Day 2- Tian'anmen Square, Forbidden City and Silk Factory

Well, it’s 2:53 am and all three of us are wide awake! We’re supposed to meet Mr. Zhou in the lobby at 9:00 am so we had some spare time. :) There are 11 families here with our agency and we met some of them at breakfast this morning. Breakfast was pretty good with lots to choose from. There was everything from pancakes, eggs, cereal and fruit to congee (like grits), fried rice, dumplings, wonton soup and preserved eggs (looks likes a translucent egg white with a blueish-grey yolk - yummy!)

We boarded the bus and Mr. Zhou informed us that our plans have changed, we will be going to the Great Wall and Olympic Village tomorrow because he needs to stop at CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) for 10 minutes and they are not open tomorrow. He informed us that we will be the first group ever to go to CCAA - this is where all the paperwork and adoption placements are handled. So instead we will be touring around Beijing today.

First stop is the Tian'anmen Square where everyone got their first taste of the many peddlers selling their Chinese souvenirs. Once Dad and Fred got the hang of this, there was no stopping them - they were bartering fools! From here we crossed under the street to The Forbidden City which is massive! The architectural detail is amazing! There are 999 buildings in this complex and as Mr. Zhou says, “You see one, you see them all”. He is definitely a mover - trying to keep up with him was quite a challenge- it was like going on a drive by sight-seeing tour! When I was in Beijing in 1995, I remember taking all day to see these two sites that we saw in 2 hours! Needless to say, we just got a taste of them!

From there we boarded the bus and headed to one of the better preserved old parts of town where we rode in rickshaws to someone’s home in a Hutong where we had lunch. (Mom and Dad got the deal of the century as we were riding in the rickshaws - (4) 2008 Olympic hats for $5 - the peddlers are persistent to say the least) The chef who cooked for us used to be the chef to one of the Chinese Communist Generals. The food was delicious and very plentiful! There were three large square tables set up for us to sit and enjoy a family style meal. We had bean paste spring rolls, spicy stir fried beans, snow peas with mushrooms, lotus root, dumplings, shrimp (heads and shells included!), stir fried celery, broccoli and sticky white rice. Oh and the catch -only chopsticks were provided - it was a challenge for some in our group. :) Zachary actually did alright - the sticky rice made it easier for him to be able to pick it up.

From there the rickshaw drivers peddled us back to our bus. Exhausted, we thought we were heading back to the hotel to relax, but no!! We were headed to a Silk Factory to see how silk is harvested into the beautiful silk fabrics and comforters. Silk worms feed on mulberry leaves continuously eating 24 hours a day for 22 days until they spin a cocoon around themselves. It is this cocoon which is pulled and the silk is harvested by a machine which winds them into skeins of silk thread.

Now it was finally time to head back to the hotel to relax. There are six children on this trip, four of which are five years old - and they all were real troopers today! Zachary finally passed out on my lap around 5:30 and never woke up for dinner. Truth be told, we passed out for a couple hours when we got back to our rooms. Big day ahead of us tomorrow!

 

The gang at Tian'anmen Square.

Zachary with Mr. Zhou in the Forbidden City.  (Check out the detail in the building behind them! Amazing!)

Palace Museum at the Forbidden City

Fred and Chloette at the Forbidden City

Mom and Dad in a ricshaw headed to lunch

Noah, Zachary and I on the ricshaw too.

Dad's bargain of the trip!

Chef at our lunch in a Hutong.

Lunch in the Hutong with some other group members.

Tuckered out!

Zachary playing around while we wait in Chicago.

This is us!!!

On the plane - only 13 1/2 more hours!

Looking down over Siberia

If you look closely, you can see the Great Wall of China along the top of the ridge!

BBQ Pigs feet any one?!  Noah seemed to think Grandpa Wenzel would love these!

I believe these are called Pot Stickers

Well off to bed, it's been a long day!  More tomorrow!  

Our Trip to China - Day 1

The day is finally here!!!  We are off to China to bring Caitlin home!  Our day started off pretty early this morning - we were up at 4:15 am (after finally finishing our packing at 1:00 am).  Zachary did a great job getting up and ready to go - he's so excited  that he's finally going to meet his little sister!!  Today is the last day in our house with just the three of us - our family is about to grow!!  Grandma and Grandpa picked us up at 5:30 and we were off to the airport to catch our 6:55 flight to Chicago.  Nana and Granpa met us in Chicago to make the journey with us.  We had 4 1/2 hours before our flight to Beijing so we did a lot of walking around the airport (and riding the people movers) in preparation for the 14 hour flight.  While we were at our gate, we met another family who is with our same agency and they area adopting a little 3 1/2 year old girl - Quinn.

Before we knew it, it was time to board our plane.  About 2 hours into the flight, Zachary informed us that he was ready to get off the plane :)  Once we got out his portable DVD player, he was in heaven - back to back features of Penguins of Madagascar and Madagascar 2.  On our flight, we flew north from Chicago over the Hudson Bay (-37 degrees), the North Pole (-41 degrees) - couldn’t find Santa’s House, the Arctic Ocean and then over Siberia (-67 degrees - can’t imagine why it’s not a tourist hot spot!)  Just about that time Zachary passed out - lucky for him, there was an empty seat next to him so he was able to lay down and stretch out.  Mom and Dad’s seats we located right near the restrooms so needless to say they knew everyone’s story by the end of the flight!  Things we saw from the plane: ice caps, the “North Light” (Zachary saw the whitelight on the end of the wing and thought it was the north star), and the Great Wall of China!  We landed at 3:00 pm which was about 1 1/2 hours early - amazing!  We had to wake Zachary - it’s going take a little bit to get him/us used to the time change!  Mr. Zhou (pronounced Joe) our guide met us at the airport and we were off to the hotel (Holiday Inn Downtown Beijing).  

