JUNE 4, 2004: BEIJING, CHINA
Hooking Up with our Travel Group
Today we flew from Guangzhou to Beijing; From a third world airport to a very modern facility. Leaving the Guangzhou airport involved four things: (1) The constant smell of rotting leche nuts which are sold everywhere. Downstairs, upstairs, and everywhere else, there is no getting away from them. The locals eat them by the fist full, then toss the seeds and husks in the garbage, which judging by the odor is emptied only once a month. The stench was very tough on the stomach. I think it even permeated the time-space continuum. (2) The Guangzhou airport has about 200 chairs for 3,000 bodies, which meant a three hour wait for us with no where to sit. We managed to sit on our luggage for about an hour before a couple of seats opened up. Just about the time we got to sit down, our gate opened and we had to move on. (3) No air conditioning and moderate ventilation; and (4) Go before you leave to avoid some very nasty squat toilets. They say the new Guangzhou airport is supposed to open next month; Just our luck. We paid our required 50 Yuan airport tax (about $5.80) to help the cause. We also had our first snafu on the trip- security wouldn’t let us pass due to a problem with our boarding pass. We had to go back to the counter, then to an airline supervisor to fix the problem, which she took care of quite easily and quickly. Yet, they were so embarrassed to have made a mistake, they insisted on bumping us up to First class. Like we argued- NOT!
After being glared at by security, we met up with four other families from our group going to Beijing and on to Lanzhou. They had arrived from the U.S. at 5:15am today, and had been waiting six hours for this flight. We will be with this group for the rest of our trip, and we have been communicating with them via email, so we know a little about each family. Others we had met back in April at the travel meeting will fly into Beijing from Shanghai or the U.S. It was good to put faces with names, and share photos of the babies we get to hold on Sunday. They were all very tired and ready to fall asleep, which made us realize again how much better it was to have come early. Of all the decisions about this trip, coming in a few days early appears to be a good start.
Cindy is our national Chinese guide from GWCA who will be with us throughout the remainder of the trip. She was at the airport holding a green "GWCA" banner so we could find her. They led us to the bus which would take us to the airport. We like Cindy a lot already- she called our orphanage in Zhangye this morning and received a fax update on the girls and had that info for us! So now we know that Samantha is in good health, and weighing in at about 16 pounds. One baby is 26 pounds and only a week older than Sam. We also know most of the clothing we brought with us will not fit: We assumed she would be a little bigger. Cindy, and our local Beijing guide (Michael) took us to the hotel which is about 5 miles from the airport, dropped us off, gave us our room keys and instructions for tomorrow, and then headed back to the airport. (Our local guide had already checked everyone into the hotel- how awesome is that)! Cindy & Michael have 5 more trips to make to the airport to pick up all 13 families in the group who arrive at different times. Tomorrow at 8:30 am, we all meet in the Lobby to begin the "tour of death." We also ran into three other families that had come over early- two stayed in Beijing over the last week, and one stayed in Shanghai.
Dinner is on our own tonight, which we ate at the hotel. We had dinner around 6pm in an International restaurant, and bypassed the French pastry shop in the lobby. That was tough; the selection was astounding and I’m sure laden with more calories than the price tag. We spent this evening talking to some of the other families. After a day of mostly travel, we are looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
Tomorrow is what I have continuously called the "Tour of Death." We will go to see Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City first. Today is the 15th anniversary of the 1989 massacre that ended the student uprising. I thought I’d also mention something that happened last night that was kinda interesting. While in the hotel at Guangzhou, we were watching the BBC edition of CNN. During the broadcast, a reporter was at Tiananmen square talking about the changes from the uprising 15 years ago. She stated the government touts sweeping change and reforms during that time, and then made the comment, "But there are still many who do not agree." That was the last we saw, as the station went blank. All the other stations were available, but this was censored. About ten minutes later, CNN was back. I guess the Chinese government is still a wee bit sensitive about killing thousands of student demonstrators. Our guides mentioned that there may be protests tomorrow, and that we should not photograph, talk, or have anything to do with anyone protesting. These things made for a profound reminder that we were definitely in a communist country with limited freedoms.
