day 12

Day 12. Our last day in Beijing. We went to the Beijing Aquarium which is actually in the zoo but is a separate building. We spent about three hours in the aquarium. One could probably see the whole thing from corner to corner in about 40 minutes but there was really no where else to go since it was raining. I think half of the 15 million people in China were at the aquarium too.

By the time I stood in the rain to buy tickets I had reached my limit of being in public spaces with hoards of people who culturally do not value personal space as I do. After I bought the tickets and was nicely trying to shove my way out of the mass chaos only to move into an enclosed aquarium that was just another mass chaos situation, I got spit on. On my open toed shoes. And it started dripping between my toes. And I seriously, for real, I'm not kidding about threw a tantrum like a two year old and cried to go home. I have handled almost everything here pretty well. But the spitting makes me literally shiver with disgust every time I hear it. I'm not sure why but spitting is as common here as it is breathing. Ask anyone who's been to China. It kind of ruined the rest of the day for me because I had run out of grace and patience for spitting of any kind. Spitting while walking past people. Spitting while standing in line to get food. Spitting from a moving car. Spitting from the top of a two story moving bus. Spitting in the mall. Spitting at restaurants. Spitting outside. Spitting inside. I mean, really, I just don't get the purpose or need. It is one thing I will not miss about China and hope to never here again. And Chinese spitting isn't just spitting, it's a long process of hacking and snorting and heaving the spit as far and as forcefully as one can. It sounds like a gunshot to my ears and if you secretly watched me walk around the streets and in crowded shopping malls you might think I had a tic of some sort b/c you'd see me twitching and tilting my head and quickly shrugging my shoulders. It's what happens to me when I hear spitting. My body literally starts convulsing with disgust. Oh my, it officially became my breaking point today. I so badly just wanted to get home. And never hear spit again. There is only so much a girl can take. And someone else's spit on your toes is way, way, way past the limit. And it was only 10:30 a.m.

The rest of the day involved Andy trying to keep Hope attached to his hand or in her stroller. I was in charge of pushing the mostly empty stroller and mentally getting over the spit episode. Laugh all you want but until you've lived with spit in the back of your ear for 12 days, you really can't understand. It can be somewhat traumatic. Anyway, we looked at fish. And then looked at them again. We had lunch at the aquarium and made the mistake of ordering American food. We've learned that anything that is made in China but supposed to taste like our food will be terrible unless it's from a chain restaurant and even then it's different. Andy ordered a cheeseburger and it was so bad he couldn't eat it. I only mention it b/c we took a picture of it. The hamburger was so small it was funny. Remember the Where's the Beef? commercials. It was like that. Oh, and the day before I think there was a picture of a chicken sandwich from KFC. It had random bits of corn and carrots or veggies of some sort in it. Weird. And the pizza from Pizza Hut has no sauce on it. When we asked for some pasta sauce to dip it in (they sold spaghetti and lasagna so we knew there was pasta sauce on the premise somewhere) we were given a plate of ketchup. Anyway, back to my original Day 12 story, we made it till about 3:00 and then went to an indoor shopping mall b/c we had missed the naptime window and needed to keep Hope awake for the rest of the day. We had our last dinner in Beijing at Pizza Hut. And here we are waiting for Hope to fall asleep so we can start packing for our big move tomorrow. We fly to Guangzhou for the last week of our trip. We're looking forward to seeing other American families that are adopting as all U.S families end up in Guangzhou b/c the U.S. Embassy is there. And we'll be one city closer to home!