After getting our rooms settled he took us to a nearby grocery store to get water (can’t drink the tap water here) and some snacks.  We saw some tasty looking pigs feet, sea cucumbers, frozen whole chickens (at least their feathers had been plucked), and shredded jellyfish!  We had a hard time choosing what to have for dinner so we grabbed a little bit of everything to sample!! :)  (Okay so we really had mac ‘n cheese, PB&J and oatmeal for dinner in our rooms.) It was definitely a struggle to keep everyone awake long enough to eat.  Zachary was out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow -us too for that matter!  Big day of site seeing tomorrow - The Great Wall and Olympic Village.

100 Wishes Quilt

To welcome and celebrate a new life, there is Chinese tradition to make a Bai Jia Bei, or 100 Good Wishes Quilt. It is a custom to invite friends and family to contribute a patch of cloth with a wish for the baby. Part of the patch of cloth goes into the quilt for the baby, and the other part of the cloth can go into a creative memory notebook with the wish for the child. The quilt contains the luck, energy, and good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed a piece of fabric. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.

In attempt to find out more about this tradition, I found the following posted on another adoptive parent’s website. The book Imperial Woman by Pearl S. Buck is about the final Empress of the Qing dynasty. She is a concubine in the Imperial household, but has birthed the only male child of the Emperor. At this point in the book, she has to leave her baby alone for a while and is thinking of ways to protect him, as well as obligate the other powerful Manchu families to back her son's claim to the throne. The book reads:

"She must offer the child as an adopted son, by symbol, to other powerful families in her clan. Yet what friends had she? She thought and she pondered and she devised this plan. From the head of each of the highest one hundred families in the Empire, she required a bolt of the finest silk. From the silks she commanded the palace tailors to cut one hundred small pieces and from these make a robe for her child. Thus he belonged, by symbol, to one hundred strong and noble families, and under their shelter the gods would fear to harm him."

We ask that you please participate in this special project. We love the idea of welcoming our daughter, Caitlin into our home with a quilt that represents the good wishes for her from our family and friends.

HERE IS WHAT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO: 1. Choose any 100% cotton fabric that you like. It can be from a piece of clothing or from a fabric store. It just needs to have a design and color that you like. 2. Cut one (1) 8" square from the fabric. 3. On a sheet of paper or notecard, put a small piece of the fabric and include your "good wish note." Please include why you chose the fabric and your name and address. The fabric will be used to make a quilt, and the notes will be placed in a scrapbook which we will give to Caitlin when she is older.

IDEAS FOR SELECTING FABRIC SQUARES: * Select a fabric that is meaningful to you. * 100% cotton fabric is best, as it washes and wears better. * If there are several members in your family, please feel free to send more than one good wish note and pieces of fabric. In China, these quilts were originally made from the garments of family and friends surrounding the child with luck and good wishes.

IDEAS FOR GOOD WISHES NOTE: What would you wish for an infant to have in her life? Some ideas are good health, perseverance, success, love, and a sense of humor. Use that as a guide for your good wish note. To see what we mean, please check out these websites with beautiful examples of these quilts: http://www.originalquilts.com/100_good_wishes_quilts.htm

WHY LADYBUGS ARE SIGNIFICANT: Ladybugs are a sign of good luck in the Chinese adoption community. It is said that if you see ladybugs that good things will happen soon! Because of this, many people like to include fabrics with ladybugs in their 100 Good Wishes Quilts.

Please take a few minutes from your busy schedules to help us create this very special keepsake. The miracle of this adoption has been helped and nurtured by so many of you and this will be so incredibly meaningful for us as well as Caitlin! Thank you!

If you would like to participate, please e-mail me at tneenan@richmond.edu and I will send you our address.

WE'RE GOING!!!!

Just got the official word... we're leaving for China next Wednesday!! Words cannot describe how excited we are!!! It's hard to beleive that we will be holding our daughter Caitlin in our arms in only 11 days! March 2nd will be our "GOTCHA DAY". Thank you God! Thank you also to all of our family and friends that have been there for and with us through all the ups and downs - we couldn't have done it with out you! We love you!

So much to do before we leave! We're coming Caitlin!!!! :)

Check it out...

Well, Zachary decided he wanted his own webpage so his friends at preschool could see his journey to China with R2D2 and Anakin by his side. (We got the idea from the Shaggabear blog site - Thanks!) He loved choosing the background, the photo and telling me what he wanted to write! This will be a fun adventure for him - but it just can't happen soon enough in his eyes (or ours for that matter)! Enjoy! We hope to have an update by the end of this week!!! Please keep the prayers coming!

Still waiting...

Well, as most of you know we will not be heading to China tomorrow :( We are still waiting for Caitlin's immigration paperwork to be approved by USCIS. We are now setting our sites on the end of the month. We're coming Caitlin! We love you!