Goodbye, Ningdu

This is video of the incoming orphanage director at Ningdu (blue shirt), the outgoing director (woman in back), one of the government officials (pink shirt) and the SWI doctor, (woman on right) waving goodbye after our visit last summer. As we were leaving the incoming director lit fireworks for us.

Scenes from a Bus, Xian

Xian was our second stop in China. (Click here to read about our train ride from Beijing to Xian, here to read about our first day in Xian and click here to read about our visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors.)Okay. Technically, this is a scene from the overnight train we took from Beijing to Xian. I like the mountains in this one. This was taken probably about an hour before we arrived in Xian. The best part of the train ride was when the sun came up and we could see the scenery going by. It helped me forget how dirty and gross I felt from the day/night before.

We saw a lot of pool floaties being sold along the street in Xian, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out where they would be used. China's not like the U.S. where every other house has a pool in the backyard. The only pools I saw while we were in China were the ones in our hotels.

A woman doing wash outside a shop.

Wires. Lots and lots of wires. Can you imagine working for the cable company or phone company and having to replace a downed wire!?!?!?!

Employees participating in team-building exercises before their workday.

Day laborers waiting to be hired. The little signs say what type of work they do.

Old folks in a park doing their morning exercises. We saw this happening everywhere we went. Sometimes it would be just one or two people; other times it would be large groups.

Scenes from the Bus - Beijing

While in China last summer, I took TONS of pictures through the windows of our buses. They are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. On days when I don't have any current pictures to post, I hope to post some of these pictures. I'll start tonight with ten photos from our bus in Beijing. (Click here to go to read all about our trip to China.)

Traffic. Sorry; I'm not sure why the picture is so crooked.

Punch Buggy!

This was a pretty cool building. If you click on the picture, you can see it bigger to see all the detail.

I have pictures of this theme park in my scrapbook from our first trip to China ten years ago. It was abandoned then, and it still sits empty.

It was interesting to see all the different modes of transportation and the many configurations of bicycles. There seemed to be no limit to the amount of stuff piled on bicycles.

Scene ON the bus.

Squatties

This is a squat toilet. They are very common in China. This particular one was at the Panda Breeding in Center and was fairly clean (for a toilet). Most places we went would have only one Western-style toilet, in the handicap stall. (In preparation for the Beijing Olympics, bathrooms had to be equipped with handicap stalls.)

One of the recurring conversations everywhere we went was "Is there a Western toilet?" Eventually we all gave the squatties a try, whether through necessity or just because someone didn't feel like waiting for 10 people to use the one Western toilet.

The squatties are in a regular stall, and were actually kind of easy to use. But I won't go into detail about how. You can use your imagination.

Meals in China

ALL of our meals in China were wonderful, and not solely because the food was so good. As I've already said, our guides were wonderful, and they made our meals so enjoyable. They took care of everything. We simply sat down and waited for our food to come. The girls would sit at one round table and the grownups at another. Bing and our local guide would do all of the ordering and every meal had pork, chicken, beef, tofu and white rice. Sometimes there were dumplings and sometimes there were noodles. Bing did ask if anyone in the group liked spicy food, and Fred told her he did. As the trip progressed, the food got progressively spicier. And every now and then some French fries magically appeared at the kids tables. Bing was watching out for the kids as well.

Poor Bing even ended up helping us with a few meals when we were supposed to be "on our own." She helped us to order at a food court during free time, and when we ordered pizza at the hotel, she helped us secure a space where we could all eat it together.

This restaurant was outside the Teng Wang Pavilion in Nanchang. We were escorted to a private room, and we all sat at one large round table. At every meal there was a lazy susan in the middle of the table, and the food was served family style. Serving spoons and napkins were not readily available at every meal. We simply used our chopsticks to grab what we wanted off the dishes. Halfway through the trip we joked that if no one was sick by now, we weren't going to get sick because of all the germs exchanged during meals.

