Starting to Catch up: Day 3! (or, "How Far Behind Can You Possibly Be???")

Day 3 – Saturday, 2/12 – Beijing – Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, pearl factory, Summer Palace, silk factory, Olympic stadium, tea house, Peking duck dinner

 Wow! What a busy day this was! Of course, the first night’s sleep in China was not necessarily a great one. Between crazy internal clocks, varied amounts of sleep on the flights, long strings of firecrackers, and the (super-)natural energy levels of a 7 year old, there was not a lot of rest to be had. The Radisson was a nice hotel (and the same one we stayed at before), but for some reason, our room’s heat wasn’t working. Sherry had warned us that the Chinese like to keep the hotel rooms hot, but we weren’t so lucky. The room was warm enough as long as you were under the covers, but once your feet hit the floor – yikes!


The breakfast buffet was quite nice and we got to sit with most of the other families in our travel group. While we didn’t have quite as amazing of a “small world” experience as we did with Ken Weikel, we did manage to meet some very nice people in our group.


From the moment we left the hotel, Lucy may as well been Velcro-ed to Sherry. We’re guessing that Sherry didn’t mind having a “daughter of her own” holding her hand and walking with her all day long. They both seemed to think the other was a princess! The day was rather cold, but at least it wasn’t anywhere near as windy as when we were here in December 2004.

We had “vendors” (tourist vultures) mob us as soon as we got off the bus. We gave them a hearty “bu yao” and walked across Tiananmen Square. There were lots of photos taken in front of the Tiananmen Gate with Mao’s picture. Then we proceeded into the Forbidden City. Through many gates and courtyards we progressed with Sherry explaining the significance of each “layer”, both from a cultural perspective and from a security stand-point. One of the trivia tidbits I found most interesting was that the name “Forbidden City” was not only a reference to the commoners being forbidden from entering, but also to the royal family being forbidden to leave. The emperor had one or two nearby escapes, but by and large, the royal family spent their entire lives inside the city walls. The city was rumored to have been built with 10,000 rooms, since Chinese mythology said that there were 10,000 rooms in heaven.

The Princess Returns!

After the Forbidden City, we took the bus to a restaurant for a group lunch. We sat the group at two tables (about 12 people at each) and had a traditional family-style Chinese lunch. The food brought to us was probably more western-friendly entrees, but everything was served on a giant lazy susan and spun around the table. The restaurant was also rather chilly; many of us kept our coats on. Nevertheless, the food was quite good and there was plenty of it.

Lucy enjoyed the lunch!

Then we loaded back on to the bus to go to the pearl factory. This was basically a government-run store where they produced and sold high-quality, freshwater pearl jewelry. Lucy was selected to participate in the demonstration phase of the tour, which she enjoyed thoroughly. While Melanie shopped, I tried to keep Lucy from bouncing off the walls as much as possible. Luckily, I was eventually assisted by the store’s live-in puppy (xiao gao), “Dodo”. He had been found abandoned near the store and they took him in. Very playful, very cute, and very fond of Lucy.

Lucy and Dodo

Sneaking out the front door

Then, on to the “Summer Palace”. This is more of a 500-acre park near the Forbidden City than an actual palace and I’m sure that it’s quite lovely in the summer. In the winter, it’s a nasty word (or maybe three nasty words). Don’t get me wrong; it is still beautiful and there is a lot to see. I just think that we cut our visit short because of the lovely February weather. Somehow, it had actually gotten colder in the afternoon than when we were at Tiananmen Square first thing in the morning. Many of the architectural features at the Summer Palace were actually copies of various Chinese landmarks made for the Emperor so that he could “visit” them without leaving the safety of Beijing. Sherry said that, “this was the start of the Chinese knock-offs!” In the center of the Summer Palace is a man-made lake, Kunming Lake. This was frozen over and people were walking, skating, and playing on the ice while we were there. Several people were also taking advantage of the blistering cold wind and flying kites.

