rain. Didn't get too wet, and Liann stayed dry, thank goodness.

Tomorrow we're off to the Pearl and Jade Markets to continue our efforts to boost China's economy. Greg is in heaven; a can of beer here cost approximately 25 cents.

Onto Guangzhou
I'm writing this entry from our room at the Old Victory Hotel in Guangzhou, where we've been for about an hour or so. Let me tell you about the day.

Chongqing was rainy, so our morning was spent basically packing and playing with Liann. It was a good tag team approach, with one person being silly with her, and the other person throwing stuff in suitcases willy-nilly. We visited one of the other families and let Liann play with Erica for awhile; they had all their things neatly stacked in Ziplocs in their suitcase - Greg and I were like, "Wow. . . ."



Then it was checkout time, onto the bus and off to the airport in Chongqing. Liann had many many admirers at the airport, all of whom wanted to pat her hand and tell her "Hello." They like to practice their English, but I got many smiles at my sad attempts to say "Ni Hao."



Once on the airplane, we had about 5 families with babies all sitting in one section in Economy. Greg and I were in a middle row of 4; the man sitting on the end of the row began to look a little agitated and by the end of the first scream from the baby in the row in front of us, he had bailed. Ostensibly to another seat somewhere further back, although Greg swears he ran to the escape hatch.

Liann was just a total dream baby during the flight. Looked all around, never cried at takeoff or landing, danced on my lap and flirted criminally. Greg on the other hand, spilled mulberry juice (PURPLE!)all over the crotch of his shorts, while I tried to contain hysterical giggles like a kid laughing in church (Bad wife)throughout the entire flight, because Greg was NOT finding the humor in it. But oh my goodness it was funny.



So now we are at the Old Victory Hotel (yes, Virginia, there is a New Victory as well). It is bee-yoo-tee-ful. The halls are narrow with these big brass sconces and deep wood doors - it feels like you're in Prague or something; and the rooms are humungous, with views overlooking the river (we're on Shamian Island). All this for $50 a night.

Tomorrow is Liann's medical exam for her via, so SHE should have a fun time.