Bye Bye Beijing - Nihao Xi'an

Nihao from Xi'an! (this post was started in Xi'an on July 16 and finished in Seoul on July 23)

We arrived safe and sound in Xi'an yesterday morning. The overnight train ride from Beijing was great. It was crazy getting into the Beijing train station as it seemed everyone (thousands of people!) had to pass their luggage through one x-ray machine at the entrance to the station. Once we got through it was relatively smooth sailing through the crowds to get to our train. It was a nice surprise to see Tiantian and Wujun again. They had come to see us off. We have some great friends here in Beijing!

The train ride was very comfortable. We had our own room. The girls got to sleep in the bunks! We slept well. And the morning coffee was good too. Xi'an train station was crowded, but with the help of some porters we made it to the bus and then to our hotel. It is a very nice hotel, called the Golden Flower by Shangri-la. The girls are loving the hotel pool.

Before I tell you about Xi'an I should fill you in on our the rest of our Beijing visit. (Many of the photos that should accompany this post were sent with our post "Quick update from China". I'll add a few more with this post.) As I mentioned in our last post, the Homeland Tour for adoptive families began on this past Sunday. The 5 other families on the tour had arrived in Beijing the day before.

Our first stop was Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, the biggest tourist site in China next to the Great Wall. And the crowds proved it!!! The entrance routes in through the gates were jam-packed with throngs of foreign and Chinese tourists (mostly the latter). Once inside the crowds spread out a bit, but if there was anything interesting to see with a small access, like a doorway to a palace, it was quite a jostling experience to get close enough to see or get a photo. For the kids it was really tough.....and dangerous as Jin's umbrella in the eye demonstrated. She is OK, got more of a shock then anything. We'd seen the Forbidden City before, but Jin had not and Lili was only 1 year old when we did. I think the heat and crowds took away from their appreciation and enjoyment of the place. They did enjoy taking pictures - using their new cameras - when they could. There was nothing scheduled during the afternoon of the first day so that the familes could rest up and work on fighting the jetlag.

Our second day began with a rickshaw tour of a traditional neighbourhood or "hutong" We'd toured a hutong when we were here to get Lili, but this was a diffeent one, a little more upscale. This one is called "Sanzouqiao" and is located in the lake district of Beijing. It was very pretty, generally neat and tidy. We visited a house there and were given a tour by the daughter of the house. Then it started to rain! We were stranded there for about an hour, admiring their beautiful but small courtyard and their pet black bird. Once the rain let up, we were off again in the tarped rickshaw.

In the afternoon we visited the offices of the China Center of Adoptive Affairs (CCAA), who control all of the foreign adoptions in China, and the Bridge of Love Adoption Service who is running this tour for us. We were shown the offices where files are received, where parent-baby matching is done and where files are archived. It all looked very efficient and modern, but for us it also was a little magical. The girls were then given a lesson in Chinese calligraphy. The did pretty well! And then they had a class in Chinese culture and geography. The part they'll remember most will probably be receiving more stuffed panda toys.

The next day we travelled north of Beijing to Badaling to see the GREAT WALL of CHINA! This and the pandas were the 2 main things our girls wanted to see in China, so today was a big day. It was sunny and hot, and like all the other tourist attractions we'd been too, was very busy. There was a constant stream of tourists (again mostly Chinese, but lots of foreigners too) walking along the top of the wall. We joined the throng, and with Lili's new best friend Ashley, we hiked as far as we could before having to turn around to get back to our bus on time. The views were great - although they have a big Olympic sign on one of the hillsides near the wall.

On our way back to Beijing we stopped at a Cloissine factory (and store) and briefly again at the main Olympic games sites (the Cube and Bird Nest) for a photo op with the girls. It was brutally hot walking around the concrete plaza there. We then retired to a cool Chinese tea house to experience a tea ceremony (and tea sales pitch). The teas tasted great - even the girls loved them. They also had tea that was interesting to watch: large jasmine balls that when steeped in water opened to reveal a flower blossom. We ended this busy day with a stop at the famous Yaxiou (or Yashow) Market where we did some souvenir shopping. We shopped here back in 2005 when we were here for Lili.

Our last day in Beijing began with a tour of the Summer Palace. Located north and west of the city, this palace, lake and surrounding grounds were used by emperors and their families as a cool refuge from the heat of the city and affairs of state. The hordes of tourists here made it a little difficult to imagine the quiet refuge this must have been at one time. The grounds and buildings are beautiful. We saw the famous marble boat (that is stuck on the lake bottom...hmm....stone boat won't float?!) and rode across the lake in a "dragon boat". On our way back into downtown Beijing we stopped at a silk factory/store. We were given a lesson on the lifecycle of the silkworm and then shown the process of spinning silk and producing silk comforters. It was amazing! Each layer of silk in a silk comforter is made from a single incredibly stretched cocoon.

Our last meal in Beijing included the famous Beijing roast duck (or Peking Duck). We learned how to roll (with chopsticks!) the tasty morsels of thin sliced duck meat, dipped in special dark sauce, with thin strips of onion or cucumber in thin taco-like wraps. Deb was the expert roller. After dinner we went to the Beijing Train station to catch our overnight train to Xi'an, which is where I started this blog.

We'll tell you all about Xi'an and the terra cotta warriors in our next post.

Better get this in the mail to you.

Bye for now,

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

Girls with new dresses at Yaxiou Market. Marble Boat at the Sumer Palace.

Girls helping to stretch a cocoon into a silk comforter. All the girls at the back of the bus.

Lili drawing on the bus while her new stuffed Ox looks on. Corn fields seen from the train near Xi'an.

The gang in the melee outside Xi'an Train Station. The best hotel on our tour, the Golden Flower Hotel in Xi'an.