Lily and Eric's Big China Adventure

November 29th - Almost home (Eric)

2008-11-29T06:25:00.000-08:00

Our Internet connection has been a bit iffy the last couple of days, making it very difficult to upload pictures and entries. Also, we have been pretty much running solid the last 2 days. We are back in Beijing tonight and will be getting up at 4:30am our time to catch our flight at 8:50am. We arrive in Seattle the same day at 6:45am. hmmm if we just continue to fly across the time zones ... would we never age?

Lily and I will post about the last couple of days, edit some of the posts already up and add the rest of the pictures from our computer connection at home.

Safe travels for everyone heading back from China.

Ciao- Eric & Lily

November 27th - The new Orphanage (Lily & Eric)

2008-11-27T15:05:00.001-08:00

This morning we headed back to the new orphanage for a dedication ceremony. There were officials from Chongqing and Fuling, as well as 7 other orphanage directors from the province. It was quite an event. The weather was great! The fog burned off and we had a nice sunny day. We also got a chance to go back inside and play with the kids again. Lily and I looked into the archive room. The staff had kept all of the pictures and reunion books that parents had sent them and store them in the archive room. We had 3 books in there. I went in and had a little cry. It was a very touching thing. It also had some pictures I had not seen before that the staff took on our adoption day. One of the others in the group tried to capture it with his camera, since I wasn't quite equipped to do it.

There were some very heartfelt speeches. Kathlene Also spoke at the dedication.

She talked about how we had a special affinity with Fuling and China through our children. How we have kept connected with other families because of that affinity. We identify ourselves as parents of Fulingers. It was a very good speech.

Director Yang knew many of the girls by name and sight. It is pretty amazing!

[Director Yang poses with 4 of the 7 girls from our group]

After the speeches we had a ribbon cutting ceremony to dedicate the orphanage.

[Lily and I cutting the ribbon]

[Girls posing with all of the local officials and orphanage directors]

[The Australian delegation ;-)]

[Director Yang and one of the Fuling girls]

[view from the 2nd floor of the orphanage]

[View from the 2nd floor of the orphanage]

[My camera gear at rest]

[Chessie]

[Lily]

[Sophie]

[Mya]

[Gracie whispers something to Grace]

[Carli]

One of the Fuling girls performed a wonderful Ballet. She had Chinese symbols that she held up throughout the dance.

A Temple that can been seen from the new orphanage grounds.

[Lucy getting a kiss from her parents Alan and Joy]

[Lily had a balloon headband]

[Sophie playing on some of the playground equipment]

[Chessie and Mya playing on the playground equipment]

[Our police escort always at the ready]

[View of the bridge from the orphanage]

After the ceremony, we came back to the hotel and decided to walk around the city a bit. Do a little shopping and some sight seeing.

Ciao - Eric and Lily

November 26th - Fuling at Last (Lily & Eric)

2008-11-27T07:17:00.000-08:00

Lily and I are going to post the last few days together to save some time. We seem to be getting busier by the day schedule wise, and the adventure is coming to a close.

Today we left Chongqing and traveled through the mountains to Fuling. It was a beautiful drive. Once we left the Chongqing city area, you could see a variety of farms and people planting crops in terraces around their homes. The area was very hilly and there was very little flat areas to plant crops on. The area is also fairly lush, even though it is the dry season. very much akin to Seattle.

Once we got to the Fuling area, we picked up a police escort. It has stayed with us for travel portions of this trip. We drive in whatever lane gets us through the intersections most quickly. Nothing like a police car to pave the way.

We took a drive through Fuling and then stopped at the waterfront to see the confluence of the Yangtze river being joined by one of it's tributaries. Some of the water was green and the other a yellow brown. Based on how much silt was in it. pretty cool.

Director Yang met the girls as they got off the bus

[Walking along the river front][A cable bridge in the distance - you can see how much fog and smog there is][The view of the waterfront]
[Carly and Grace play on the waterfront]

We had a short lunch and then I snagged the girls for a quick walk to work off some energy. A lot of the other folks were still eating. I get the wander list pretty easily.
[Sophie, Lily and Chessie - Outside a small vendor making blankets - this is a common cotton blanket style in this region]
[Chessie, Lily and Sophie - The girls sitting on some marble balls]

The hotel had very small elevators. After we got to our room on the 21st floor it was time to head back down to the lobby. The elevators were packed. So we decided we would race JulieAnne down the stairs and see if we could beat her to the bottom. With the girls in tow, we dashed off down 42 flights of stairs. We nearly beat her. We walked out the door almost at the same time as she did. After that breathtaking experience, we drove a short distance (maybe 1 mile) to the old orphanage. This is the orphanage where Lily stayed in during her first year. The orphanage has undergone a lot of changes and has been around for more than 20 years. It also acted as an old folks home.

