Finally in Ningdu!

After a two-hour flight (on which they served a hot lunch....when was the last time that happened in the U.S?), followed by a 4+ hour drive, we finally arrived in Ningdu! What a beautiful drive it was. There was a LOT of construction along the drive, but there were way more rice fields and lotus fields, not to mention huge mountains. Our local guide, Alicia, noticed me pointing out the water buffalo and when we saw one standing alongside the rode, the driver pulled over so I could take pictures. The locals got a kick out of that.

Tomorrow morning someone from the orphanage will meet us and our guide in the lobby and we will head to the orphanage where we will be able to review Rachel's file, see the babies, ask questions, give our gifts, host a lunch and most importantly meet the person who found Rachel and brought her to the orphanage. I have to remember to bring tissues.

The best part of today was finally meeting me email friend Xiaoting. We no sooner got to our room when she rang our bell and we greeted each other with a big hug. Tomorrow after we are finished at the orphanage, we plan to meet up with Xiaoting again so she can show us Ningdu. We will probably to go Cui Wei Mountain. Then we will have dinner together. I can't say how happy I am that we have a friend in Rachel's hometown.

The internet connection here is slow, but at least we have it. If I have time tomorrow or Sunday I will try to post a few pictures, but since I am relying on the kindness of a friend to do my updates, I won't do too many. (Thanks again, Dave!)

Pandas!!!

I haven't had much time to post. This tour really keeps us running, but we are seeing a lot of things. Tomorrow we fly to Nanchang and then are driving to Ningdu. I doubt that we will have internet service in Ningdu. So I probably won't be able to update again until Sunday night at the earliest. I still need to post about our days in Xi'an (wonderful!) and yesterday in Chengdu. Chengdu is a beautiful city, and our guide is the sweetest girl, whose name is Swallow, a translation of her Chinese name. Driving in from the airport yesterday she expressed her gratitude at our visiting her city, saying the tourism industry suffered greatly after last year's earthquake. She told us a few stories of the earthquake and got very emotional. Our group is planning to take up a collection for her to distribute to victims of the earthquake.

Today we finally got to see the pandas! SO much fun. The toddler pandas were very playful. Swallow and Bing said we were very lucky the weather cooled off, because when it's hot all the pandas do is lay around. They were a lot of fun to watch. Rachel and I both got our picture taken with I believe a teenage panda. There are no babies at the preserve right now; just toddlers, teenagers and adults. I don't think the toddlers make good picture subjects, so they place a teenager on a bench and keep feeding him/her apples and it sits there happily eating while we were able to pet it and have pictures taken. No touching their ears or bellies, though, because they are very ticklish there. Rachel also got her picture taken with a red panda. She was able to actually hold the red panda, who was also eating at the time. The preserve itself is beautiful. The walkways are all lined with bamboo which drapes over the walkways. All in all the panda trip was a big hit.

Tomorrow will be a LONG day. The flight from Chengdu to Nanchang is about 2 hours, and I believe our drive to Ningdu will be 4 to 5 hours. This will be the emotional part of the trip, and I don't know how much I'll actually post here. We'll see how it goes. Once home I will post all my pictures and type an email to post to the Ningdu Yahoo group. Later today we plan to have all the girls sit down together and think of questions they want to ask their orphanages. Rachel hasn't really talked much about this part of the trip. I think she is excited to meet our email friend Xiaoting, though.

FYI, Facebook is now blocked here in China, so I am unable to update my Facebook page. :-( We are not anywhere near the rioting up in the northwestern part of China. So please don't worry about that. If anything affects us at this point, it will be heavy rains. It is typhoon season here.

Last day Beijing

Our last day in Beijing was quite busy. In fact, I'm having trouble remembering in what order we did things! So things might be out of order.

We started off at a school for special needs adults; however, since it was Sunday no students were there. The girls did have an opportunity to do some paper cutting and make a card in their art room. We were also able to purchase some of the cards and things the students made. In the courtyard we had a chance to do activities that they do, like kicking a shuttlecock (think hackeysack), spinning a special piece of material on a stick and playing with a true Chinese yoyo.

We then went to tour a hutong via rickshaw and visit with a woman in her home. This was one of the highlights for me so far. Her home was very humble, and they guide said she could probably sell it for a lot of money, but the woman said she is happy and content there and won't move. She lives on a courtyard with two other families. The three men are brothers. The courtyard held a small garden where they were growing pumpkins, peppers, among other things. They had a small fish pond and pigeons. The husband of the woman we met raises pigeons competitively. The children can play in the courtyard, and it kind of reminded me of where we live, on a cul-de-sac with two other families who are pretty close.