After lunch, we will see the Great Wall of China. We will all have dinner together with our guides, and should be back in the hotel around 9pm. Sunday- that’s the day! We depart Beijing for a 2 hour flight to get our babies around 3pm here, which would be around 2am in the morning back home. I hope to be able to send a few pictures quickly so that each you can check your email on Sunday morning to see a picture of us holding Sam in our arms. We are so close!
JUNE 5TH, 2004: BEIJING CHINA
Today was the major tourist event: The Tour of Death. We visited the Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall of China. After breakfast at the hotel, we boarded our bus and made the half hour drive into downtown Beijing. It is truly amazing the amount of bamboo scaffolding in use around some very large buildings (video). In the states, we’re used to seeing the typical steel scaffolding with large planks to walk on. These are solid bamboo poles tied together with twine that rise ten stories or more! Amazingly, it is extremely sturdy, and is the same process that has been used for thousands of years to build things in China- so why mess with it if it works??? As Beijing prepares for the 2008 Olympic games, the city is already undergoing a facelift. Overall, what we saw looks like most any other major city, except of course that everything was written in Mandarin Chinese. We did not see much of the capital other than traveling into and back out of the city. As the second largest city in China, some 13 million people, one thing that stood out was the massive number of high rise apartment buildings. These are typically called "matchbox" apartments, due to their small size- roughly about 500 square feet or less. They tower sixty stories into the sky here, there, and everywhere.
Tiananmen Square was our first stop. All morning long we were surrounded by street merchants hawking their stuff. They had kites, maps, souvenir books, and so forth, and boy oh boy did we stand out! It was like a group of vultures swooping down upon their prey. The most interesting were the little guys with these cheesy plastic watches that featured a picture of chairman Mao on the face. They would walk around with a dozen or so in each hand saying, "Rolex, Rolex." It was very funny! Anyway, the Square (which is surrounded with government buildings and museums), is a place where a million people can congregate quite easily: It is the largest public square in the world. We walked through the square as our guides identified the different buildings. As we came to the street that separates the square from the Forbidden City, the entire group gathered for a professional photograph. Behind us was the entrance to the Forbidden City that sports the ten foot tall photo of chairman Mao. In the photo, Mao’s picture is directly above my head.
The Forbidden City was built in 1406, and housed the royal families of 24 Chinese Emperors for more than 600 years, with the last emperor being ousted just before WWII. There is an Academy Award winning film called "The Last Emperor," which is, of course, about the Last Emperor of China who died in 1967. The first half and last few minutes give very good views of what this place looks like. The entire complex houses over 900 buildings, and is the epitome of Chinese architecture. I don’t remember how many hundreds of acres this thing is, but it looks bigger than the University of Tennessee! We walked straight through the middle of the complex; It took three hours. Yes, I’m talking a very large place! Our guide was also very happy to point out a "Four Star Toilet" near the end of the tour. This is a western style toilet (which means it looks like what we would have in our home). In China, such a thing is a luxury.
We departed the Forbidden City, which was called that because only the emperor and his staff were allowed inside, then headed to our bus. It is called the Forbidden City, because the emperors were seen as gods, and the general public was not allowed access to them. Our guides told us that the place has only been open to the public for about 30 years, and many of the older Chinese people will not go inside for fear of incurring the wrath of the spirits of the previous emperors. I think if they can eat bugs & creepy crawlies, they’ve already incurred some kind of wrath.
We headed north into the mountains, but first stopped for lunch as a group. I should say something about our adoption group as it will shed perspective on events. Our group is comprised of 13 families, including us. There is one fella in the Air Force who has traveled by himself: He disclosed the reason to us- His wife (who was not supposed to be able to have any more children) became pregnant about 4 months before traveling to China. They did not disclose this to the Agency or Chinese government, which wouldn’t matter anyway. As they were so far into the adoption process, they decided to go through with it. We all watched out for him since he was by himself. Four of the families had been through this process before, and three of the families brought the children they had previously adopted with them. Three of the families had nannies, friends, or parents with them. So, before even getting our babies, we have 29 adults (including the two guides), and three children between the ages of three and five. That means that we always travel by large passenger bus, and that going to dinner together was a huge undertaking! Once you add the babies, that’s going to be 45 beings on the bus. So, going to lunch and dinner today was a very impressive undertaking! We had to entrust ourselves to our guides and let them order the food for us, as the menus were in Mandarin with no English to be found. They did a great job and all the dishes were wonderful.
We had ample opportunity to walk off lunch when we arrived at a section of The Great Wall of China. I say section, because this thing is spread out over about 10,000 miles, and not entirely pieced together. It was started in 770BC, and continued being built until the eighteenth century (Ming Dynasty), roughly off and on for 2,000 years. Let me tell you one thing for certain: It would never pass building codes in the U.S.! The steps to this thing range from a few inches to over a foot in height, and it is incredibly uneven. I made it about half way to the first tower in the top left corner of the photo before my left knee started throbbing and swelling. About a month ago, I came down off of a ladder and hyper-extended my knee. Once it’d had enough and the swelling started, I knew it was time to start back down. Debbie continued up to the tower and took some nice photos. I’ve suggested that with the walking in Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and now the Great Wall, came a tactic by our adoption agency to make us so tired that we would be able to sleep without the anxiety of what tomorrow holds. If that is part of the thinking, I can tell you it doesn’t work: We were now tired and anxious! Thus my calling today, "The Tour of Death," because we’re dead tired.
After returning to our hotel, we walked a little ways to a very nice Chinese restaurant where our national guide ordered dinner for all us. The food was great, and cheap: We sampled 14 different dishes, got filled to the gills, and for two people I paid a total of $6 in Yuan (the Chinese currency). This was also a very exclusive restaurant, and that price included a $2 tip. With the average income in Beijing ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 dollars per year, it’s no wonder that everything is so cheap. Cindy also wanted us to try what she claimed was a "moderately spicy" national dish; nothing too extreme. As you can see in the photo, there are more peppers (the red stuff) than there is chicken (the brown stuff). Now- living in Texas and having a fairly good tolerance to spicy Mexican food, I figured I was going to be fine as long as I only ate the chicken and didn’t get a piece of pepper. I picked up my chopsticks (no forks in the restaurant), made sure there wasn’t a single speck of red pepper on the chicken, and sampled it. After spending the next half hour drinking from a fire hose, I decided I’d had enough of the pepper chicken. You’ll also note that the plate is still very full, despite the fact dinner was over when the photo was taken. I’m sure Cindy thought we were all wimps. If this is moderately spicy, I’d hate to see what she calls "extremely spicy." I’d probably just burst into flames once the dish got within ten feet of me.
We’re back in the Hotel now. Our stay in Beijing was only one day; If we ever come back, we’d like to see more of Beijing and the surrounding area, including the world famous Beijing Opera (which has nothing to do with what most think of as Opera- it is dance and choreographed Kung Fu in elaborate make up and costume). We have a flight out to the capital of the Gansu province, which is Lanzhou, leaving about 11:30am. The flight arrives about 2:30pm, then comes the hour long bus ride from the airport to Lanzhou. This time tomorrow, we’ll have Sam in our arms. Well, actually, she’ll hopefully be sound asleep! Despite the amazing things we’ve seen and done today, we are wound up tightly just thinking about tomorrow. It is so close, and we are so ready to hold our baby- it is all anyone could talk about this evening, everyone has butterflies!
One final note: China has managed last week to send it’s first astronaut into space on an orbit around the earth. While preparing for bed and watching the BBC’s edition of CNN, they translated as the astronaut expressed his grave disappointment: You cannot see the Great Wall of China from outer space!
