The Great Wall

Dear Vivi -

Florida is not China.

We knew that going into this whole process, but we had it confirmed today in spades when Daddy and I climbed part of the Great Wall. Oh. My. Goodness.  That is a lot of steps.  Daddy and I think that we may have climbed more steps walking the wall than we have in the last 9 1/2 years in Florida, where we tend to think it's challenging to have to go up more than one step to enter a building and almost everything is one story.

But we pushed our aerobically-challenged bodies and got ready to climb this incredible structure and world wonder.

Silly Daddy - that's the wrong wall! 

The view as we started our ascent.

There has been a tradition that couples who place a lock along the chains that runs the length of parts of the wall will "lock their love" together for all eternity.

Our guide explained to us that this is not really an active tradition anymore, as they're running out of space to do it.  But it's a really neat sight to see all of these locks shining in the sun.

The view from our first "pit stop" (actually what could have passed for a castle tower). We were already at a pretty high altitude.

A gift stop carved into the side of the mountain.  Apparently Disney World isn't the only place that will put a gift shop just about everywhere.

We took the road less encouraged, and traveled upward and onward...

...to the the next castle tower.

We made it!

Our official family stance on graffiti, just so you know, Vivi, is that we do not condone it.  However, this piece that we found in that castle tower was pretty spot on.

A view through one of the tower windows.

The view down to the parking lot from where we stood. We were pretty impressed with ourselves!

The view as you're looking the rest of the way up from as high as we got.  Daddy and I made it higher than anyone else in our group, except for one man who made it at least one more tower.

Proof that we were there!

The view back to Beijing was really stunning.  You can see the city way in the distance.

After climbing back down, which is almost harder than going up because of how uneven all the steps are, we found this gift shop. Note the sign which says, "Hero Certificate Issue Office." Chairman Mao declared that you weren't a hero until you climbed the wall.  Before we climbed it, we thought that was a little unfair.  Now we think he was a genius and totally right - although we didn't buy the certificate to prove our hero status.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a factory that made beautiful copper-inlaid items, a trademark of the area.  I have to be honest, Vivi, and say that this was the first time so far that I was grateful that your brothers were not with us.  The mothering instinct totally kicked in and I had the urge to grab the hand of every child I saw and head for the nearest exit so that little hands didn't make big messes with very expensive pottery.

Our guide also had the bus driver take us home on a route that had us passing many of the buildings used when Beijing hosted the Olympic games in 2008.  This picture is for Pop-Pop and Uncle Ryan - it's the building where the ping pong games were held.

The "water cube" where all of the swimming events were held, with the Bird's Nest stadium in the background.

A better picture of the very impressive stadium.

As I'm writing this, it's about 3:30 a.m. Beijing time on Sunday, December 1.  Daddy and I feel pretty good throughout the day, but are struggling to get our clocks set to our new time zone at night and aren't sleeping as much as we should.  In a few hours, we will get on a plane and fly to Zhengzhou, where we will get you.  Just over 24 hours from now, we will have our Gotcha Day and you will finally be ours.

We couldn't end this post, however, without acknowledging that today is your birthday.  Mommy's goal in this whole process was to have you before you turned two, and we missed it by one day.  We hate that you are having to spend this day in an orphanage, not getting to blow out candles and eat cake and get sung to and open presents and be properly celebrated.  We do rejoice however, that this is the last birthday that you will ever spend without us.  We will have a huge party next year to celebrate your birthday and your Gotcha Day anniversary all rolled into one.

But for now we say Happy Birthday, dear Vivienne, through this blog, and pray that it somehow reaches your little ears.  We love you!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Beijing!

* Disclaimer: There are going to be way too many pictures in this post for a good blog entry.  However, this is a book for Vivi, and we want to document it as fully as we can. You have been warned!

 
Dear Vivi -

We made it!  Wow, are you far away.  It's one thing to write about you being on the other side of the world and a whole other thing to get on a plane and take our bodies there!  We already miss your brothers terribly, but we are so excited to be in the land of your birth.