This was the meal served to us at the orphanage. We were assuming we would be hosting a lunch for the staff at a local restaurant, but instead they prepared this meal for us. There was corn on the cob (eaten with chopsticks), beans, and a delicious eggplant stuffed with pork. I don't usually care for eggplant, but this was very good. They also served an egg and tomato dish that we had at several restaurants as well. It was basically scrambled eggs with tomatoes, but it was yummy. My biggest worry with the orphanage meal was the raw fruit we were given. We didn't want to offend the orphanage personnel by refusing the fruit, so Rachel and I discreetly used a napkin under the table to wipe it off as best we could. We were worried about bacteria from the water used to wash the fruit. Fortunately we had no ill effects from it. We also were served watermelon, but didn't worry about that since it had a rind and we didn't have to worry about it having been washed.

This was a meal in Xi'an. Xi'an is famous for its dumplings, or jiaozi. And there wasn't a dumpling served that we didn't like. The bronze pot was soup, and they lit a fire under the pot to cook/heat the soup right at the table.

This was inside The Noodle King. It's a chain restaurant whose specialty is, surprise surprise, noodles. Bing said it's like a fast food restaurant, except they do serve you at the table. The food was good, but the rest rooms were not. And that's all I have to say about that.

These were called glass noodles. I believe they were a kind of rice noodle. The kids really liked them. Believe it or not, we were all pretty good at serving/eating noodles with chopsticks.

This was at the restaurant in Beijing where we went for Peking duck. During this early part of the trip, Rachel was not being very adventurous with what she ate. She was filling up on rice for quite a few meals. She did get braver when she realized they weren't going to serve us some of the more, shall we say, interesting foods we had seen on TV. She even tried some of the spicier foods we had later in the trip.

She did not, however, try the Peking duck. The duck wasn't bad. They wheeled it out and sliced it up at our table. You had to pick around the bones, though.

This was a cucumber dish that was very tasty.

We did break down and have McDonald's for a meal or two, but only because Bing wasn't available and we didn't seem capable on our own of deciding where and what to eat.

Coke/Pepsi and Sprite were available at every meal, as well as bottled water and beer. Many times, though the soda and water was served at room temperature. The Chinese don't like to drink cold things. They think it's healthier to drink warm/hot drinks.

All of our breakfasts were western-style buffets at whatever hotel we were at. Interestingly, there was banana bread, no nuts, at every single buffet. There was also an omelet station at each buffet. Sometimes we had trouble communicating that we wanted the eggs well done, though. If we didn't order them well done, they tended to be a bit undercooked.

After worrying about what the food would be like in China, and after some initial hesitation, Rachel really enjoyed the food there. She's eager to try to Kung Pao chicken here so she can compare it to what we had there. Fred and I aren't quite ready to have Chinese food again, though! Even though we didn't really get sick from anything in particular, I think everyone in our group had some sort of belly issue along the way.