Click here to see photos from today

day 11

Today started out as every single other day. We ate breakfast. And I have to tell you that although the buffet is amazing and varied, I have had had the exact same thing every morning. If you know me at all you are not at all surprised. And because I know I will forget this one day, I have an omelet, one piece of bacon, and potatoes for my first plate. The potatoes here are on a three day cycle and day three is my favorite, a homemade version of mini hashbrowns. I think they probably use the leftover potatoes from the two previous days and mush them all up and make them into pretty little mini potato cakes but I don't mind. It's the best potato concoction I've had. Well, for potatoes involving no cheese, that is. Anyway, then I start to drink my black tea b/c until then it's too hot to drink. I eat a small chocolate pastry with it. "Chocolate" is a bit of a stretch b/c it tastes nothing like chocolate but it's decent enough to fulfill my daily sweet fix. Oh, and speaking of chocolate. It's the one thing China fails miserably at. They have no appreciation for chocolate here. None. The preferred dessert of choice here seems to be fruit on a stick (most notably, cantaloupe) or tiramisu. Weird, huh? Then I end my meal with a yogurt. Yogurt that is almost like milk b/c it's so watery. In fact, it took Andy and me nearly a week to realize that you are actually supposed to poke a straw through the lid (think yogurt cup/juice box mix) and drink it. We probably looked like fools trying to pull off the plastic top each morning. We kept wondering why it was so hard to do. Uhm, that would be b/c you're not supposed to do it that way. You drink yogurt here. Who knew?! As you can see, breakfast has become somewhat of a serious Groundhog Day experience except every two to three days we realize that all of our familiar faces have been replaced with new guests in the hotel. Andy and I say to each other, "Oh, look, the whole place is filled with new people today." We feel like the breakfast buffet room has somewhat become our own home/kitchen and I deny my urge to welcome all the new people and tell them things like, "Hey, wait for tomorrow's potatoes!" or, "You should really skip the pancakes, they're soggy." or, "Yogurt? Use a straw it'll save you five minutes of trying to tear off the top." And that's our excitement for the first hour of day. That and french toast day. Again, it's on a three day cycle with pancakes and waffles. The french toast is good and replaces my fake-chocolate danish. Only one more french toast day left. Friday, our last morning. Groundhog Day excitement.

Ok, enough about food. But I know I'd forget all those details someday and I'll look back and laugh. Today we went to the Temple of Heaven. We spent the morning walking around the park areas and it was lovely. It was way less crowded than the Summer Palace. It was the most peaceful, quiet place we've been to so far. And there were no strangers asking us for pictures and pretty much no stares from people. It was nice. Hope started talking to a sweet little boy at one point and I took a lot of photos of the two of them. They were running around and just being silly together. She is used to being with children 24/7 so she was probably thrilled to be able to interact with someone other than adults, aka, Andy and me.

Hope loves the camera. She is hilarious about getting her picture taken. She starts by putting her hand on her hip, tilting her head and smiling the biggest smile ever. Then she tilts her hip the other way and moves her head a bit as if she were a supermodel just waiting to be photographed. She is all serious about it and then can't help herself and starts giggling. She takes control of every impromptu photo session by moving around to various locations and repeating the hand on hip, head tilt routine. Thus the reason I took a million photos today.

Conveniently, the Temple of Heaven is right next to The Pearl Market which is the store we went to yesterday. It isn't just a pearl store, it's a muli-level indoor shopping extravaganza with everything from junk Chinese touristy-trinkets to fake designer purses, clothes, and watches to real pearls and jade and on and on. We walked around there to cool off and take a few photos since we didn't have our camera with us yesterday. Then it was back to the hotel for nap time. I had an almost-migraine headache by then and desperately needed to sit in a dark, quiet room. Uhm, dark happened, quiet didn't. Hope did her best yet to fight nap time but Andy won in a last second shot. Thank you, Andy!

We had dinner at my dumpling restaurant and I savored every bite. Only one more meal there tomorrow. I'm sad already. Then we went to a tea store that is next to our hotel. We asked to sample some teas and had a somewhat relaxing time having a tea party. Thankfully, there was a fish pond in the store so we had some entertainment for Hope. She loved the fish but loved all the ladies that gave her attention and talked to her in Chinese even more. She cried when we left the store.

And that was day 11. Tomorrow is our last full day here and we can honestly say that in some ways we feel like we just got here. Part of that may be because our first day here seemed a lot like today and it has all just blurred together into one long day. But then another part of us feels like we've overstayed our welcome here and it's time to go. We were remembering how crazy it felt the day we checked in to the hotel and the hotel lady said, "You are here for 13 nights, correct?" Andy and I looked at each other and thought, "Uhm, yes we are. Can we do this? Can we do 13 nights? We've never stayed 13 nights in a row anywhere but our own home." But we did it. Well, almost. And there have been definite Get Me Out Of Here moments, days, really. But all in all we've made memories and have experienced Caleb's and Hope's country in ways we'll never do again. And a few years from now I know we'll look back and think it was the most wonderful time ever. I have two million pictures to prove it was wonderful. Pictures...they're funny, aren't they? They make life look so much grander and perfect than it ever really is. If you want the grand-lovely-we're all a perfect family-version of our day...

Click here for photos from today, {part 1}
Click here for photos from today, {part 2}

day 10

10. Double digits. A milestone. And shopping day for me. My favorite day thus far. Part of it has to do with the fact that I didn't sweat much at all today. It was the first day that I haven't had to take two showers. See, shopping IS therapeutic. And it does make things all better.

