First, thanks everyone for the emails. It has been great to share this adventure with so many of you. We woke up this morning at 3 a.m. unable to sleep. We did however feel much better than the night before. The difference a day and a hot shower make! We started the morning with breakfast at the hotel. Included with our hotel stay is a breakfast buffet with everything from “Americanized” eggs, waffle dishes, etc. to Congee and beans and mushrooms. We then went to Carrefour, which is basically the Chinese equivalent of WalMart. In the seafood department, the catch was still moving...shrimp, sea urchins, etc. One fish jumped out onto the floor while we were there. We saw skinned chickens – head and all – and smoked ducks – head and all. It was actually a pretty fascinating place. Roy and I were the ONLY Westerners. We witnessed the famous Chinese split pants. If I can get a picture later, I’ll post one. Babies in China often wear pants that are split in the back and their little backsides hang-out. You see very few diapers here. When Chinese babies go, they just squat...pretty much wherever they are.
Today we met up with some great folks from Seattle, Stephanie and Shane. They are also adopting a baby from Jiangxi Province. We shared a taxi to the Forbidden City, home of the Emperors of China for the last thousand years or so. We also went to Tiananmen Square. Pretty amazing. Somewhat sobering when you think of events of recent past. We saw many children, mostly boys. Another sobering reality for China.
We were approached several times by very persistent people wanting us to hire them as guides, etc. They would hardly take no for an answer. So, my dear husband, figured out a way to deal with it. He just started speaking Russian. One seemed very befuddled and said “Oh, no English. OK” and went her separate way. It worked...so far.
Tonight we plan on going out with several people who have just arrived in Beijing who are also with our agency.
In less than 4 days, we meet Tong Min Jia, soon to be Lilyanne MinJia Finch. It’s so amazing to us that we are here in China and that we soon will meet our daughter.