We went to Tianenmen Square, and it was HOT. After taking pictures in front of Chairman Mao's picture, we went to the southern end of the square to fly kites. It was hot, but the girls had fun. A storm rolled in and we got caught in the rain. We had seen the storm clouds coming our way, but the wind seemed to come out of nowhere. We were drenched, but tried to laugh it off. We went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner, which was followed by the Chinese acrobats.

The train ride from Beijing to Xi'an was something else. Again we got caught in the rain, and we had to work our way through throngs of people. Bing, our guide, had told us not to worry about being polite and to be pushy if we have to. A lot of the other passengers are from the country, and they just push their way through. Rachel was in front of me, as was one of the other girls in our group whose parents were a little behind me. I just grabbed both girls' arms and wouldn't let go, and we all made it through. It was a little stressful, but interesting and I'm glad we got to experience it. The train itself was fairly comfortable, though I know some people who read my blog wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did. The bathrooms left a little to be desired. Little to no toilet paper, didn't flush well and didn't stay clean long at all. Our compartment was clean, with four bunks. In my compartment it was Rachel and me, and another mom and her daughter, Myriam and Amber. Fred, Bill (Myriam's husband), Bing and Maureen (the only grandmother on the trip) stayed in a compartment next to us. Families of 4 had compartments to themselves, and the rest of us were split up two moms/two daughters to a compartment, and then Fred's odd compartment. Rachel fell asleep pretty much as soon as we pulled out at 9:20 p.m. I didn't sleep well at all, and I got up for good at 5 a.m. and watched out the window almost the rest of the way, until 8:00. The countryside was beautiful. Lots of mountains and farmland. Fields were along the mountains growing mostly corn and sunflowers. There were a lot of graves right in the fields, with big headstones. Bing said they can bury family members in the fields at no cost, and they will have a fengshui expert come in to tell them the bet way to face the body. We also saw ancient caves in the mountainsides where people used to live. There were a lot of sights I tried to take pictures of but at 75 mph, I think they're all blurry.

We leave Xi'an tomorrow morning to fly to Chengdu. I'll try to update with Xi'an pictures soon. They keep us pretty busy! But I think we have some downtime either tomorrow after we arrive or Thursday after we see the pandas.

Great Wall, Summer Palace, Olympic Venues and Peking Acrobats

What a long day, but it was a great day! We started off driving an hour and a half to the Great Wall at Badaling. This is not the section we had visited ten years ago. Fred, Rachel and one of her friends, Amber, made it almost to the top. They wanted to keep going but we are on a strict time schedule and had to meet for lunch. I didn't go as high as them, but I was happy with how far I made it. There were some pretty steep areas, and the railing was really necessary for the climb down. While waiting for Fred and Rachel I did some browsing in the shops. After an okay buffet lunch, we did some shopping. Rachel had her name written in Chinese on a grain of rice and put in a crystal to hang around her neck. It cost $3. Fred the stud had more requests for pictures. After Fred and the girls came back down, we were in a little courtyard area with some shops, and some older Chinese people asked to have their picture taken with all of us. We could tell they were with a tour from the hats they had on. There were a LOT of people with these hats on, and a couple more came over for pictures. We started to feel like celebrities with the papparazi taking our pictures. It was funny, but we had to cut it short and head to lunch.

Then we took a curvy road through the mountains to the Summer Palace. I wish it wouldn't have been so hazy so we could have gotten better pictures. Our little group of 20 (including our wonderful guide, Bing) attracted a lot of attention. We were standing in one spot for about ten minutes while Bing was talking about the Empresses and the Summer Palace, and I noticed a lot of people stopping and staring at us. I'm sure they were trying to figure out why these caucasian adults had Chinese children. At one point later, before we got on the dragon boat, Bing was talking again, and I noticed a group of men who had been staring at us before. This is after we walked half way around the large man made lake, about a 15 minute walk. This time the men were really close, and even though Bing told us we don't have to worry about safety here, and I hate to bring up anything negative, these men were leering at the girls, and I was extremely uncomfortable. I went and stood between 3 or 4 of the girls and the men and told the girls to stay with me when we walked to the dragon boat. It's not that our group was separated, and their parents were close by, but I don't know if they saw the men. Anyway, that was the last we saw of them, and enjoyed the rest of our time there. The Summer Palace and lake are beautiful, but it was hot and humid.

We then drove to the Olympic venues, and were actually able to get out and walk down the street in front of the Water Cube. Very cool. Rachel wanted to run around the track in the Bird's Nest, but there wasn't time. I don't even know if they let you in. I doubt it. The condos in the buildings where they athletes stayed have completely sold out, at a price of 18,000 yuan per square meter.

Beijing has some very cool architecture. One thing I was hoping to see was the CCTV Building, and I caught a glimpse of it before dinner, but never saw the whole thing. BIng refers to one building owned by Morgan Stanley as the dragon building. The top of one tower is curved and she thinks of it as the dragon's head. The top of one of the shorter towers looks like a dragon's tail.