We paid Angela, from Ladybugs n Love, to take us shopping today. I had a very specific list of things to buy and I wanted to make sure we didn't pay too much so it was worth paying her to help us find good deals. And we, I did. Andy pretty much sat off to the side and entertained Hope while I shopped. I was in a major shopping mode and got everything I needed in less than two hours and two stores. Probably still seemed like torture to Andy. He seems to not understand or appreciate good shopping skills. I'm not sure any male does.

Hope immediately latched on to Angela. She is Korean and speaks Chinese. I think Hope was just thrilled to have someone around who could speak her language. Our adoption guide and our tour guide have both been male so this was the first time a female has been with us for a day. And Hope could not get enough of her attention. She was a non-stop Chinese chatterbox. The funniest thing was at lunch when Hope raised her small water glass and says in Chinese to Angela, "Cheers!" and tries to clink her glass with Angela's. Angela starts laughing and tells us what she said. Where in the world did she get that?! Angela thought maybe she was in a foster family at some point and saw that or it could have just been something she learned while playing with kids at the orphanage. Andy and I could not stop laughing.

Can't share too many shopping details b/c that might spoil some surprises. So that's all about that. Hope took a two and a half hour nap today. I swear I heard the Hallelujah Chorus in my head when she finally dozed off. Ah, I love nap time. It's almost as good as shopping.

Then it was Groundhog Day from about 4:30-8:00...try to stay as long as possible in our air-conditioned hotel room, walk, eat, walk. No pictures today. Imagine me shopping and Andy and Hope waiting. I'm smiling. Andy is not. And Hope is bouncing off the walls and running. Heaven for me. Not heaven for Andy.

Two more full days left in Beijing. I think we're going to the Temple of Heaven tomorrow b/c it has a nice park area. Will post when we get back. Off to bed now. G-night.

day 9

Day 9 was Summer Palace Day. That's what we declared in our own little world here anyway. We took a taxi to spend the morning/early afternoon there. We went there in 2009 so it wasn't new for us but it was a new change of scenery for us now. It is a gorgeous park with historical buildings and such but yesterday we just wanted to see some grass. We stayed in the park and lake area and enjoyed not having to dodge cars every few feet. We found a spot where Hope could get out of her stroller and run around. Actually, we found a spot with a park bench for us and it happened to have grass nearby. We all won. Hope loved having some freedom to run and play. We loved that she could run without us worrying that she'd crack her head on the concrete. She's had her share of falls so far...Great Wall, hotel ceramic floor, sidewalk, off of chairs at meal time, you pretty much name it, she's fallen on/off it. But grass counts as pillows around here so she fell a ton and all was well.

We attracted a ton of attention at the Summer Palace. Think Angelina/Brad attention. Andy said, "I think this is how celebrities must feel," to which I thought, "No. Celebrities get whisked away to the pretty toilet section here, I'm sure." I had been searching high and low for a decent bathroom to use and couldn't find one. So, for the first time this trip, I used the "squatty potty." My kids have been asking if I've used one yet and I've been happy to say no. Until yesterday. And I won't give details here but I will say that I considered for several minutes peeing behind a tree. That's how utterly disgusting they were. I held my breath for longer than I thought humanly possible and almost fainted. When I finally walked out, I saw Andy standing there smiling and surrounded by several Chinese people who were posing with him for a picture. And I think, "Really? I just had one of worst bathroom experiences ever and you're out here posing for pictures like you're Brad Pitt?" Yes, he was. He's nice like that and wouldn't tell them no.

You see, apparently Chinese people rarely, if ever, see white parents with a Chinese girl. Andy thinks that they thought he was an NBA player. Uh, ya. The Chinese are obsessed with the NBA and Andy did have his Pacer's hat on so maybe so. Uh, double ya. Whatever the reason, we saw our share of stares, glares, snickering, whispering, not-so-whispering, and nudges they all gave us or each other. We get those all everyday while walking around our hotel but at the Summer Palace, it went to a whole new level. The park was at capacity, I'm sure. That's how crowded it was and nearly early every single one of them gawked at us. And then they would try to discreetly take our picture by either standing somewhere near us and acting as if they were taking a photo of themselves but the camera was pointed at us, not them. Or they'd take the more direct approach and grab our arms and motion and point as if to say, "Can we take our picture with you?" Or, best yet, was when we were eating lunch. We were sitting near an open window area overlooking a pathway, a crowded pathway that was filled with people who were looking at us as if we were in a zoo. It felt like we were there on display. And people would whip out their cameras and take photos of us like we were a new baby panda exhibit. So a whole lot of Chinese people will have photos of Andy eating a hot dog and me eating dumplings in their "My trip to Beijing" album.