h1n1 virus

Everyone I talked to in the weeks leading up to our trip knows how worried I was that we would be in some way affected by the h1n1 virus during our stay in China. Now that we're home, I feel safer confessing how we were affected by it. I didn't really mention it during our trip because I didn't want to jinx anything! I can't help it; I'm a little superstitious.
During our flight to Beijing, we were very cautious. We used Clorox wipes to wipe down our tray tables and arm rests. We used hand sanitizer even after we washed our hands in the lavatories. I would even turn away from the aisle if someone lingered near our seats too long.
Once we landed in Beijing, we were instructed to stay in our seats until health inspectors came on board and took everyone's temperatures. They wore protective eye wear and masks and gloves, and they pointed an infrared thermometer at everyone's foreheads. It was very quick. It probably took less than 10 minutes for them to scan everyone on the plane. I did notice that when the woman who took our temperature was walking back up the aisle to leave, she was stopped by another inspector, who then pointed at a passenger. That passenger's temperature was taken again, and then the health inspectors left the plane.
We were then allowed to gather our things (unfortunately, we didn't realize Rachel's DS case and all her games were NOT in her carry-on, but that's another story for another time) and leave the plane. Walking towards immigration/customs there were several thermal scanners we went through, and at one checkpoint, Rachel was pulled aside into a curtained-off area. I was not allowed to go in with her, but I could see her the whole time. Other people were also being pulled aside. After they took her temperature again, they tried to turn her over to a Chinese woman who was standing next to me. That woman and I both laughed about it a little, and I tried to remember how to say in Chinese "She is my child," but I was flustered and couldn't get it out. Motioning did the job, and after we got her passport and papers back, we went through immigration. No problem there. Walking towards the train to get to the main terminal, Rachel was stopped again, but this time they only looked briefly at her carry-on bag.
We made it to our hotel and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon and the next day. The next night we had an orientation dinner with OCDF staff, and I was informed there that someone on our plane did test positive for h1n1. Fortunately, they were not within three rows of us, so we were not quarantined; however, we were required to take our temperature every day for three days, and we were given three kits, pictured above. The kits each included three masks, a thermometer and a bunch of literature written entirely in Chinese. Believe it or not, I did not panic or freak out.
The next morning we dutifully recorded our temperatures and gave them to our guide, Bing, who I assume then called them into the health official responsible for the district we were staying in. When we came back from our tours that day, I half expected to see people in hazmat suits waiting for us in the lobby, but that didn't happen. (That's what happens: folks in hazmat suits come to take you away to a quarantine hotel in an ambulance.)
During our stay in Beijing, there were some drunks staying on our floor, who we believe were from Kazakhstan or someplace like that. That night one of them tried to get in our room around 3 a.m. I heard the distinctive "beep beep beep" of an incorrect key being tried in our door, and since it was 3 a.m. and I was kind of out of it, I immediately thought it was the health department coming to take us away. I didn't open the door, mind you, but I did look under the door and through the peephole to try to determine if whoever it was was wearing hazmat gear. Only the next morning did I realize it was our drunk neighbors, who I believe were still up and drunk at 7 a.m.
Long story short, we took our temperatures for the three days, tried to avoid the thermal scanner in our government-run hotel lobby and expected to see the hazmat suits every day. On our last day in Beijing we turned our final temperatures in to Bing. She told us to keep the kits, that she had spoken to the health official and when she told them we were leaving that day for Xi'an, the health official basically said "bye-bye!" I think she was just happy to have us out of her district!
We did turn this around into a positive, though. We donated the three thermometers to Rachel's orphanage, along with our other donations. When I handed them the thermometers separately from the bigger donation, there were no questions asked. They just seemed genuinely happy to have them.

Nanchang

On Monday, July 13, we visited the Teng Wang Pavilion in Nanchang. (We had also been here when we adopted Rachel ten years ago.) It was hot. I probably don't have to keep repeating that. I can just say it was very hot every day we were in China.

Every level of the Teng Wang Pavilion has shopping. So we were able to pick up some small things. It seemed a little different from 1999. I remember in '99 there was a man painting names on scrolls and we had gotten one for Rachel. Every letter of her name was a different object, like a palm tree or a butterfly. The one from '99 faded, so I was hoping to get her another one. Oh well. I did manage to buy a very overpriced fan for myself. Just a fold-up hand fan, and I paid 40 yuan for it, or about $6. The girl had originally asked about 80 yuan for it, and I was hot and just wanted a fan, so I didn't really care that I spent too much.

There are only six girls in this picture because one of our families had two orphanages to visit, so they didn't meet back up with us until Monday night.

View from the top of the tower. There are gardens on the grounds as well.

The girls walking across a stone foot bridge in the garden. After leaving here, we walked to a nice restaurant and were seated in a private room. Our local guide ordered for us, and once again everything was very good. Walking to the restaurant, I saw something at a stand that I really wanted to buy, but we had to keep up with the guide. I thought we'd be stopping back by that way when we left the restaurant, but we didn't. Lesson learned; when you see something you want in China, buy it!