[Lily and I outside the old orphanage - playground area]

[View of a portion of the building]

[Photo op with the local officials]

Most of the girls in this picture stayed in this orphanage at one time or another. Nearly 2000 orphans (I think that was the number from the speach) stayed here over the last 8 years. Later I will post some additional thoughts about the old orphanage -it was our first time seeing the orphanage. Most of the adopting families were able to come directly to the orphanage to pick up their girls. Because we were some of the first families adopting, we were unable to.

After lunch, we headed up to take a peak at the new orphanage. Once we got there, we were able to go play with the babies in the rooms. The new orphanage is significantly larger than the old one. It is new, spacious and well built.

[playing with the little girls]

After we toured and played with the kids for an hour or so, we went to the cafeteria at the orphanage and old folks home and made dumplings. It was a lot of fun. The kids really enjoyed the experience.

[preparing the dough for the dumplings - handing the wrappers out once they were pressed]

[Lucy carting some wrappers back to her table]

[Sophie playing in the flour afterwards]

[making dumplings]

After we made the dumplings we headed upstairs to eat the dumplings and Congi, a soup made by Director Yang. Yummy!

A long day done and time to head back to the hotel.

[Looks like gas is expensive everywhere]

[A shot directly of the sun. It was trying it's best to fight it's way through the haze]

ok - off to bed again - I will post about our day dedicating the new orphanage and walking around tomorrow.

Ciao - Eric & Lily

November 25th - The Pandas are coming (Lily)

2008-11-27T06:08:00.000-08:00

Today we went to the Zoo to see the Pandas. They were really cute. We came at feeding time and they were munching on Bamboo. That is their favorite food. Pandas are cute!

[Rare red Panda]

Gracie is a new Fuling friend. Her big brother Evan is on the trip with us too. He took our picture together at the zoo.

[Evan gets in to take a picture of Lily and Grace]

My four Fu sisters. We really miss the other 3 Fu sisters who could not make this trip with us.

[BFF's Mya, Sophie, Chessie, and Me]

[Sophie relaxing by the Pandas]

Some of the other Fulingers at the Zoo.

November 25th - Panda Panda Panda (Eric)

2008-11-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

Well, we seem to have hit our stride. By the time Lily and I get back to the hotel and I download pics and stuff, she is fast asleep. So I will probably be posting some of the blog entries first for our last few days here.

Today we went to see the Pandas at the local zoo in Chongqing. There were also a variety of other animals to check out. There were a lot of people wandering around the zoo area. It seemed like a common place to come and take a walk and see the animals.

[Mya, Spophie and Chessie - "oooooh the Pandas are over there"]

The Hippos seemed really interested in the kids behind the glass.

[Heron of some sort - cleaning itself]

[These look like black swans - never seen anything like it. They were beautiful]

There were street vendors right outside the zoo gates selling all kinds of food and goodies.

[These tasted a lot like Grapefruit, but just a little sweeter]

[Folks having noodles cooked fresh]
[More street food available - ready to cook to order - yummy stuff on a stick]

I bet you thought you were going to see pictures of Pandas! Well you will have to wait for Lily's blog entry for that. The only Pandas you get to see are these crazy walking pandas, that play happy birthday and have beadie little green eyes. Scaaaaaaary. Even more so when there were a good 20 of them going at once. You know almost every girl had to have one.

[Pandas take over the world ..... singing their evil happy birthday song]

[Lucinda tries a panda on for size]

[Mya, Sophie, Chessie and Lily after a long hard day]

Chongqing by the water was very interesting. The region is partially surrounded by mountains
and seems to be perpetually foggy. Part of it is air pollution and the other is just plan foggy weather. It did seem like the air was cleaner than the last time we were here 7 years ago. I would guess less coal burning.

The amount of construction going on was mind boggling. There were apartment houses and businesses going up everywhere. 20+ stories each. This is a growing area with around 33 million population in the municipality and I think it was 4-5 million in the city itself. One thing is for certain, it is a friendly city. People were very nice and greeted us. as we walked around you would here people saying "Hello" to see if they would get a "hello" back.

The food is spicy and I love that style of cooking. I also managed to find a Starbucks after lunch. That's the only western style restaurant I am willing to go into while I am here.

[Yangtze river (I think) it may have been one of the tributaries that connects near there]

[Downtown was busy and action packed. Lots of buildings and activity]

[Nothing quite so sad as a truck full of empties]

After the zoo and dinner, our family friend, David Stienke who is in Bei Bei took an hour long bus ride to meet us at the hotel. We had a great chat about his 3 months in China as part of his college coursework. Here is his blog on the trip he has been experiencing. http://davidisinchina.blogspot.com/. It is amazing how small a world it is. He also received a care package from his parents that I had tucked away in our luggage.

A great day. I also realized I may have a couple of our locations mixed up in the blog. If I get a chance I may change some of it around. Though I am not sure it really matters. It has been go go go since we got here.

Tomorrow we head out to Fuling to see the Orphanage that Lily was in, and then the next day, to do a ribbon cutting on the new orphanage that was just finished. Happy Thanksgiving all!

