More Pictures

A few pictures from our trip to The Great Wall. Honestly, pictures don't begin to do it justice. Sorry you have to scroll down....I'm just too tired to try and figure out what's wrong with Flikr!

The journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step

Tony making friends with some of the locals

A look back at where we've been ;-)

Is this the way to the elevator?

Woo Hoo....gasp, gasp...we made it to the end of this section of the wall! Hello...can somebody please bring us some oxygen?

Don't ask....I have no idea what Tony is doing. Perhaps it's the lack of oxygen that's made him a little loopy!

What goes up most come down

Too funny....a camouflage trash can along The Great Wall. I mean with those stones painted on you really can't see it. Right?? Imagine the poor person who has to empty these devils!

The Great Wall

Today we visited The Great Wall. It is absolutely amazing to see in person. I don't think pictures can begin to do it justice. We climbed...and climbed...and then climbed some more and then finally made it to the end of The Great Wall....at least to the end of the section where we were! It's a really challenging climb. Many of the steps are varying heights and the pitch is quite different then you have at home! There is a hand railing that has been added at some point that one of the guys in our travel group described aptly as being as useful as garnish.

After The Great Wall we went to an Acrobatic Show. I will not insult the performers by trying to describe what they did. Suffice it to say they were absolutely amazing! Poor Tony probably has a bruise on his leg from me whacking him each time I thought one of the performers was about to kill themselves. Watching the performance was kind of like being at a scary movie....you have your hands in front of your face...but you're peeking between your fingers.

We also did some shopping and had lunch and dinner out. In other words another jammed packed day.

Tomorrow we will visit the oldest residential area of Beijing. We will ride in a rickshaw for part of the tour and then we will have lunch with a local family in their home.

Late tomorrow afternoon we will fly from Beijing to Wuhan. Wuhan is the capital city of Hubei Province....that's the province where Lily is waiting for us. We are getting closer and closer to meeting Lily and every minute we are getting more and more excited!

Pictures from The Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven

The metal birdcage looking thing you see through the window is the new Olympic Stadium. Is it me or does it look like Gryffindor and Slytherin should be playing a Quidditch match in there?
A picture from The Summer Palace.

Another view of The Summer Palace. Sorry about the haze.

In case you thought I was exaggerating about all the construction cranes. Tony took this picture from The Temple of Heaven. Look at all the cranes in the distance. We can see 14 cranes from our hotel room window alone!

The Temple of Heaven

The Emperor and Empress in front of The Temple of Heaven.

Making thread at the silk factory.

Silk worms

Dinner anyone?

More From Beijing

Yesterday was a really interesting and busy day. We visited The Summer Palace, The Temple of Heaven, a pearl factory, a silk factory, and ended the day by going to a Kung Fu show called Midair Temple.

The Summer Palace was built during the Jin Dynasty (1115 - 1234) and passed to successive emperors until the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The Summer Palace has over 3,000 different structures including various courtyards where the Emperor slept, ate, prayed, etc. There are also courtyards for the Empress and head concubines. The Summer Palace consists of over 725 acres and 3/4 of that area is a man-made lake!

The Temple of Heaven is really beautiful. The temple was built in 1420 AD during the Ming Dynasty . Emperors referred to themselves as "The Son of Heaven" and this place was built to offer sacrifice to Heaven.

We also visited a pearl factory and a silk factory. This gave Tony the opportunity to do a little shopping for his Lily girl. I think it might be a good idea if I hold on to our money until we get home! You should see Tony's face light up when he is looking at things for Lily!

After another enormous dinner (including a whole fish...head and tail) we went to a Kung Fu show called the Midair Temple. I was right....it was kind of like a River Dance performance. You know, a series of different performances demonstrating various skills that all wove a story together. Wow, there were a lot of incredibly talented people in the show. Our favorites were the young boys. You would not believe what these little guys can do. Suffice it to say that when watching them my heart was in my throat!

After that long day we came back to the hotel and collapsed! I think jet-lag really caught up with the group yesterday. We all looked pretty wiped out by the end of the day. I asked Tony to carry me from the bus to our hotel room but it was a no go. Sometimes he's so unreasonable!