Our hotel in Nanchang was very nice. It was the Galactic Peace International Hotel. This is the bathroom. There is a glass wall between the tub and the toilet, but the shower area near the window is completely open, and it had one of those big shower heads in the ceiling, too. We kept saying we wouldn't mind having a bathroom like this at home; however, I'd want a lip of some kind near the shower area, because every time we took a shower, the water came the whole way to the glass door near the toilet.

At some of the airports we flew into and out of in China we would ride a bus from the terminal to the plane and walk up the steps to the plane. It reminded me of flying to Orlando one time when I was 15 or so and I was on crutches and had to hop down the steps of the plane on one foot. This is Rachel and our guide, Bing, in front of our plane in Nanchang. We flew from Nanchang to Shanghai.

Xi'an Day 2, Terra-Cotta Warriors

We began our second day in Xi'an with a trip to the Terra-Cotta Warriors. I'd been anxious to see this since I first heard about it years ago. And it did not disappoint.

This is the entrance to pit number 1. There are currently 3 pits, all still being excavated, with a total of 7,000 clay soldiers and thousands more not yet unearthed. The Terra-Cotta Warriors were first discovered in March of 1974 by local farmers drilling a series of wells in search of water. A cool surprise we had during our visit was that the farmer who first discovered the army was in the museum signing books. He does not allow his picture to be taken, but we did buy a book with his autograph.

This is a picture of "the hospital," where they assemble the unearthed soldiers, piece by piece. They do not add manufactured parts to complete a soldier. If a part is never found, that's the way the soldiers stay. That's why in some pictures you'll see some with missing heads, hands, etc.

The Terra-Cotta Warriors are from the Qin Dynasty, and the pits were in later years set on fire and collapsed.

Originally the soldiers were holding weapons, such as archery tools. If I remember correctly, the weapons were looted thousands of years ago.

As I said, the pits are still being excavated, and there were workers there during our visit.

This tour was one of the highlights of the trip for me. How many times in your life will you have the opportunity to visit two wonders of the world in a period of a couple days? Even though it was very hot this day, I think we all enjoyed seeing the clay soldiers and learning about how they were built (it took 37 years!) and how they were discovered in 1974. Interestingly enough, the farmer was not compensated for his discovery in any way, even though he lost his farm land.

If you ever get to China, go see the Terra-Cotta Warriors. Truly amazing.

Xi'an Day 1

After arriving in Xi'an via the overnight train, we checked into our hotel and took much-needed showers before heading to a Muslim temple. It was hot, and we decided not to climb to the top. But the grounds were very pretty.

We did a little shopping near the temple, and Rachel tried her hand at bartering. Most stalls and some shops we visited expect you to barter. Our guides told us to try to get sellers to a third of their original price. Rachel was pretty successful at doing this. I was proud of her. In this picture we were buying a package of chopsticks. I forget what the price was, but it wasn't much.

After the temple we went to an art institute where we learned about different art styles found in China, such as papercutting and paintings done by farmers. The girls then had a calligraphy lesson and we did a little shopping. There was a painting there of two children that I fell in love with, but just couldn't justify spending a couple hundred dollars for a painting that I didn't have any room for in my home.

For lunch we were treated to dumplings, or jiaozi, a specialty of Xi'an. Some of the dumplings were shaped like pandas, some like flowers. They were pretty and delicious! Most of our meals in China were served family style. The kids (8 girls) would be at one round table, and the grownups, (9), would be at another. Each table had a lazy susan on it, and the guides took care of ordering food for us. There were many selections placed on the lazy susan, and you helped yourself to whatever you wanted. Rice and some kind of soup was served at every meal. The flower shaped dumplings at this lunch had some kind of peanut filling. Most of the time the dumplings had pork in them. Sometimes there were mushrooms inside, too.

Coming up in the next post....the Terracotta Warriers!