Ciao - Eric

November 24th - CCAA and Travel to Chongqing (Lily)

2008-11-26T03:28:00.001-08:00

Dad made me help pack up the night before. We were going to Chongqing in the afternoon. We went to CCAA where I saw the document rooms where adoptions are put together. We also learned how to do some Chinese Calligraphy in a class. They gave us Calligraphy brushes that we could take home.

[Dad and I out front of the documents room]

[Lily, Sophie, Chessie, Mya and Carli]

[Extreeme closeup of Carli - I was lucky to get this, Carli usually doesn't look right at me - lucky shot]

[Kathlene and Sophie in front of the records office]

I wonder who is taller?

After the CCAA we went to the Airport. Dad wouldn't let me ride on the luggage cart until after we dropped off most of the luggage. Then Carli and I rode the cart to Starbucks. Dad got both of us hot cocoa, but it was too hot. I made origami Samurai hats for all of my friends.

Then we went down to the gate and played for a while. We got on the plane and Sophie rode next to me. We made origami and we invented the billy-goat origami. remind me to show it to you when I get back.

After we landed we picked up our luggage and I got to ride on Kathlene's cart with Sophie. It was fun. We went to the hotel and then went to bed. I am excited because we get to see the Pandas tomorrow.

Lily.

Quick news article update

2008-11-25T22:16:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to the newspaper article that ran regarding our visit while we were in Beijing.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/24/content_7232900.htm

The last page (5) has a picture of Lily sitting the lap of the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The article was well put together. When we get a chance, Lily and I will bl0og more about the CCAA visit, and seeing the Pandas.

Ciao - Eric

November 24th - CCAA and Travel to Chongqing (Eric)

2008-11-25T06:41:00.001-08:00

Looks like I will post first today. It's close to 10pm and Lily has long gone to sleep. We started the day early, getting all packed and leaving the suitcases outside the door for the bellboy to take down to the buses. We are going to visit the CCAA today, have lunch and then catch a plane to Chongqing, which is about a 2.5 hour flight.

We started off at the China Center for Adoption Affairs. This is where all of the paper work for adoptions travels to, is processed and where the matches of children to adopting parents is made.

This is the room where 'packages' are kept after they have been translated and the matches are getting ready to be made. These folks are hard at work. In talking with Vivian, she said that a translator can translate a package and a half every day. But it is hard work and that is not a sustained rate.

After we looked around, the girls had a 45 minute class on Chinese calligraphy and tried their hand at some. Lot's of fun. As we left, Director Chen (spelling?) on the right and the staff of CCAA waved goodbye. It was quite an event.

Off to get some lunch. Surprise.... Chinese food. It was more of a southern Chinese style, Thai and others mixed in. It was Awesome! as usual!

[Carli, JulieAnne and Chessie getting ready for Lunch]

Some of the food was Szeschwan style, which I love. Can you see that bead of sweat coming off of my brow? Yummy!

[That is some hot food - Yum!]

[Random sign as we left the resteraunt]

After lunch, it was off to the airport. We waited in line while they processed all of our luggage and passports. I forgot I had moved some hand lotion into my carry on. Woops. An extra 10 minutes while they looked at everything in my carry on and rescanned over an over. That will teach me.

A smooth ride to Chongqing, naps by some, others talked or read. Sophie Fu was in our row, and she and Lily made origami animals for a good portion of the flight. I tried to catch a quick nap ... lol - not likely.

[Sophie and Lily catching a ride on their luggage cart as we left the Chongqing airport]

The ride from Beijing to Chongqing was a pretty smooth one. On the buses and over to the Hotel for tucking in. Another super busy action packed day.

One a side note.... This is the very hotel we stayed in when we adopted Lily. We spent our first night with her in this very location. Amazing.

Chongqing has changed immensely since I was here last in 2000. New buildings are everywhere. This is the view from our hotel room. This one doesn't look like it will get finished anytime soon. No worries. There are 40 more even better going up right now.

Ok - off to bed. Lily will post tomorrow.

Ciao - Eric

November 23rd - Civial Affairs - Follow up (Eric)

2008-11-25T06:05:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post a quick note about our visit to the Civil Affairs office on the 23rd. It was a pretty big event. We had the largest group of returning adoptees that the office has hosted to date as a single group. There was coverage from the local newspaper and China News. This morning I received newspaper articles in both Chinese and English with the stories from the event as a whole. We also received a DVD with the news cast in Chinese, they did a 4-5 minute segment. Many families were represented in the newscast, and Lily and I were seen receiving a gift from the Minister of Civil Affairs. Pretty exciting. I need to do some additional picture editing, and then we should get a blog post up again some time tomorrow.

Ciao - Eric

November 23rd - Civial Affairs - Great Wall Adventure (Eric)

2008-11-24T06:45:00.000-08:00

We had a busy day on the 23rd. Lot's of running around. We started off early and headed over to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. This is where the adoption Policies for the People's Republic of China are written.