We then had another wonderful dinner, followed by the Chinese Acrobats show, which was really amazing. That was followed by packing and bed.

China has really changed a lot in ten years. Bing says it is more of a capitalist country than a socialist one. The government no longer provides jobs when you finish college, but they do encourage you to begin your career right away. There are more cars than bikes now. Ten years ago we saw a lot of bamboo scaffolding, and I have yet to see any this trip. Dogs -- I hate to say it, but the only dogs we saw last time were for sale as food. A lot of people now have dogs as pets. We've seen many every day. Before dinner tonight there was a small street pet market with everything for sale from crickets (a symbol of good luck) to chow chows. There were chipmunks, bunnies and birds. All for sale as pets, not food.

Today we will visit a school for special needs adults where we will get to interact with the students. Then we will tour a hutong by rickshaw and get to visit with a local family. Bing said we can ask anything we want. From there we will go to a mall for dinner and shopping. Then on to Tienneman Square for kite flying (if there are no official events taking place) before catching the train to Xi'an.

I don't know if we'll have internet access in Xi'an like we do here. Hopefully I'll be able to update as frequently as I do now.

Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City

Hi, everyone! Just a quick update today. We have a VERY long day today. Heading to the Great Wall first, then the Summer Palace, Olympic Venues, dinner and the Peking Acrobats. All this in 100 degree heat!

Yesterday we visited the Temple of Heaven. We had tried to find the Temple of Heaven ten years ago when we were here with Fred's parents, but we didn't have a guide and we got hopelessly lost. I'm so glad we were finally able to see it. There were a lot of locals out in the park at the Temple of Heaven doing various activities: playing cards, mahjongg or some other tile game,

Then we came back to the hotel for lunch on our own. We went with the Roenschs to try to find a noodle restaurant that is supposedly close to the hotel, but we couldn't find it, and the kids were getting cranky, so we just went to McDonald's. We loaded back onto the bus and headed to the Forbidden City. LOTS of walking, but we saw a lot more of it than we did last time.

The peking duck dinner was fabulous! So much good food. My favorite was a pork dish that had peanuts and green onions in it and you make a sandwich out of it with some round bread. The duck was good, too. You wrap it up in a tortilla-type thing with onions, cucumber and a sauce.

Funny story....Fred is quite the stud here! Several women today wanted their picture taken with him! He's actually being a good sport about it. Pretty funny.

I've been taking lots of daily life pictures out the window of the bus. A lot of people, mostly women, wear long gloves or detachable sleeves to keep the sun off their arms. I also see people wearing full face shields when riding their bikes. Then they flip up and act as visors. I saw a little boy with split pants on and got a picture of him, but he was bending over, so it was a little obscene. I'll edit it and include it in my Kodak gallery after we are home.

One last thing....my neighbor/friend Dave is doing my updates for me. I can't access blogger from here, so that's why I'm not replying to any comments. Thank you, Dave!

That's it for today!

Lama Temple

We were all awake by 4 a.m. today, but we slept pretty good. The beds are rock hard, though. We were downstairs for breakfast when they opened at 6:30. The buffet was pretty good. Fred and I had omelets, but forgot to order them well done. It's been 24 hours now, so I think we're in the clear. They had bacon, pastries, pork, chicken nuggets, cereal, fried rice and lots more, including some kind of cold fungus, which kind of just looked like black spinach. We all had orange juice, which we're pretty sure didn't have ice in it. Instead it had like a cooler thing in the middle of it. Fred had coffee, but says it wasn't very good.

There were a lot of families there with red OCDF t-shirts on, but they weren't from our group. Jane Leidke, the director of OCDF, showed up as well, and informed us another tour started two days before ours. Jane also gave us some ideas for what to do with our free day.

After breakfast we headed down the street to an Italian coffee shop Jane had told us about. Unfortunately they just opened when we got there at 10:00, so no coffee for Fred and Lynette. We then turned left down street to look for the Yonghe Temple Jane told us about. The Yonghe Temple is also known as the Palace of Peace and Harmony Lama Temple, or just the Lama Temple. It has many halls with Buddhas in them. Outside the front of the halls is a place for burning incense and praying. One of the halls contained a 73 foot (I think) Meitreya Buddha carved from a single tree trunk. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed in the halls.

After leaving the Lama Temple we walked down an alley towards the Confuscious Temple, which we decided not to go in. Walking down the alley there were shops, a teahouse, a school, and a coffee shop where Fred and Lynette finally got their coffee. I tried bartering for the first time, buying a small Buddha. She started at 60 rmb, I started at 30, and we ended at 40. Jane told us to start really low, even as low as 1 rmb. She said it is not insulting to them at all. There was one man following us when we first entered the alley who was trying to sell us postcards. He was very persistent, even though we kept saying no, both in Chinese and English. Finally we just picked up our pace and ignored him and he left.

