September 16 -- Beijing: Forbidden City, Tian’anmen Square and Summer Palace
Let’s first consider jetlag. We did not sleep well but managed to sleep until the alarm rang at 6:00 am. We had a big day of touring, eating and shopping so we got a little tired, but I think we have passed this challenge. John (aka “King of Sleep”) a little better than Liz.
The touring today was great we had good guides and a very nice bus. Our guides all Chinese use English names. So we have Lineaker, Sherry and James (as in Bond, James Bond) our bus driver.
Our main touring took us to Tian’anmen Square, the Forbidden City and Summer Palace. Each of these areas comprises a huge space. Tian’anmen Square we believe is the largest public square in the world. The Forbidden City is larger than any palace/estate I have ever seen in North America or Europe. We passed through several huge gates the first being the Tian’anamen Gate (The one with the huge picture of Mao) leading to massive courtyards and more gates taking you back toward where the emperor lived. Beauty and shear size are the operative words here. The Forbidden City contains over 8000 rooms as a starting point and is over 170 acres in area. The summer palaces are in a beautiful setting on a shallow man-made lake that was originally hand-filled with water. We noticed it was cooler there and much more intimate than the more formal and influential Forbidden City.
Three families joined our group who have already received their children. With a national holiday and large business conference in Guangzhou in October, these families were given expedited travel arrangements to get their children who were all “special needs”. The children traveled this long day with all the families and did great. It gave us a glimpse of what our Monday will look like. Maybe we can get out and about after Aliyah joins us.
Our tour took us to a pearl market and silk factory and we had lunch and dinner as a group. At lunch I tried something that we believe to be an egg fermented and buried for a month, and dinner contained some interesting fish dish (squirrel fish – one of several freshwater fish cooked in a very unique way. No bones and it almost looked like a bloom’in onion plus the fish head and tail) and Peking duck. We tried our hand at a Carrefour market (something like a Walmart) to get some drinks for the room and touring on Sunday. The market was interesting especially the fish/seafood section with lots of live fish and crabs.
Bikes, bikes, bikes … what can you put on a bike? We are still fascinated by the bikes. You will see one interesting picture below that looks precarious but had a happy ending. We will try to post another photo of a fully loaded bike. It is just not possible to describe a bike loaded with more stuff than you would see in a pickup truck.
Our guides also gave us some insight into the Chinese people. They love beauty, have strong sense of Feng shui, are extremely hard working and place a very high value on education. I also really latched onto the practice of a parents approving of their child’s mate.
Sunday we will attend an International daughter’s church service and see the Great Wall. Guess how many towers we will hike to (between 1 and 5). We are really enjoying our experience in China. By the way our lost bag arrived at our room in the afternoon. Thanks for your interest and prayers…they keeping us going.
Tian'namen Gate
Bike and Traffic it's all ok
Summer Palace
September 17 -- The Great Wall Of China We both slept reasonably well and felt better (at least in the morning). After a great breakfast at our hotel, the group attended a church service at the Beijing International Church. You must be a holder of a foreign passport to attend the church as China residents can not attend because of some restrictions in place by the Government. The service was very good and was presented in English with translation into Mandarin. All the worship songs were sung in Mandarin with the phonetic translation below the characters. We did our best to sing along. We both felt there is something powerful about worship songs sung in another language. The message was on fear and trust both of which have been a huge part of this adoption journey.
Before we went to the Great Wall, we visited a Jade manufacturing facility where we learned about Jade and its significance and tradition in China. After the tour we had a chance to buy from a very large selection. We bought one pendant that a father wears and gives to his daughter on her first birthday. We also learned about that the Chinese Character for Jade begins with the symbol for Emperor and contains one additional mark … Jade being the jewel of the Emperor.
The section of the Great Wall we visited was very beautiful. While Beijing is very flat and we could see no mountains from the city, no more than 25 minutes from the city the mountains where the Great Wall is built begin. The wall is an amazing site to behold, pictures I had seen before do not do it complete justice. We hiked up to three of the five towers they let us go on this section of the wall. The steps are quite uneven in height which makes climbing them more difficult. One interesting observation was the average Caucasian hikes the wall in some sort of sport shoe or hiking boot while the Chinese tourists will hike the wall in dress shoes and high-heels and zip right up the steps. Just different ways of touring I guess.
Lunch and dinner were again traditional Chinese fare and very good. We are not lacking for food on this trip … they want us in our best shape when we get our children. Although some in the travel group are already tiring of the Chinese fare, but we’re still enjoying it. Our days have been quite full and tiring, but the travel families have been great to get to know and they all have wonderful stories about what brought them to this point.
On the way back from the Great Wall they began to lay out the next day (Monday) when each of the families will travel to the province where their child is. The basic layout is this for us. Have your checked bags ready tonight (Sunday less than 5 hours from now); be ready to leave the hotel at 7:00am sharp; get to Guangzhou and go directly to the civil affairs office to receive Aliyah. We were expecting to receive her in the afternoon after we had settled into our hotel. So now the real big life changing adventure begins …
Now that we were just given these exciting details the guides said, “let’s go to dinner and then to an acrobatics show”. Dinner was a blur and the acrobatics show featured children in the 10-16 year age range who did some amazing acrobatics, balance and Circ-de-sole type stuff.
It is now 10:30pm and we have set out our bags to be picked up. Now we have to figure our packing necessities for three. The daughter we have prayed for and have loved in our hearts for months will soon be in our arms. We are a bundle of every emotion possible besides being tired from a busy day, but we know the Lord is covering us with everyone’s thoughts and prayers.
John 14:18 “I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.”