We were back to our hotel in time to try and have Hope take a nap. She's a strong one and won yet again. No nap, take 3? 4? I've lost count of how many "no nap" days she's had now. We walked to the WuMart again. Exciting stuff. Ate dinner. Oh, dinner with the best Asian noodles I've ever had and a new Chinese dish that is something like an eggroll in the shape of lasagna. "Meat Pie" is what it was called and I'm eating it again before we leave. Walked. Day done.

Click here for pictures from today

day 8

Yesterday was Sunday and our big event for the day, actually, our only event for the day was to go to church. I'm not sure we've ever been more excited to go to a church that wasn't our own. We've felt very alone here as hardly anyone speaks English and we attract a lot of attention and stares b/c of Hope. More about that tomorrow. We were given a name by someone from our church of a young Brazilian-Korean lady who was in Beijing for this weekend. She told us about a church here called Bejing Christian International Fellowship. We took a taxi to the hotel where the church meets and met her there. By the way, our adoption translator/guide has been out of town since Wednesday so Andy and I have literally been on our own. We think we're both pretty big deals now that we can navigate around Beijing by ourselves. For two mid-western folks, we're doing pretty well here.

Anyway, the church is a registered Christian church in Beijing. We think it is only one of a handful of churches allowed in Beijing. We have read a lot about the persecution of Christians in China so we were a bit perplexed as to why this church is even allowed to exist. Here's what we found out. The only way to even enter the church (which rents space in a large hotel) is to show your passport. Basically, the church is for internationals and Chinese people who are in Beijing for school, business, etc. It is not a church that your average Chinese national can go to b/c your average Chinese person doesn't have a passport. So it isn't your typical "local church." It's filled with students and people who are, for one reason or another, here in Beijing temporarily.

We asked why the "underground Christian church" isn't allowed to be registered with the government. The lady (a member of the church for about 15 years) said that to be registered you have to comply with whatever the government tells you to do. A lot of times they just refuse to register the church. Sometimes they require things like having the pastor turn in his sermon a week before he preaches it and denying the right to preach/teach about certain Christian beliefs (Jesus' second coming, etc). Basically, they require things that a Bible believing church could not agree to do. However, this church wasn't required to do any of those things. Andy and I were under the impression that the church we attended was allowed to exist b/c it isn't a local congregation. And by requiring passports to enter the facility, the government maintains control of who is there and who isn't.

As far as what the church service was like, it was casual, held in an auditorium, and had the feel of an old Campus Crusade for Christ meeting at IU in the mid 1990's. In other words, a few songs with guitar or two, a short devotional/message, a hokey object lesson/demonstration about the church's mission statement and a closing song all in less than an hour. It was certainly not what we expected. We expected more of a of Chinese/local congregation and more involved/deeper Bible teaching. Either way, it was good to worship together. It makes us look forward to being at home even more though.

Other than that, the day kind of got lost into a hotel-walk-eat-walk blur.

And that was day 8. And to prove how incredibly uneventful it was, I only have one picture from the whole day. Shocker. I know. And it's blurry. Kind of how the day felt after about 10:30am.

day 7

Day 7. One third of our way home.

We had originally scheduled to tour a historic village in China on Monday. But after yesterday's experience with Hope in the van (the torturous ride for all involved) we opted to skip the village. It was going to be a two and a half hour drive one way. And although at the time we booked it we thought it would be a good way to fill up a day with something different we knew our sanity was more important than a few good photos of a village.

Here's what we ended up doing today:

We rescheduled to have our guide/driver come today instead of Monday and went to the Beijing Zoo and a Taoist Temple. I'm not a fan of zoos in general. It wasn't really on my top 500 things to see in China. But it was shaded. And beautiful. And different than the streets surrounding our hotel. And Hope absolutely loved it. It was the first thing that we've done in 7 days that was actually age appropriate for her. She was probably thinking, "YES! At last. Something for a kid to do!" Poor thing, we've been dragging her around to shops, restaurants, and government offices for almost a week. She literally squealed with joy at the first site of an animal. And then she repeated the squeals for almost two hours. She was more entertaining to watch than the animals. Well, for me that isn't saying much because I could care less about staring at animals. But still. She was that funny. And loud. But it wasn't loud in a restaurant and it wasn't loud in a hotel room so we let her be loud. And she loved every second of it.

We had lunch and then went to a Taoist Temple. Again, zoos, Taoist temples...not exactly on my top 500 list of things to see here but our guide suggested it would be a good place to get away from the crowds and we could use the stroller and have some shade. There were definitely no crowds. Hope sat in her stroller the whole time because she was so tired from the zoo. It was actually quite pretty. And shaded. {Shade, my happy place in China.} Our guide gave us a brief overview of the Taoist religion as we watched people burn incense and bow to the golden Buddha statues. The guide also told us that many Chinese people have no "religion" at all but will still come to temples such as these when they have problems or need answers. There were Taoist monks (I think that's what they're called?) living in the facility which was basically a collection of courtyards each filled with rooms devoted to different gods. We felt odd being there. We felt burdened for the people that were bowing to golden images that were not alive and could not offer them what they were seeking.

We got back to the hotel about 3pm and tried to get Hope to sleep. She won. No nap. We won at bed time though because she was asleep by 7:30 as opposed to her normal 9:00. Ahh, not sure who needed bedtime to come quicker. Her. Or us. Who am I kidding? It. Was. Us.

Click here to see photos from today

day 6

The highlight of yesterday was The Great Wall. We drove to the Mutianyu section. It was about an hour and half outside of Beijing. Beautiful drive. Breathtakingly beautiful views. We picked this specific area to see because it was different than the area we saw two years ago and this one featured a cable car ski-type lift to the top and a toboggan slide down. Sounded all fun and exciting and I was really looking forward to it. But somehow it never crossed my mind that my fear of heights may come into play in the whole situation. Like never crossed my mind until we were standing on the stairs about 10 people away from the cable car and I realize there is no way I can get on it. Andy looks at me like I have two heads and at the time I felt like I did too and they were both spinning. Do you know how high up the Great Wall is? It's on a mountain. It's high. And the cable cars looked like matchbox cable cars going up the string, I mean cable. Not that those exist but if they did they'd look like these. And I almost throw up. And I made myself not. And I put one foot in front of another and I pretended I was getting into a taxi. And it worked. Our guide advised us against going down the toboggan because people had been injured on it before. He said he wouldn't go on it himself. I was kind of bummed but after riding up the cable car I realized there was no way I would have ever been able to go down on a toboggan. So I was glad it was unsafe. Whew. Saved me from another near panic atack. I never asked about how safe the cable car was because it was the only way up. And I really didn't want to know the answer anyway. If he had told me it was safe, I wouldn't have really believed it and had he told me it wasn't, I would have missed out on a great day at the Great Wall.

Hope, on the other hand loved the cable car. It was probably like a Disney ride to her. She was all giggles and screams and laughs. She was hilarious to watch on the way up and down which served as a great distraction for me. Once to the wall, though, she only enjoyed it for about 3.5 minutes and then was done. Andy got a workout carrying her and dragging her along the wall and back. We have a ton of great photos but, again, photos never tell the whole story. You can't hear her whining or see her legs go limp when Andy tries to make her walk on her own or see her fall nearly on her face as she tries to escape from his grasp or how she fake limped her way up the stairs after she fell with enough drama thrown in that she probably deserved an academy award. The girl doesn't lack in drama. It makes our days pretty entertaining. As is with most hours of our days we're either laughing at her and her cuteness or going crazy in our heads. I won't even bore you with the details of the 3 hours in the car. It was basically torturous for us. Hope acted as if we had overdosed her on caffeine and was literally, like literally, bouncing off the van walls. And seats. And floor. And any other space in between those.

We got her "home" and she took a nap. Then it was out for dinner and a walk. I took tons of photos of all the crazy food that they sell at the famous night market that is just a block or two from our hotel. Most of it is on a stick and it is worth traveling to China for just to see. Snake on a stick. Sheep heart on a stick. Beetles on a stick. Bee cocoons on a stick. Silkworm on a stick. Centipede on a stick. Starfish, crickets, and too may icky things to even list. But it's all beautiful in a sick-to-your-stomach sort of way. I couldn't stop taking pictures. Maybe one day we'll muster up the strength to actually taste something. I got splashed with juice from some squishy sea monster of some sort when the vendor waved it front of my face. That may be as close as I'll get to any of it.

See pictures from today here