We stopped for dumplings on the way back to the hotel. Although the food was good, it took forever for Rachel's rice to come. We had pork dumplings and mushroom dumplings. The inside of the mushroom dumpling looked more like a meatball. They were good, though.

After a swim and a nap, we met downstairs for our orientation meeting with Jane, our guide Le Bing, and our travel coordinator Jenny Peng. Dinner consisted of lots of different foods: rice-stuffed lotus root (only thing I didn't care for), pork, VERY spicy kung pao chicken, sweet and sour chicken, beef and vegetables (including some HOT green peppers which I mistook for zucchini -- oops!), dumplings, rice, broccoli, green beans, some other kind of greens and a few things I can't remember right now.

During dinner we were able to speak to Jenny about our orphanage visit, and we were informed that they were able to locate the person who found Rachel and brought her to the orphanage when she was born. I'm thrilled, as I wasn't sure they'd be able to locate this person. I'm feeling like I'm short on gifts, though. Salt water taffy, Hershey kisses and lipstick seem so insignificant to give to someone who saved your child's life. But I'm very excited to meet this person and show them what a wonderful, beautiful person that little baby has turned into.

We ended our day with an ice cream cone from McDonald's.

Some interesting notes from today: This is a government run 4-star hotel, and there is a thermal scanner by the front desk. They had it pointed at our group when we were standing around talking. I saw a VERY young boy, no more than 3 or 4 year old, smoking. Walking down the street with a man, holding the cigarette between his two fingers. I still can't get over that. I know smoking is big here, but I didn't realize they start so young.

We made it!

We made it! We overcame our first hurdle with no problems. I had been stressing over our one-hour connection in D.C. for seven months. Our flight from Philly to D.C. left a little early, and we didn't have to change terminals, so we got to the gate in D.C. with about 10 minutes to spare. It was a packed flight, with LOTS of kids, at least 30 kids. I did see a couple babies being walked up and down the aisle, and it took me back 10 years to when we brought Rachel home and spent almost the entire flight from Hong Kong to Chicago walking the aisles with Rachel.

Our flight left on time and we were on our way. Rachel slept a couple hours. I didn't sleep at all. I tried, but it just didn't happen. Overall, the flight was good. They served a hot meal shortly after we left, hot noodles around dinner time, and a choice of a hot sandwich with yogurt and cookies or what looked like lo mein shortly before we landed. I was fascinated with the route we flew. We were pretty close to the North Pole, as the one picture of the map shows. We went over the Arctic Ocean and saw lots of ice, even though we were at 38,000 feet. Then we continued over Siberia, before a slight left turn and continuing into China.

Once we landed and were parked at the gate we were instructed to stay in our seats, and health officials boarded the plane and began taking temperatures. The health officials had on goggles, masks and gloves and used high tech thermometers, pointing them at your forehead, but never touching you. To take all the passenger's temperature, it took about 10 minutes. We were then allowed to deplane and as we walked to immigration, Rachel got stopped at a thermal scanner. They pulled her, with her passports and documents, into a curtained off area. I was not allowed in with her; however, I had her in my sight at all times. They did try to hand her off to a Chinese woman standing next to me, until I motioned that she's mine. I froze and forgot how to say "Ta shi wu de haizi," meaning "She is my child." It all worked out fine and we made our way to immigration. Rachel got stopped again as we were getting to the train to go to baggage claim, but this time they just looked at the tag on her carry-on bag. Then we caught the train, easily found our bags and went through customs quickly. Once you get through customs, it's a bit of a mad house, with people waiting for passengers, holding signs, etc. Our OCDF guide, Le Bing, was right in the front with a bright red OCDF sign. We were just as easy for her to spot, being the only Americans walking with a Chinese child. There were lots of Americans, though, but none with kids.

On the drive to the hotel Bing filled us in on some of the changes that have happened since we were here 10 years ago, such as the fact that there are now more cars than bikes on the roads. Our hotel is in the city center, but not in an overly busy area. The road the hotel is on has lots of restaurants, but we didn't venture out last night. We were pretty tired. Rachel and I did go to the grocery store, and that was an adventure. We got six bottles of water, three sodas, a Gatorade, three bags of chips and some other small snacks, and it cost 42 yuan, or about $7. After we checked out, we realized they didn't give you bags, so we laughed the whole way back to the hotel (about a block), trying not to drop our purchases. Lesson learned....take a bag with us!

Back at the hotel, Rachel fell asleep and Fred was hungry, so I walked to McDonald's and used a card to point to what I wanted, McNuggets and a large fry. I wasn't hungry, just tired and grumpy.

Today is a free day. Bing told us of a Buddhist temple we can walk to that has a large buddha carved out of a tree. She might have said it was the largest wooden Buddha in Beijing, or China, but I can't remember.