There will be no rest for the weary today. We meet our guide at 8:30 to head to The Great Wall. After proving just how out of shape we are we will go to a jade carving factory, to lunch, and then to a Chinese Acrobatic Show. Oh, let's not forget...because we just haven't eaten enough we will have another large group dinner tonight!

Honestly, I'm happy they are keeping us so busy...it's making the time go faster until we can meet little Miss Lily!

Crazy Busy Day and Pictures - Take 2

Wow...we had a wonderful but incredibly busy day. We left our hotel at 8:30 this morning and are just not getting back in. We are absolutely beat! I thought I would just post a few pictures from yesterday for now and tomorrow I will update you on all the fun we had today! By the way, these gray dreary pictures are from yesterday....today was absolutely beautiful!

Our guide, John, Tony, and me in Tian'anmen Square. That's the Forbidden City behind us.

A statue to honor heroes in Tian'anmen Square

A soldier in Tian'anmen Square.

Happy Friday the 13th From Beijing!

We have a super busy day scheduled today. Here's what we'll be up to:

• Meet our guide at 8:30 and then we are off to The Summer Palace (the largest Imperial Garden in Beijing).
• Lunch
• Tour Temple of Heaven
• Tour fresh water pearl factory
• Tour silk factory
• Dinner
• Kung Fu Demonstration. From the brochure this looks like a sort of "River Dance" Kung Fu style. I'll have to let you know.

The weather looks much nicer this morning. Yesterday it was quite chilly and damp for most of the day and didn't clear up until about 4:00 pm. Now the sun is out and hopefully it will be warmer. Tony and I didn't pack for chilly weather!

The food here has been great. So much for thinking I'd lose that "Wait Weight" while we were here and Tony thinking he would have to live on Power Bars alone. John, our guide, has been great about explaining to the restaurants that I am a vegetarian and no...that doesn't mean I want vegetables cooked in fish sauce! John has been helping me practice saying "Wo chi su" which means "I eat only vegetables". John explained to me that in China a good life is directly linked to food (and especially meat) and that many Chinese people would find it hard to understand why if you could afford to eat meat you would choose not to. Yesterday Tony had Sweet and Sour Chicken for lunch (his all time favorite) so all was right with the world. Meal times are an amazing display of food. Multiple dishes are placed in the middle of the table on a very large Lazy Susan and then shared by everyone. Yum! I'm making myself hungry!

It is absolutely amazing to me how many people in Beijing speak English. I am not only talking about only people that work for the hotel I'm talking people in general. Many of the people we have met know at least several words of English and make a real effort to communicate with us. It makes me embarrassed that Tony and I didn't do a better job in our Mandarin Class!

I'm not sure what happened with my picture post. I thought I had posted some pictures and then the actual link to Flickr but it doesn't look like the pictures I posted displayed. All the buttons etc. in Blogger are in Chinese Characters. I did print out sample screen prints of all the screens in English to bring with me just in case (boy, I'm glad I did!) but that doesn't help when messages pop-up! Our computer is set up to display English text but the all the default Blogger text displays in Chinese Characters. All that just to say....I'll try to post more pictures later.

Only 3 more days until we meet Lily!

A Few Pictures

Check out this link for a few pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7844551@N08/

I'll post more pictures tomorrow. For now, I'm off to bed...and tomorrow we'll be one day closer to Lily!

Ni Hao from Beijing!

Thought I'd share with you my initial impressions of Beijing. I'll start with the glaringly obvious...there are an unbelievable amount of people here!!!! I know that comment falls in the "Well, duh!" category but until you see it with your own eyes I don't think you can truly appreciate it! I know China's population is estimated to be 1.3 billion....but that number is just too big for me to wrap my brain around! I think our guide told us that there are 13 million people in Beijing itself.....I think I've seen every one!

The city kind of reminds me of a bee hive. That may sound strange but it is the best way I can think of to describe the constant level of activity. There is new construction and renovations occurring everywhere in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. If there are 13 million people in Beijing there must be half that many construction cranes!

The traffic here is amazing! There are cars, buses, bicycles, mopeds, and pedestrians all going 100 different directions at the same time. I do know one thing for certain...pedestrians do not have the right away. In fact, I'm not sure who does...my guess is it's whoever has the loudest horn!