There was a bit of ceremony for this and the Local TV Station for Beijing was there to film a segment that showed later that evening. If I get a chance, I will see if there is a digital version of this to add to the blog. We saw it viewed this morning, while Lily and I were presented gifts from the Minister of Civil Affairs. It was quite a touching ceremony.

The Minister of Civil Affairs writes all adoption policy for the People's Republic of China. I guess we have him to thank for being able to adopt Lily!

Kathlene presented a gift from FKI to the Minister of Civil Affairs and the Deputy Minister

Groups had their pictures taken with the Government Officials.

JulieAnne gave a short speech thanking our hosts and the Civil Affairs. She did her best not to get teary eyed near the end.

The Deputy Minister gave a welcoming speech.

It was quite a brewha .... There were articles in the paper then next day and we made the news. We were the largest returning group as a whole that have come back to visit China. There have been a variety of other groups, just not one single group this large.

[Grandma Kay and Ericka]

[LeAnne and Tady]

[Lucinda and DeAnne - from Australia]

Chessie, Sophie and Lily wander ahead at the Olympic Stadium (Missing is Mya - since she was sick that day). These girls are pretty much hand in hand or arm in arm all the time time. They are very close.

We rode up in the same cable car as Pres Bill Clinton - rofl

[View down the Mountain from the Cable car as we climbed to the foot of the Great Wall of China]

First view of the Great Wall of China. This section is 3 Kilometers long and had some unique features. It has been nicely restored.

The view out from the Wall on the 'enemy side?'. I figure anyone who can cross those mountain ranges should be protected against.

The Great Wall is amazing. I would have liked to spend more time there. A few of us decided to walk back down to the bus instead of taking the cable cars. All I can say is 'buns of steel' workout. It was a bit of work, but well worth it.

As soon as we got off the stairs we were accosted by all the vendors. "Mr. Mr. " It was a lot of fun. I picked up some T-shirts and candy covered Pecans. Kathlene and JulieAnne in the meantime, got Lily an ink stamp with her name in Chinese - Fu De Zhen, which is her given Chinese name. All of the girls in our group have the family name 'Fu De'.

That's it for the Great Wall Adventures.

Ciao - Eric

November 23rd - Great Wall Adventure (Lily)

2008-11-24T05:59:00.001-08:00

We slept good because there was no hammering that night or morning. Mya was sick and was not able to come with us to the Great Wall, which was a bummer.

We got up and went to the ministry of civil affairs. There was a lot of stuff going on there (my Dad will explain more details in his blog post). In this picture we sang twinkle twinkle little star to the officials in the audience.

[Girls sing twinkle twinkle little star to the Government Officials]

As part of the visit to the Ministry, we received a Panda and baby Panda stuffed animal as a gift and some other goodies. They also did a nice traditional dance for us.

[Dancers at the ministry]

Our second stop was the site of the 2008 Olympics. We saw the 'Birds Nest' and the Water Sports pavilion.

[Lily posing in front of the Birds Nest]

My Dad and I got our picture taken in front of the Olympic Stadiums.

[Me and Dad in front of the Olympic Stadiums]

After the Stadium we drove for an hour to the Great Wall of China. It was very cool seeing it. We rode up in cable cars to the top and then walked up some stairs to get the the Great Wall.

This was our view from the first guard tower.

[Great Wall of China]

Me and the girls ran ahead to the second guard tower and climbed to the top of it. It was like a maze inside, and there were stairs to take you to the top (roof). The last step up to the roof, was so tall, we had to help Carli and Grace get down on the way back. You could see the mountains far in the distance.

[Girls up on the guard tower on the Great Wall]

[Chessie, Sophie, Lily, Carli & Grace on the Guard Tower]

[A bunch of the girls posing on the way out]

[Dad and me on the Great Wall of China]

[Chessie, Me and Sophie on the Great Wall of China]

I took the cable car up and down to the Great Wall, but Dad walked down. He said it was a bunch of stairs and took a while to get down.

After the Great Wall, we drove all the way back to Beijing and then had dinner in the hotel. We got takeout from a Chinese restaurant, and I had Korean BBQ Pork. I ate it with chopsticks. I am getting very good with them now. We ate in Chessie, Carlie and Sophie's room. We watched a movie while my Dad edited pictures and Kathlene and JulieAnne went to do some shopping.

After that, we went back to our room and packed the suitcases to get ready for checking out the next day.

More Later - Lily

November 22nd - The Forbidden City (Eric)

2008-11-23T06:20:00.000-08:00

It's been an action packed series of days so far. Everything has gone really smoothly and a continuous stream of reunions of kids who haven't seen each other for a while. It is cold, around 32 degrees, but sunny and dry. It is the dry season here in Beijing right now.

Lily and I are blogging every day, but a day to a day and a half behind. By the time we get back to our hotel, eat dinner, download pics, edit pics and settle down, it's almost time to go to bed.
We will probably not get a chance to blog tomorrow because of our schedule, so there may be a few entries after we get to Chongqing.

Today we decided to go to the temple of heaven. We walked on our own from the Hotel which is always fun. It was not too crowded (from what we had heard), but there were people everywhere.

We got our tickets and headed into the Forbidden city. It is immense. It was a little hard to grapple with the size of it all together. It looks like it is close to 1km in length and maybe 800m in width. As we walked in, it is broken up into sections down the middle and then left and right. Each area has a specific purpose and meaning. I won't get into all of that,since there isn't enough room in the blog for that.

[ A quick shot of LeAnne and her grandma Kay (I may have the name wrong here)]

[Kathlene folds up her fancy map and gives me the 'forced smile']

The girls were all having a great time. There was a lot of room to run around and be goofy off on the side areas.

[Chessie, Mya and Sophie ham it up for a shot that Lily was taking]

A broad picture as you enter off on the left side.

As we were walking, I started thinking about who's feet has trod these same stones over the years. At over 600 hundred years old, it makes you wonder.

Some interesting reflections off of the mote that runs through the first section.

Coming down over the first section and looking across. I will label these properly when I get a chance.

Dragon spouts in a row.

The doors are interesting. 9 was a sacred (? - maybe it was longevity or something else, I need to ask again) number that was reserved for imperial use only. Many of the doors and other parts of the architecture utilize very specific sets of numbered items, doors, archways, stones, etc ... In this case, there were 9 buttons across the door and 9 rows.

Sophie and Lily checking out one of the cauldrons that were set around the Forbidden City in case of fire. They would have been filled with water back in the day.

The girls were taking a quick snack break about 1/2 way through. It was a beautiful sunny day.

One of the bed chambers.

A small temple in the garden on the North end of the Forbidden City.

A dragon getting his reflection.

Closeup of the details around the door handles

Now the group size has gotten quite large. 43 families, with close to 130 people. We have been working around getting to know a lot of new people at breakfast, lunch and during the tours.

Tomorrow we will be involved in a presentation with some of the foreign officials. We are one of the largest groups returning at the same time that they have hosted. We will also be seeing the site of the 08 Olympics and the Great Wall of China.

More blogging sometime in the next 48 hours.

Ciao - Eric

November 22nd - The Forbidden City (Lily)

2008-11-22T14:15:00.000-08:00

(just a quick note - Lily took most of the pictures in her portion of the blog)

Today I saw my two other Fuling Sisters, Chessie and Sophie. They joined our group the night before. The parents decided we were going to walk to the Forbidden City (we didn't have a say in it). It was a long walk (my Dad said it was about 2 kilometers). We posed outside of the Forbidden City.

[From Left LeAnne, Mya, Sophie, Lily, Carli, Chessie - outside the forbidden City Entrance]

[Lily poses inside the Forbidden City]

Dad bought us a map of the forbidden city for 5y. It showed all of the places we could see.

[Map of the forbidden city]

Chessie and Sophie ran around after Kathleene said it was ok. They needed to run out some of their extra energy.

[Chessie and Sophie run across the Forbidden City]

Mya posed in front of the first building. It was sort of crowded. There were a lot of people walking around and taking pictures. It was kind of a big place.

[Mya in front of Forbidden City]

Two pictures my Dad took with his camera showing how big that first section of the forbidden City is.

We walked in one side of the Forbidden City and left on the other side. We walked and walked and walked all the way back to the hotel. I was tortured and wanted to take a rickshaw or a cab back. Dad said it was about a Kilometer walking through the forbidden City and then another two Kilometers walking back to the hotel.

That makes FIVE kilometers that we walked. Crazy! That's about 4 miles!

After we got back we ate a yummy dinner (Dad said sort of Thai food). Me and Sophie wanted sushi, maybe tomorrow. We watched the people cook the food through a special window.

Then we went shopped for swim suites for Chessie and Carli. I bought too, but it didn't fit. Good thing I brought one. We went swimming in the fancy swimming pool. They had chandeliers above the pool and we were not allowed to throw the floaty circles because of that.

We also had to wear swim caps. Dad looked hilarious in his. Mine was cute - pink!

After swimming all of the families met for the first time in a meeting, and we got red scarves to wear. We also got a kite, some colors and a diary. After that we went to Sophie and Chessie's room while my Dad showed some of the families how to get to the market (for water and snacks).

We went to bed at 10pm and have to wake up at 6am the next morning.

Lily

November 21st - Busy Day (Eric)

2008-11-21T15:41:00.000-08:00

We woke up much more refreshed today. The hammering and pounding didn't start until around 7am, which worked well, since we needed to get up, eat breakfast and meet our guide at 9am.

Our first stop was the Temple of Heaven. It was an amazing experience. The size and grandeur of it all is pretty breath-taking. As we walked in, there is a long tiled approach to the temples. A bunch of older men were practicing a variety of calligraphy styles with large paint brushes and water on the tiles as we walked by. There are a huge number of variations to how they can write the same character. We stopped to talk with one of them and he wrote something, I want to say US is nice. I will post them later once I finish editing pictures.

There were a lot of retired age people walking around the Temple area. The grounds are HUGE, and it is essentially the temple area surrounded by a park area. People were practicing dance and other activities in the park areas.

[Lily and Mya as we approach the Earthly Mount]

The detail work on the marble and granite was very fine. this was an example of one of the Dragons (I am assuming) off of the side of the Earthly Mount.

Some of the other detail pieces looked like they were cast, but I think they probably represent the originals fairly closely. Since you can handle a lot of this, I would suspect it wears quickly. regardless, the details were very nice.

[Me and Lily stopping for a quick picture on the Earthly Mount, overlooking the Imperial Vault of Heaven]

[Imperial Vault of heaven]

After the Temple of Heaven we stopped for lunch at an interesting restaurant. Midway through lunch, some entertainers got up on stage and performed traditional dance numbers from the area they represented and some music as well. The area is southern China, near Burma and Thailand. The food we had there represented a mix between Thai and Chinese food we would expect to eat in the states. It was quite good.

[Playing the flute, note the fancy mic strapped to his wrist with a sweatband]

[One of the dancers showing some of the dance moves from that area.]

After lunch, we stopped at a market to pick up some souvenirs. I had been asked by a friend to pick up a nice hand bag for her. When I talked to our guide, he indicated there was some level of crack down on the knock off products market. So when we got to the market they didn't have anything there. The booth sellers were pretty aggressive; "Mr. Mr. over here, Polo shirts - cheap", or "Come look at Shirts, shoes, suites,". Pretty much anything you could think of. After talking with one of the stall owners, the convinced me to leave the market and come look at their 'private offerings'.

So Lily and I wandered off with her to her shop around the corner, down a dark hall, and to a random door. Inside they had pretty much any style of name brand bag you could imagine. After about 20 minutes of haggling we agreed on a price and the bag was mine (or in this case Heidi's).

After the market, we stopped in Tienanmen Square. It is the largest public gathering place in the world. They indicated it could hold 1 million people. It's hard to imagine that.

There is a mausoleum erected for Mao in the square as well as the People's Heroes Monument. It was breathtaking.

We had wanted to see the forbidden city and walked over to view it, but it was too late and they were no longer selling tickets. So it was back to the hotel.

[Guards getting ready to retire the colors in Tienanmen Square]

It was a long day of running around. Lily and I dropped in and had spicy chicken and rice for dinner, and then visited with friends until it was time for bed.

Ciao - Eric

November 21st - My dad is Paranoid (Lily)

2008-11-21T03:55:00.000-08:00

It was out 2nd morning in Beijing. Last night we got a small air conditioner to cool the room down. The room stayed at 31 degrees Celsius. It was really hot. Every time we turned on the inside air conditioner it made the room too hot. The portable air conditioner helped cool the room down to about 26 degrees Celsius.

We slept much better because the noise didn't start until 7am and it was cooler in the room. When we woke up we went downstairs for breakfast and I had bacon, potato pies and a cheese and ham omelet.

After breakfast we went back to our room to get our things and then went downstairs to the lobby to meet William and an unexpected surprise visitor. It was Mya, one of my fuling sisters!!!

[Lily and Mya pose in front of the welcome Fuling families sign in the Hotel]

After meeting everyone in the lobby, we went to visit the Temple of Heaven. We did not get to ride rickshaws today, which was a bummer .... waaaaaaah.

[Temple of Heaven]

I tried to kick the hacky sack which people were playing with in the park. There were a lot of old people in the park, playing hacky sack, ribbons, dancing, and exercising. I was not able to understand a word they were saying to me.

[ Lily Tries Hacky Sack]

Today I learned how to say Bu Shei Shei - which means 'No Thank You'. I learned that to tell people 'No Thank You' when they tried to sell things to me. They were very pushy and followed us around.

[Temple of heaven]

We went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The food was not spicy this time. My favorite dish was the chicken dish. I learned how to use chopsticks, and I could even eat rice with them.

[Lunch time]

[Extreeeeeeme self portrait closeup]

After lunch we went to the market. I bought a fan and Mya and I posed with our new fans. The fan in handy later to cool me off. Dad also bought me a pair of boots in the market. My Dad bargained to get a good price. We also walked to a 'back room' down a dark hall to get a Guchi bag for our friend Heidi (yum yum). Dad bargained there as well.

[Mya and Lily pose with their fans]

Next we drove to Tian'anmen Square. William said over 1 million people could assemble in Tian'anmen Square and that it was the largest public square in the entire world. My new nickname for our guide William is either Hilliam or Pilliam.

We walked through the square, towards the forbidden city. We stopped and posed for some pictures.

[Lily holds chairman Mao in her hand]

We decided to jump on Willian in Tian'anmen Square.

