Exploring Beijing

After a full night's sleep, we awoke around 6 AM ready to go. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. I enjoyed a nice meal of fried eggs, bacon, coffee and an apple. Angela went with the Muslim noodles, black pickled eggs, Chinese dumplings and wontons. To each his own I guess.

After breakfast and a check-in with grandpa via Skype, we met the rest of our large group in the hotel lobby to head out for a day of touring in Beijing. With coats zipped and hats and gloves donned, we left on two buses for Tienanmen Square. On the ride to our destination we introduced ourselves to several of the other families. It seems like most of them are like us and have returned for a second child although there were a few making the trip for the first time. We have one dad who traveled alone as well as one mom. We have someone who brought grandma along and we have a couple families who brought all the kids as well.

Tienanmen Square was nice although at times I thought we were more a sight for other tourists than the square was for us. When a professional photographer took a picture of our group, we had other tourists taking shots of us as well. In addition, there were several peddlers trying to sell their wares everywhere we went. If you even glanced at the item in their hands, they would follow you mercilessly trying to get you to buy what they had to offer. What they had was the typical "made in China" trinkets. A Mao Tse Tung wristwatch, a fanciful chopsticks set, a paper back book explaining the history of Tienanmen Square, etc. Some picked out those of us who were without hats or gloves and tried to make a deal on an Olympics wool hat or some North Face gloves. None could explain why they were selling wool caps for the summer Olympics or which child sewed on the obviously fake North Face logo to the cheap mittens. I told Angela that tomorrow I was going to try to hawk our unopened bottled water to the Chinese peddlers. Maybe I could get a good trade out of it!

Considering we are just a couple of hillbillies from the Carolinas, we spent more time gawking at the frozen solid river than we did at the picture of Chairman Mao. We also tried to get a shot of one of the soldiers, but they were rather standoffish and the best we could do was get a picture of them after they had passed. Unfortuately some high ranking officials must have chosen today to do some sight-seeing of their own as many parts of the Forbidden City were forbidden to us. We wound up walking through the open air areas only. We did get to pass the Toilet Lounge which garnered a 4-star rating though! It was one of the highlights of the trip.

After wrapping up our tour, we headed out the North side of the city to get back on the buses to get some lunch. Apparently our bus cut off another bus in the loading area which created a scuffle between a traffic warden and the other bus driver. We innocently climbed aboard as the two bickered back and forth. I imagine they were still arguing as another bus replaced us to load his passengers and keep the irate driver gridlocked!

Lunch was dim-sum style with several group members sharing a table with a large lazy-susan in the center for sharing several dishes. We all started with jasmine tea but once the local beer was placed on the table, our group became quite "friendly." We were only one of five tables in our group, but our table polished off maybe a dozen liters of beer much to the humor of the waiters. At 10RMB per bottle (about $1.50), I thought it was worth the expense.

Our favorite item on the menu was the lemon duck. Itseemed to be lightly fried with a hint of sweetness and a tangy, citrus flavor. In addition to the duck, there was eggplant, pork and carrots, seasoned Chinese cabbage, a soup with something that looked like leaves, but had the consistency of raw oysters, and a dish with green peppers and a wormy-looking kind of meat. Angela and I tasted everything and were contentedly stuffed by the end of the meal.

After lunch we headed for the silk factory. On our last trip to China, we were guided through a pearl factory where we were encouraged to buy from a myriad of pearl products. Apparently Beijing has a similar deal with the tourism industry to guilt us into considering silk items. To be honest, the brief tour of how silk is processed (those are cocoons being "harvested" in the picture) was quite interesting. I actually liked the silk comforters they were showing us, but had no good way to get a queen-size silk comforter into our packed suitcases back at the hotel so we left empty handed.

Next, we headed to Hutong Village which apparently was a inside look into how the average Beijing resident lived. We boarded rickshaws and had the drivers take us on a tour of the back roads. I was concerned about the old man who was forced to drag my big frame around on the back of his bike, but he did exceptionally well and managed to scare me several times as he successfully played "chicken" with local motorists. Halfway through the ride, we stopped to enter a local resident's home. It consisted of a cement-walled main living space of about 10x20 square feet, an adjoining bedroom at about half that size, and a kitchen that resembled my laundry room. The retired couple that lived there had a fish tank, a small color TV, and a stove that looked like it survived World War II. The old couple claimed it was one of the finest homes in the area. In America, the place would have been demolished long ago and been declared unsafe for living!

We were originally scheduled to see an acrobatic show after that, but I think most of us were mentally and physically drained by that point. We decided to put the show off until tomorrow following a trip to the Great Wall and another tourist trap -- the jade factory.

CCAI is fantastic in the way they take care of us while in China. I would highly recommend them to anyone considering a China adoption. My biggest gripe with the guides is that I believe they (and the rest of China) have a false understanding of the wealth of those of us who come to their homeland to adopt their girls. I suppose they base their flawed concept on the fact that we spend so much on travel expenses and adoption fees. They apparently think we grow money trees in our back yards and catch gold in buckets out back as it falls from the sky! Everywhere we go, people flock to us to sell their wares, beg for coins or sell exquisite merchandise. While we may be rich by Chinese standards, I believe I barely qualify as middle class back home. I dislike being put in the situation of being guilted into buying something simply because of the country I live in. In any event, we will play our part tomorrow in the jade factory and put up with the beggars if that's what it takes to bring Leah home.