Looking across Kunming Lake

Seventeen Arch Bridge

Frozen Gibbses

Kite being flown over Kunming Lake

After we ran back onto the bus for shelter from the cold, we went to a silk factory.  Like the pearl factory, this was mostly a government run store with an introductory tour.  Of course, this was all about silk and silk production instead of pearls.  Thankfully the salespeople aren’t too pushy, just a more attentive than we’re used to in the US.  The one nice thing about the government run stores, is that the merchandise is certified by the government, so no one is trying to scam you with imitation or phony goods.  We bought a couple small silk quilts that zip up into pillows.  We didn’t think it would be smart to put a lot of money into silk bedding while we still have pets that get on the beds.
 
From there, we drove by the Olympic site and took some photos near the “Bird’s Nest” stadium and the “Water Cube” facility. Unfortunately, we couldn’t tour the buildings themselves.
Then we went to a tea store called, “Dr. Tea” (apparently, Mr. T was finally awarded his PhD, fool). This did not appear to be a government-run store, but still it was an interesting experience getting to learn more about the Chinese tea culture and the different types of Chinese teas. We bought a few different teas to bring home and enjoy.


After Dr. Tea, we drove to another restaurant for a Peking Duck Dinner. Again we sat around a couple of 12-top tables with giant lazy susans in a cold restaurant. Without knowing better, most of the group filled up on the first courses of food brought out and didn’t have any room for the duck when it finally was served. I saved enough room to have a delicious little bit of Daffy, but I didn’t eat much. The jet lag was hitting everyone hard and Lucy was dozing off at the table. We really had to make an extra effort as we made our way back to the Radisson hotel for the night.

Days 1 and 2 (and so it begins...)

Day 1 – Thursday, 2/10 – Washington, Dulles – departure flight through Newark to Beijing

Day 2 – Friday, 2/11 – Beijing – arrived in Beijing, checked into Radisson hotel, ate dinner at hotel Chinese restaurant, went shopping at Carrefour

So, we’ve already talked about the “Young Frankenstein” aspect of our flight. There were a few other highlights that are noteworthy. First, Lucy fought sleeping on the flight like I have never seen before. While this was extremely frustrating at the time, in retrospect, we think she might have been afraid that she would miss something on the plane. She slept less than 90 minutes on the whole flight. Yay. Second, our flight attendant, Debbie Reidy, was nothing short of awesome. She, like so many other people, fell in love with Lucy right away. We talked as often as her work would permit about our adoption journey and Lucy’s triumphant return to “her people” (Lucy’s words). Without any prompting or requesting, she brought several “extra” items back from the First Class section to Lucy, including the travel kit with lotion, lip balm, etc.; and a handful of chocolate truffles. We will certainly be sending a note of appreciation to Continental on her behalf.

We got into the Beijing airport without incident and found it to be very large, clean, and modern. This was no doubt due to the 2008 Olympics modernization efforts. Thankfully, all of our bags arrived at the airport and we cleared both immigration and customs without any major effort. Once we were officially processed into China, we met the AWAA guides, Lineker (“LEN-a-ker”) and Sherry, both of whom were two of our guides back in 2004. It was really good to see them again and Lucy couldn’t get enough of Sherry. From the first moment, Lucy was glued to Sherry and Sherry loved having Lucy as her shadow.

All seven families that were participating in the Beijing portion of the trip boarded the tour bus and rode to the Radisson Blu Hotel together. Along the way to the hotel, Sherry and Lineker gave us information about our trip and reviewed the schedule for the next few days. Once we arrived at the hotel, Sherry got us checked into our rooms, distributed our room keys, and reminded us of our schedule. We went to our room long enough for our bags to be delivered, then we went around the corner to Carrefour (a French version of a Super Wal-Mart) and did some shopping for food and supplies. We love shopping in these Chinese stores! There’s always something bizarre to be found and tried! Given the in-country luggage weight restrictions (mentioned in an earlier post), we decided not to go too crazy… yet…

So after buying a couple bags of things (including some apple soda), we returned to the hotel room to struggle through a difficult night’s sleep. While in the room, we got to enjoy the reminders of being in the middle of the two-week long celebration of Chinese New Year: decorations and firecrackers by the thousands.