Daddy has pictures of the plane on his phone so we'll get those in later.  Mommy would rather forget the plane and the anxiety that came when we realized that we had just boarded our last flight for the trip - but our camera was still on the plane from the flight before.  The flight attendants and workers at the Tokyo airport were amazing, though, and somehow got us our camera back before we even took off. Mommy had a minor meltdown, but all is good now.

We were exhausted after little sleep for 24 hours, but we were up early due to jet lag and a very noisy jackhammer at 4:00 a.m.  We finally turned on the TV at 5:00, and to our surprise we found the Raiders/Cowboys football game!  Since it was only 4:00 p.m. on Thursday for Americans, we realized many had still not sat down for Thanksgiving dinner yet. We gave thanks for a bit of home on our first morning in China. 

The view from our hotel room.

Vivi, we're seeing that your homeland is just rich with history and so beautiful.  Our two-day tour of Beijing began with a visit to Tiananmen Square.  As with most landmarks that have a significant place in history, it was fascinating to see it in person.  Everything is just huge and the structures are very imposing.  The scale of the place is incredible - it was designed to hold more than 1,000,000 people at the same time!  Thankfully, we are here during the low-tourism time so we didn't see anywhere close to that number.

We saw the railway museum and know your brothers back home would have been thrilled!

 There were soldiers everywhere.

This is Alice, one of our tour guides.  She is extremely intelligent and her English is incredible. We were grateful to have such a knowledgeable person with us.

Where Chairman Mao would make his proclamations to the people.

Daddy and Mommy in the square.

Two ginormous TVs installed in the Square for the Olympics.

Americans are treated as celebrities, and Chinese tourists who are visiting Beijing from other parts of the country often want their pictures taken with us, even though they have no idea who we are.  Here's one of our families getting their picture taken with lots of different people!

We'd heard about the split pants, but it's a whole other thing to see them in person.

Inside the Forbidden City.

The toilets in the Forbidden City were 4-star.  Seriously.  And it was B.Y.O.T.P. (Bring Your Own Toilet Paper), which left us wondering if including that feature may have bumped it up to five stars...

The Forbidden City was really stunning.

 Daddy taking pictures in the City.

The Imperial Garden, which is just outside the Forbidden City.

Two trees that have grown together, and marriages were held here because of the romanticism of it.

 

A picture of the wall surrounding the Forbidden City, and just how long it is.

Travelling to our lunch via Rickshaw.

All of the families in our group had lunch together, family style, prepared by some local families.  Quite a delicious spread of food!

And to counteract that, here's how they build McDonald's in China!

The big beautiful Christmas tree in our hotel lobby.  Even though China is not a Christian state, they have clearly embraced the holiday.  

Dinner tonight was at the noodle restaurant next door to the hotel.  Daddy had Crispy Chicken.  Mommy had a bowl of Hot and Sour Soup.  Note the size of the bowl.  That serving could have fed me for at least half a dozen more meals!  Sooo delicious and spicy.

After dinner, we walked around with another couple from our group, and got to see some of the sights just around our hotel.  Here's the Apple Store.  It's three stories high, and you can't really tell from the picture, but it is packed full of people.

The market that sold all kinds of delicacies, 

 

like squid (far left) and silkworms (middle right) on sticks.

Oh, and not to mention the scorpions, grasshoppers, spiders, and snakes, all on sticks for easy chomping.

Our hotel, all lit up at night.

This is the beautiful church next to our hotel.  We're not sure about the denomination because the signs are all in Chinese, but it looks Orthodox.  Regardless, it was stunning all lit up against the night sky.

Tomorrow we get to walk on the Great Wall.  Amazing!  And even more amazing is that the countdown to you is now so short: Only one more day until you turn 2, and two more days until we hold you. The Great Wall may be one of the seven wonders of the world, but to us, it pales in comparison to getting you.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy