Friday Morning in Beijing

We've been able to Skype with the kids.  Jenn and I were concerned that Lydia, especially, would have trouble seeing and hearing us away from home, but when we saw that she was more interested in playing with the computer keys we knew she was doing just fine with things.  It was so nice to see Lincoln and Lydia and to know things were fine at home.

We're now staying at the Juanguo Hotel in more of the center of Beijing.  It's not the T Hotel in Hong Kong, but it's nice overall.  Except for the shower, which wasn't draining when we got here.  Hopefully they'll be able to get that fixed while we're out today.  And there's a sign by the faucet that says the water is not for drinking.  This doesn't surprise us, as we were told about the water situation, but it's just a different thing to see.

Jenn isn't sleeping too long at night.  The time change coming here didn't bother me too much, and while Jenn hasn't been sick or very tired with jet lag, she's been waking up between 3:00 and 4:00am and not being able to fall back asleep.

On the agenda today is Tianamen Square and The Forbidden City with some of the other families on our tour.

Great Wall

First of all, I'm now officially behind the firewall, and loading photos is a big ordeal. I'll start by at least writing so you know where we are and what we're doing, and if an opportunity comes along to add photos, I'll do it.

After a very unique and good breakfast at The Orchid, we joined up with Nico and Elena from France and went with Jack to the Great Wall.  After hearing about the touristy nature of some of the restored locations, we were happy to find Jack as he led us to a portion of the wall that is in its natural state, and during our time at that section, we passed five tourists and two guides.

It started with a 2-hour ride out of Beijing.  We then stopped at a "restaurant" of local farmers and enjoyed the most authentic Chinese food we've ever tasted.  There was an eggplant, pepper and potato dish; a pork rib and dough dish; a chicken, carrot and pepper dish; rice; a tofu dish; and some kind of doughy pie.  It was all delicious, and it made Jenn's stomach very happy.

The hike was an 800m climb up rocky cutbacks to a watchtower.  Once at the wall, we walked/hiked along the top.  Some areas have just a slight grade while others are very, very steep.  Some areas have held up under hundreds of years of weathering while other areas are nearly in ruins.  And some areas have lots of plant life growing on them.  The Great Wall is much like the Grand Canyon in that pictures simply do not do it justice.  To see it in person and take in the sheer size and magnitude is sooooo much better than reviewing photos.

When we got to the restored section, the volume of people increased, as did the souvenir hawkers, who were so bad, they'd make the Sint Maarten beach venders blush.

We got a very good look at multiple areas of Beijing going into and out of the city.  Not only was this a good tourist experience for the two of us, but a good cultural one, as well.  We need as much of this as we can get for Henry's sake.

So now we're in our second Beijing hotel.  It's pretty nice.  Tomorrow morning we'll meet our guide, George, and most of the other adoptive families on our consulate date.

From Hong Kong to Beijing

This was another travel day, and since our flight wasn't until 4:00, we shuffled around Hong Kong for a bit. It's nice that many of the buildings, especially in the shopping district are connected, many of which by air conditioned walk-ways. When we ventured away from the air conditioning, we found places like this.

One of the places we checked out was C!ty Super, the grocery store in the high-end mall. This here is a pig's leg.

Other than some of the usual Asian fare, it was really crazy to see a grocery store in the mall just a short walk from Armani.

It was neat that we were able to check in for our flight at the train station and leave our bags there so we wouldn't have to hall them around with us. The station was really cool-looking.

DragonAir was a nice flight, and Jenn and I were looking forward to it as it was our first non-US flight. The food was good, and aside from the flight being delayed by an hour and a half, it was a pleasant ride.

The trip to our hotel in Beijing was a little sketchy. Our cabbie didn't speak a word of English, and we didn't expect him, or anyone else we ran into along the way to know what we were saying. He dropped us off at the end of the road where our hotel is, and we got out with our luggage and began walking down a dimly lit street lined with bars, hole-the-wall restaurants, and what can probably best be described as workshops. There was one "landmark" on the map, Mr. Shi's Dumplings, that we found, but we couldn't see The Orchid from where we were standing. We kept walking and not seeing it, we showed our paper to some old people sitting on the side of the street and they pointed us in what proved to be the wrong direction, we kept walking (towing or luggage, mind you) until the street ceased to be lit... and then a man rode up behind us on a bicycle and began speaking Mandarin to us and pointing in the opposite direction. We'd heard that there is virtually no crime or muggings in Beijing, but when you don't know the language and can't find where you're going in the dark, your mind starts wandering. I looked like an idiot staring back at him, and because I didn't have anything better to do, we followed him back to Mr. Shi's. The nice waitress there pointed us to an alley off the alley and we saw The Orchid.

So we're here now, the place is nice, the guy who owns the place runs his network through Japan so he can get unblocked internet access, we just Skyped with Grandma Laura and the kids, and we're winding down to bed time. If we never have another Beijing Alley experience again, I'll be okay with it.