[Mya, LuLu and Lily jump on William]

[William was telling us to hurry up when we were walking at Tian'anmen Square. ]

We were not able to get into the forbidden city today, because it was too late. We will try again tomorrow. After we got back, I played with my friends and Chessie, Carlie and JulieAnne came to our room for a visit.

That's it for today - Lily

November 21st - Censorship, I guess Not (Eric)

2008-11-21T01:22:00.000-08:00

Ok - it's back up ---- It's a conspiracy I tell you!

I noticed today that the Blog that Lily and I have been authoring this trip to China is not accessible from my laptop. I had a trusty associate at work try the blog address from their side ericgetsout.blogspot.com. Works great from their side but it doesn't resolve from here.

I know there are a set of key words that can cause a web site or even a domain to be blocked at the Proxy that funnels all the Internet in and out of China. This happened before with my friends non-profit organization FKI, which supports the orphanages in Fuling China.

So I am wondering if there is something in our blog keyword wise that caused it to get blocked.
Am I paranoid? I think not. Maybe tomorrow will tell if I can access the blog.

Fortunately, Lily and I can still post articles, we just can't seem to look at the blog itself. If that changes, I will be happy to post a; "I am waaaay to paranoid post for my own good".

In the meantime, I am now wearing a tinfoil hat for the rest of the trip!

November 20th - Touring Beijing (by Eric)

2008-11-20T15:20:00.000-08:00

I ended up tipping over around 8 or 9pm, which I noticed on my laptop was about 5am. Finally the banging from downstairs commenced aroudn 7am, and it seemed like a good time to start the day. No wonder my body felt all wacked out. We ended up having a great adventerous first day in Beijing. Our guide William was very attentitve and knew a significant amount of history of the city. For the portion of the Rickshaw riding, we had an additional guide, Yong who was also very knowledgable about the history of the Hu Tong area we were wandering through.

This is a picture of Lily and Yong walking towards the old home we toured. It was about 200 years old. It was built around a small courtyard and had specific purposes for each set of rooms. The northern rooms were the largest and usually held the main family. The east and west rooms held other family and the south room was for servants, now used as a reading room.

From the Left - Susanne, Joy, William (our guide), and Allen as we walked through a narrow alleyway connecting the main road in Tu Hong to the Kindergarten we visited.

This was a merchants road that in the old days sold tobacco and opium products. Today we were manhandled by folks selling Chairman Mao and Rolex Watches. I didn't realize I could pick up a Rolex for $5us. We walked along this merchants row for about 10 minutes to get to the Drum Tower.

This guy was bulding a wire rim from scratch, when we walked by him again on the way out he was nearly done. What I didn't stop to get a picture of was the 3 guys to his left which had an open campfire going under the gasoleen tank of a truck. They were trying to unfreeze it? I don't know, but we didn't linger.
All manner of motorized vehicles were in use. Some are aused for hauling things, taxis and just getting around. I will toss some pictures up of those today if I get a chance. The cars surprised me a little. Not a lot of older vehicles. Lots of 5 year and newer cars on the roads. So I figure, you either have the funds to get a good car or you travel another way.

A guy giving his pooch a ride around the lake.

The Bell tower viewed from the base of the Drum Tower.

Home Depot on wheels. Notice the toilet on the first one and the supplies on the second. There was a thrid one with building materials right in front of those two.

The weather has been great. It's brisk, about 0 celcius, and was sunny and not windy. By the afternoon at the summer palace, it was quite pleasant. There were a lot of changes made to Beijing in preperation for the Olympic Games. First off, they planted tons of trees all over to help with how things looked and to reduce the polution. They didn't transplant little trees, these things are fully grown trees. Crazy, but they did a beutiful job. If the trees live and thrive, it will improve the cities feel, that's for sure. They also completed a series of subways, and over the next 7-10 years, plan on a new line every year so that there is a subway station every Kilometer. The level of growth and industry here is significant.

Quite a few other observations to make, but it's time for breakfast and to get started on another day of touring. Lily and I will post some comments tonight if we have an opportunity.

Cheers - Eric

November 20th - Touring Beijing (by Lily)

2008-11-20T02:21:00.000-08:00

We woke up at 4am in the morning to the sound of hammering noises. It was really loud. Not sure where it was coming from. We both tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't and got up at 6am. We got dressed and went to breakfast. I had a cheese omelet with Ham in it. Then my Dad took me on a long walk around the hotel area. We stopped at a store and got a notebook (which I named Mogli), Diet Coke (for Dad), and some water. After that we walked back to the Hotel.

We met our Interpreter and guide William at 9:30 in the lobby. We also met DD, Lucy and Jane - three other girls from Fuling, who now live in Australia with their parents. They have an Australian accent. We got on our bus and went to Hu Tong. We rode Rickshaws around Hu Tong. My Dad and I were together in one, and the other families had their own.

We visited a kindergarten school. We played in the kindergarten and with some of the kids. It was soooo fun.

Crossing the streets is exciting. There are not very many crosswalks and the cars and bikes are coming all the time.

We rode the rickshaws to an old style Chinese house with a courtyard in the middle of it. We tried barley tea (yuck). I also had my name painted by an artist. There were two old men playing Chinese Chess. The house was over 200 years old.

The Rickshaw ride was over, and I was sad. I hope we get to ride the Rickshaws again before we go home. We all had lunch - Chinese food. The food was on a big spinning table thingie. The food spun around and everyone shared. Lucinda loaned me her fork because the chopsticks were hard to use with rice (they were too big). I had to use the squatty Potty, gross .....

After lunch we went to the Drum Tower. We walked up super steep stairs (at least 100), to get to the top. There were huge drums up there (And it was sooooo not worth it).

After that, we went to the summer palace and walked and walked and walked .... and Dad will tell you about the summer palace.

I am very excited for the new friends I made.

More tomorrow - and more from Dad (Lily)

Travel Update (Eric)

2008-11-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

Traveling was really smooth. A slight surprise at SeaTac where they informed me the new bag weight limit was 50lbs instead of 70lbs. Not a big deal, just moved my 4lb tripod to another bag and we were good to go. A bunch of movie watching, reading and game playing on the long flight. Lily slept through the short one. Saw a breathtaking sunset on the decent into Tokyo. Slight itenrary cahnge today. Looks like we are headed to an old village of some kind this morning. We had planned on going to a very remote section of the Great Wall, but it is very rugged and not condusive to small kids. Quick plan change. Lily and I took a walk through the city this morning around 7am. It was quite brisk and refreshing. More later. Cheers - Eric

Travel and Arrival (Post by Lily)

2008-11-19T16:45:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday morning, grampa drove us to the aitport. Dad had to move stuff around in the bags because one was too heavy. oops. Then we waited for a while and got on the plane. It was a long plane ride to Tokyo / Japan. I watched 4 movies on way there. The flight took forever. When we got to Tokyo, we switched to another plane. We had 20 minutes. I almost got lost looking for the bathroom. I went in a big circle twice, looking and looking for the bathroom. Finally my Dad helped me find it. We met a nice lady from Panama who was also traveling to Beijing. She used to be a teacher and is retired now. In Seatle, she taught 5th grade Spanish and Sewing.

The flight from Tokyo to Beijing went really quickly, because I fell asleep. My Dad woke me up right when we landed in Beijing. That seemed like a 30 minute flight. We landed, picked up our bags and met Brian, who drove us to the hotel. We got into our room around 11pm and went to bed. It was pretty cold in Beijing - 32 degrees. brrrr.

Lily

T - 1 Day

2008-11-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

Visas have arrived and our itinerary is locked down. Now we are getting packed up and ready to go. It's hard to believe it has been close to 8 years since we were in China the first time. Lily and the six other beautiful girls were the first girls adopted from the Fuling orphanage.

Here are the girls that amazing day back in February of 2000.

Here they are 7 years later during one of our reunions.

The time sneaks by while we are living our day to day lives. We get together with the girls every 6 months, once for a day and then another time for a long weekend. When you have an experience such as this, it creates a special affinity with those you shared it with.

Lily is getting very excited for the trip and to see her other 3 'Fuling Sisters' who will be traveling with us.

Now .... where did I put that extra phone charger?

Locking down on the Itinerary

2008-11-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

As Lily and I await our VISA's, I am getting the last of the details for our itinerary locked in place. The VISA process has continued to get easier over the years. Just jam a bunch of info into a package and have it couriered over to the Chinese consulate ... easy easy ... (I hope).

Lily and I fly out in the early afternoon from Seattle on November 18th. After a quick stop over in Tokyo, and arriving in Beijing on the evening of the 19th.

Then the excitement starts;
Nov 20th ---Visit Mutianyu section of the Great Wall (a different part from which the group will visit)
Nov 21st ---Visit Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven and a nearby market
Nov 22nd---Visit Chuandixia Qing-era Village
Nov 23rd ---Tour to the Great Wall after lunch
Nov 24th ---Learn Tai-Chi at a local park, parents visit CCAA and kids take calligraphy class

Go to Chongqing by flight go to new Hotel and chill

Nov 25th ---Visit the Zoo and see the pandas, Chongqing Adoption Registration Center,
Visit Hongyadong Scenic spot near Yangtze River
Nov 26th --- Drive to Fuling, take river view on the dam, Visit the original orphanage
Nov 27th --- Moving Ceremony and lunch at new orphanage, Visit Fuling Preserved Vegetable Factory outside Fuling
Nov 28th --- Visit a local elementary school
Nov 29th --- Head back to Beijing, then Tokyo, and on to Seattle

Pretty action packed couple of weeks.

Ciao

Preperation

2008-10-20T19:43:00.001-07:00

4 weeks to go before Lily and I head off for China. We will be spending some time in and around Beijing and then flying to Chongchin and then driving to Fuling. More as things progress further.