Way Overdue Update (or, “Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na Nanchang!”)

Holy cow! I am wayyy behind in sending out updates to the blog! Sorry, friends, readers, and Big Brother.

When last we left The Dynamic Duo plus one, they had just arrived in Beijing after flying for 14 weeks (or so it seemed). Here’s a quick summary post of what we’ve done and where we are today. Musings and observations follow in separate posts:

Day 1 – Thursday, 2/10 – Washington, Dulles – departure flight through Newark to Beijing

Day 2 – Friday, 2/11 – Beijing – arrived in Beijing, checked into Radisson hotel, ate dinner at hotel Chinese restaurant, went shopping at Carrefour

Day 3 – Saturday, 2/12 – Beijing – Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, pearl factory, Summer Palace, silk factory, Olympic stadium, tea house, Peking duck dinner

Day 4 – Sunday, 2/13 – Beijing – church service, jade factory, lunch, Great Wall, dumpling dinner, acrobat show, packing

Day 5 – Monday, 2/14 – Beijing/Nanchang – flight on Air China, arrived Nanchang, bus to the “Galactic Peace International Hotel”, walked to Civil Affairs office, Gotcha Day!

Day 6 – Tuesday, 2/15 – Nanchang – Notary visit, shopping at Wal-Mart, free time

Day 7 – Wednesday, 2/16 – Nanchang – Sightseeing at the Tengwang Pavilion, free time

Day 8 – Thursday, 2/17 – Nanchang – People’s Park, Porcelain shop, free time

Day 9 – Friday, 2/18 – Nanchang/Guangzhou – Chinese passport for BSP, flight on South China Airlines to Guangzhou, bus to Marriott’s “China Hotel”

Day 10 – Saturday, 2/19 – Guangzhou – Medical examination for Penny, shopping, free time

More detailed information to follow...

Short & Sweet

Mystery blogger here. I received a quick word from Andrew this morning:
All is good. Exhausted & crazy busy. Penny's more of a handful (thank you, Karma) than Lucy was. Working on catching up on the blog.

Photos from Day 1 in Beijing (no BSP yet)

I just wanted to pass along a few pics from Beijing.  No sightseeing yet, just meeting up with an old friend and having some dinner.

Sherry was our guide when we got Lucy!

Notes from the Plane Ride (or "How We Got to Beijing")

Today started with a 4:00 AM wake-up alarm for Melanie and me. Actually, both Melanie and I were up until Wednesday turned to Thursday. At least we were both in bed by 1:30 AM with 99% of everything packed and standing by the door. After just a few hours of sleep for the umpteenth day in a row, it was physically rough getting up, but the little red thread tugging at our hearts made it much easier than our bodies would admit. We took care of the final chores around the house, showered, got dressed, and woke up Boo around 4:30. She too seemed remarkably willing to “rise and shine” after a very late night (somewhere around 10:00 PM). With almost all of our last minute items complete, our dear friend, Amy Noory arrive at about 4:50 to give us a ride to the airport. That’s some kind of friend who will be at your house before 5:00 AM on a school day to give you a lift. Amy, we can’t thank you enough!

At the airport we went through a self-check-in kiosk and got our bags checked all the way through to Beijing (or so they’ve told us). I’m a tiny bit nervous about their ability to get them delivered, given the hypothetical merger of Continental (our primary carrier) and United (the operator of the flight from Dulles to Newark). Although we checked in with United in Dulles, Melanie and Lucy had to “re-check-in” with Continental in Newark. While we haven’t had any real trouble or difficulties, I just don’t have a great degree of certainty that we’ll see our bags right away in Beijing. That said, we’re hoping that since there was only one plane change (Newark), the handlers had a better chance of getting our bags on the right flight.

We’re now about three hours and 45 minutes into our Beijing flight, roughly 1800 miles flown since Newark, and we’re over the middle of the Davis Straight (between Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea). In our “up and over” polar route to Beijing both our geographical and chronological skills seem to be tested. It’s getting dark now, but it’s not even 4:00 PM EST yet. This is a result of flying this far north during the winter – it may be “the land of the midnight sun” during the summer, but this time of year the Arctic is more dark and dreary the closer you get to the pole.

During our last trip to China, we flew a route that took us from Detroit to Tokyo over Alaska. This time we won’t be flying over Monster Island, but we will see if we can see the lights on at a certain well-known workshop as we cross the North Pole. Before we get there, though, there’s still a lot of Greenland to cross.

For our first in-flight meal, we had a very nice meal. We got a choice of fish or beef, and all I could think about was the meal in the movie “Airplane!” in which all the people who chose fish got violently ill. Even though the movie offered “fish or chicken”, the similarity tickled me.

Regarding our fellow passengers, I would feel remiss to not point out that there always seems to be a lot of interest in getting on airplanes quickly when flying to, in, and from China. I can appreciate the enthusiasm with which people board the flights, but at some point the pushing and shoving does not improve the efficiency of the boarding process. Yet again Melanie had someone try to pass her while in the aisle of the plane with a suitcase in tow. Perhaps in some way, the rudeness helps these individuals arrive at their destination ahead of the rest of the passengers.

The gentleman seated directly behind me has some sort of illness that has had him coughing, sniffing, and then strangely grunting every 30 or so seconds. At first we thought he sounded like Billy Bob Thorton in “Slingblade”, but then we realized it was more the monster from Young Frankenstein during the dining room/Schwartzwalder kirsch torte/”yummy noise” scene. Every few groans, I’d lean over to Mel and say, “But you made a yummy noise”, or one of the other lines from the scene. Laughter is about the only way to deal with the situation.

We’re crossing over land now, Greenland. According to the plane’s info screen we still have 8:45 until we get to Beijing. So at this point, I think I’ll try and grab a nap on the plane. More blogging fun later.

First Mobile Posting (or "4AM Really Stinks!")

Here's a quick posting from the gate at Dulles Airport (IAD) to let everyone know we are en route. The theme of the day is "So far, so good" (SFSG). We executed our 0400 wake-up call, performed the remaining prepatory tasks, and met our driver (thanks Amy!) all on schedule. The trip to the airport, check-in and security all went frightenly smoothly. I'm not sure if that's proper grammar, but I haven't had more than 2.5 hours of sleep, so it will have to do.

I'll post more later today.

Flight Information and a Warning!

We've had several of our friends ask for our flight information, so I'm posting it below.

But first, for anyone considering taking advantage of our being away from home...  
BE WARNED!  We have two overly protective dogs, a cat with a history of injuring full-grown adults, a whole-house alarm system, a watchful former Marine next-door neighbor, and a house-sitter with a very low tolerance for B.S..  At least two of the aforementioned will be armed!  Think again and live to tell about it, Bub.

Thursday 10 February 2011			Air
Continental Airlines Inc - Flight CO 7655		Status:	Confirmed
OPERATED BY /UNITED EXPRESS/TRANS STATES AIRLINES
Depart:	Washington Dulles Int'l Airport	Airline Ref:	AS2CZP
	Washington, DC, US	Seat:	08A 08B 08C
	8:17 AM	Class:	H-Economy/Coach
		Mileage:	215
Arrive:	Newark Int'l Airport	Travel Time:	1:13
	Newark, NJ, US	Stopovers:	0
	9:30 AM	Aircraft:	ER4
	Terminal A	Meal:

Thursday 10 February 2011			Air
Continental Airlines Inc - Flight CO 0089		Status:	Confirmed
Depart:	Newark Int'l Airport	Airline Ref:	AS2CZP
	Newark, NJ, US	Seat:	43D 43E 43F
	11:50 AM	Class:	H-Economy/Coach
	Terminal C	Mileage:	6817
Arrive:	Beijing Capital Airport	Travel Time:	13:45
	Beijing, CN	Stopovers:	0
	Friday, February 11, 2011
	2:35 PM	Aircraft:	Boeing 777-200/300
	Terminal 3	Meal:	Lunch

Friday 25 February 2011			Air
Continental Airlines Inc - Flight CO 0098		Status:	Confirmed
Depart:	Hong Kong Int'l Airport	Airline Ref:	AS2CZP
	Hong Kong, CN	Seat:	20D 20E 20F
	11:25 AM	Class:	H-Economy/Coach
	Terminal 1	Mileage:	8055
Arrive:	Newark Int'l Airport	Travel Time:	15:20
	Newark, NJ, US	Stopovers:	0
	1:45 PM	Aircraft:	Boeing 777-200/300
	Terminal B	Meal:	Lunch

Friday 25 February 2011			Air
Continental Airlines Inc - Flight CO 3262		Status:	Confirmed
OPERATED BY /COLGAN AIR DBA CONTINENTAL CONNECTION
Depart:	Newark Int'l Airport	Airline Ref:	AS2CZP
	Newark, NJ, US	Seat:	06A 06B 06C
	3:25 PM	Class:	H-Economy/Coach
	Terminal C	Mileage:	215
Arrive:	Washington Dulles Int'l Airport	Travel Time:	1:30
	Washington, DC, US	Stopovers:	0
	4:55 PM	Aircraft:	BOMBARDIER Q400 TURBOPROP-2 ENGINES
		Meal:

Cultural Education (or "I'd have rather had a moon PIE")

We are now five days and a few hours away from our scheduled flight time!  (Keep checking the Countdown Timer tab!) The excitement (a.k.a. "Stress") keeps building by the minute. We've double-checked our paperwork for our trip and we've started packing suitcases. We've set aside our original orphanage donations for a local christian charity that helps homeless and needy families in our area.

An interesting story of cultural education:

With the Lunar or "Chinese" New Year, we decided to do a little celebrating with BSP's godparents & their children. We went to an authentic Chinese restaurant in east Fairfax that has long been a favorite of ours. As always, the dinner was phenomenal and the service was wonderful. Once we were done with dinner and had paid the check, the waitress brought out an unexpected and unidentified gift for us. The gift was an odd, heavy, round, brown, pie-like object with five red fruit or beans on top and a leaf wrapper underneath. It was roughly eight inches in diameter and more than an inch thick.

One half of the object

After asking our waitress, she informed us that it was a "moon cake" and we thanked her for the gift. We'd never had a moon cake before, so we thanked the waitress and took our gift home without trying it (we'd eaten too much dinner by then).  We split the cake in half (a very difficult cut) and gave one half to our friends.  The following evening after dinner, I decided that I was in the mood for something sweet and that I would try a piece of the moon cake.  I sliced off a small wedge and eagerly took a healthy bite.  To my great dismay, the moon cake, not only had bizarre visual and tactile characteristics, it also had the consistency of wax and the taste of vinyl.  This was quite possibly the single blandest thing I had ever eaten.  I am certain that I could make a mixture of bleached flour and distilled water that would yield more flavor than this moon cake.  After disposing of our half of the offending object, we warned our friends about the moon cake.  We were too late.  They had also tried it and found it to be lacking in every aesthetic measure.  I have since determined the following possible explanations for this object's existence:

1. The Chinese are really bad at desserts, and this was really bad by Chinese standards.
2. This was a decoration, made in fact from synthetic materials and was not meant for consumption.
3. This was the Chinese equivalent of the immortal fruitcake and was meant to be eternally re-gifted.
4. This was a practical joke that went too far - and the wait staff are still laughing at us.

In other news, we have selected our Secret Mystery Guest Blogger (SMGB) and they are now officially on staff.  To those of you who submitted applications, essays, and videos, but were not selected, we deeply thank all 1700+ of you for your interest in the position.  Despite the many qualified and talented applicants, there can be only one.

More on-the-fly Blogging (or "Moron, the Fly, Blogging")

Here I am, blogging again from the parking lot outside of Lucy’s ballet lesson today. We’re down to less than 12 days to go and the time is slipping through our fingers like a cliché.

On the positive side, we have all of our paperwork assembled and organized. I need to make a few dozen copies of documents, but we have all of the pieces we need. We also finished our “money laundering”* ahead of time.

(*For all the government officials reading this, I am only JOKING and referring to exchanging legal tender for better quality bills of the same value to pay for official adoption fees in China. Don’t be a weed.)

On the still-left-to-do list, we have to actually pack for the trip, clean the house for our house sitter, buy some small gifts for the orphanage workers, and a few other miscellaneous tasks.

One negative that we’ve run into is the luggage weight limitation for in-country (China) flights. For our flights between Newark – Beijing (and Hong Kong – Newark) we’re permitted more than 140 lbs per passenger without any baggage fees. For our flights from Beijing – Nanchang – Guangzhou, we are strictly limited to 44 lbs per passenger before incurring a “per kilogram overage fee” of about $3/kg. This means that we are not going to be able to take the donations of clothing, blankets, toys, and stuffed animals we’ve collected to the orphanage without having to pay >$300 in fees. While it really stinks that we can’t deliver our donations to the children, I’d much rather give the $300+ to the orphanage than to some random government worker at the airport. So while cash is extremely impersonal, it’s about the only thing we can give. We’ll give our donations to a local charity instead. Thanks, China Airlines.

We have been told that both Facebook and Blogger/Blogspot (i.e., this blog) are currently blocked in China. So we’ll move on to Plan B to send blog updates via email, and/or Plan C to have a mystery blogger post for us. Supposedly Skype will work from China, so we’ll be chatting that way whenever possible. Also, we’re encouraging Lucy to keep a journal of her journey. We’ll post those to our blog as we’re able.

Detailed Travel Itinerary (or "Where in the World is Lucy Boo?")

We received our detailed in-country travel itinerary yesterday from our adoption agency.  I've put the information into the table below:

DATES	FEB. 10, 2011 – FEB. 25, 2011
LOCATION	BEIJING
THU, FEB. 10	Depart for Beijing
FRI, FEB. 11	Arrive in Beijing
SAT, FEB. 12	Beijing Sightseeing: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace
SUN, FEB. 13	Beijing Sightseeing: Church Service, Great Wall
LOCATION	NANCHANG, JIANGXI
MON, FEB. 14	GOTCHA DAY! A.M. – Flight to Jiangxi P.M. – Meet Your Child & Civil Affairs Appointment
TUE, FEB. 15	Adoption Paperwork / Sightseeing & Shopping
WED, FEB. 16	Adoption Paperwork / Sightseeing & Shopping
THU, FEB. 17	Adoption Paperwork / Sightseeing & Shopping
FRI, FEB. 18	Flight to Guangzhou for Consulate appointment & paperwork
LOCATION	GUANGZHOU
SAT, FEB. 19	Child’s Medical Exam
SUN, FEB. 20	Sightseeing & Shopping
MON, FEB. 21	Consulate Paperwork / Sightseeing & Shopping
TUE, FEB. 22	Consulate Appointment at 9:00 am Consulate Oath-Taking Ceremony
WED, FEB. 23	Free Day in Guangzhou
THU, FEB. 24	Pick-up Child’s visa Depart from Guangzhou (Bus)
LOCATION	HONG KONG
FRI, FEB. 25	Depart from Hong Kong

So it is now official (without any major calamities), Valentine's Day will be BSP's Gotcha Day!  We're psyched that we're getting the most awesome Valentine ever!
And we're down to (just over) 14 days to go!