This morning we went to Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. They are very impressive sights to see and it is really amazing to be in the presence of things that are many, many centuries old! Tony and I looked like the complete tourist we are and walked around taking copious amounts of pictures and video.

One of the other families in our travel group has a beautiful 5 year old, blue eyed, blond haired little boy. He has become quite the little celebrity here! I lost count of how many people stopped us to take their picture with him. It was too cute. Several times people just walked right over and picked him up! I think that makes it sound worse than it was...I imagine it was just the excitement of seeing such a cute little boy that overtook some people. He is being a great sport about it and I'm sure his smiling face will end up in photo albums throughout China!!

After the tour we had lunch and then headed back to the hotel. Once we got back Tony and I decided to venture out on our own and do some exploring. Again, we were completely struck by the sheer number of people and the incredible level of activity going on everywhere.

We are heading off to dinner now. I'll post some pictures later tonight.

A Quick Post

Hello All! Just a quick post to let you know what we are up to this morning. We are meeting our guide at 9:30 and then we are off to Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.

The hotel's internet connection was down overnight and just came back online. I didn't sleep very well and I was itching to get online and update you all with what's happening here. I will post more when we get back this afternoon.

Every minute we're getting closer to Lily!

One Giant Step Closer To Lily

We're in Beijing!!! It's currently 5:00 Wednesday afternoon here. We are exactly 12 hours ahead of all of you on the East Coast....and 12 hours closer to meeting Lily!

The airplane was only half full and that worked out wonderfully. People could fold up arm rests and spread out and get comfy. The stewardess said it's rare to have a flight like that but we sure didn't mind!

The flight was realllllly long. 13 ½ hours on a plane is….well….13 ½ hours on a plane! Being confined that long does not work well with my AADD (Adoption Attention Deficit Disorder). Over the last month I have become extremely distracted and fidgety! My brain is always going 100 different directions at once and I have tons of nervous energy! The funniest thing happened when we got on the plane…I immediately fell asleep….I mean I slept through the actual take-off! Tony said I was only asleep for about 15 minutes but when I woke up I couldn't’t believe we were in the air. It was such a strange experience! Maybe my body felt like now that we were headed where my heart and mind have been for the last month it could finally get some rest.

Tony and I tried to keep ourselves occupied during the flight. We watched the movie Happy Feet. Neither of us had seen it before and it was a cute little movie and not a bad way to spend an hour and half. I listened to Tony’s iPod quite a bit while Tony dozed on and off. My friend, Barb, loaded 996 songs on the iPod just before we left. There are a ton of songs I haven’t heard in years as well as a bunch of current stuff. I think I have developed ‘iPod thumb’ (sort of like carpal tunnel syndrome) from scrolling through all my choices! I had to stop myself from singing and waking up all the sleeping beauties around me! Thanks a lot Barb!

Tony and I also played Scrabble on the laptop…don’t tell him I told you….but I kicked some major Parrott tail feathers! I’m sure we’ll have a re-match before this trip is over.

The airplane had one of those on-board satellite things that shows where the plane is in flight. My brain is too fried at the moment to remember the exact distance but I do know it was over 6,000 miles from Dulles to Beijing! We started out heading north over New York and then crossed over the US flying over Washington State, Alaska, The Arctic Ocean, over the International Date Line, Siberia and a ton of places in between that I have never heard of!! I really should have paid more attention in Geography class!

United just added this direct flight from Dulles to Beijing in March. It was so nice to be able to fly direct and not have a ton of layovers, plane changes, etc. We're both so beat as it is I can't imagine trying to negotiate all that other stuff. Now, I hear the mattress calling my name. I will post more later.

When?

That's the question that everyone is asking...when....when can we bring our sweet Lily home? I wish the answer was today! When we picked up Lily's referral information at the agency on Friday I wanted to head straight to the airport. Unfortunately, that's not the way it works.

I will try to provide a rough time line of what will happen from Referral Day until we travel to bring Lily home:

• March 9th - Referral day - Happiest day in our lives to date! Signed Referral Acceptance Letter and mailed it back to China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA). Submitted applications for travel visas.
• Weeks 1 - 4 - The waiting starts again. As much as I want to be able to kiss those chubby cheeks and nibble on those cute little ears having Lily's picture to look at I think will make this part of the wait easier. Remind me I said that in a few weeks when I'm crying the blues!
• Approximately Weeks 4 - 5 - Receive our Travel Approval from CCAA. At that time our agency will schedule an appointment for us at the US Consulate in Guangzhou.
• Approximately Weeks 6 - 8 - LEAVE FOR CHINA!!!!

With this rough time line we should be traveling to China around the week of April 22. Unfortunately, there are some potential stumbling blocks in scheduling our trip. The 101st China Import and Export Fair is being held in Guangzhou the weeks of 4/15/2007 - 4/20/2007 and 4/25/2007 - 4/30/2007. From what I understand this is a positively huge trade fair (I believe the world's largest) and all of the hotels in Guangzhou are booked solid.

As if the world's largest trade fair isn't enough, the first week of May is also International Labor Day in China. During the week of International Labor Day government offices are closed and it is considered one of the peak travel times within China.

As a result of the trade fair and International Labor Day, scheduling our trip is going to be a bit of a challenge. Many adoption agencies simply refuse to send their families to China until the second week of May. Our agency has told us that they will try to arrange our trip around the trade fair and International Labor Day but to expect to pay higher airfare and hotel rates. Of course, I told them that's not a problem we can always get more money (the noise you just heard was Tony's heart skipping a beat) but we can't get back the time we are losing with Lily!

I will keep you updated as our travel plans develop.

On a separate note, thank you to everyone that has sent us e-mails, posted on our blog, or called to wish us congratulations! Tony and I have never been happier and appreciate your love and good wishes so much. I imagine you've noticed that I changed the date on Lily's referral post to March 9, 2009. Hope you don't mind.....I just love seeing her sweet little face each time I open our blog and don't want her to get buried amongst all my mindless ramblings!

Travel Meeting

This morning we had our Travel Meeting! I was very excited about the meeting and had trouble sleeping last night. No surprise there....I've been having trouble sleeping every night. I know this is the time I should be enjoying quiet peaceful sleep but my brain simply refuses to cooperate!

It was very exciting to get together with the other members of our travel group and to get the low down on what we will do when it is our turn. It looks like we may receive our referral in early March and travel in late April or early May.

During the meeting we reviewed sample itineraries, discussed attachment issues, reviewed packing lists, and discussed remaining expenses. Needless to say Tony and I need to curb our dining out habits and start socking away some major money. Of course, we knew about the remaining expenses but when you see it in black and white it kind of hits you between the eyes (or in the checkbook)!

There are 3 other families in our travel group. All of the couples already have children and two of the families have previously adopted from China. Since Tony and I are first time parents I find a lot of comfort in travelling with the BTDT crowd.

One thing our coordinator brought up that we really had not considered is having someone on standby should Tony or I not be able to travel at the last minute. Honestly, the thought of that makes me sick to my stomach! Unfortunately, though, it's a very valid point. Suppose one of us had an emergency appendectomy or some other health related issue right before we are scheduled to leave and can't travel? What would we do then? Neither one of us wants to travel alone and we definitely don't want to be scrambling around at the last minute trying to decide who might be able to go with us. Now the big question is who should we ask? That's a huge "favor" to ask of someone. Naturally we would pay for travel costs, etc....but still...to ask someone to leave their family and hop on a plane at the last minute. Yikes! I'm hoping it's kind of like buying insurance. You buy it, hope you never need it, and have peace of mind just knowing it's there!

Travel Meeting Planned

Woooo Hoooo! We got an e-mail from our agency today that they want to schedule our Travel Meeting. During the travel meeting we will go over what to expect during the trip, how to facilitate bonding, what will happen each day, making travel arrangements, paperwork to bring/do ahead, shots, packing tips, etc. When you've been waiting as long as we have this is some seriously exciting news! Not only do they want to schedule our travel meeting but here is the really exciting news from the e-mail we received:

I am expecting your referrals before Chinese New Year (Feb. 18)! Estimated travel would be eight weeks later or the end of March, early April.

Can this be true??? Are we really only a few weeks away from seeing our sweet baby's face. Oh please, please, please let this be true.