Sunday morning

It is early Sunday morning in Beijing.

Like we said in the previous post, the flight was long. The direct flight from Chicago to Beijing was about 13 hours. Abby was a great traveler. She kept herself busy and was a real trooper. She by far got the most sleep out of the four of us. Abby slept about three hours. Wendy, Grandma Sieling, and I got about an hour combined.

We got into Beijing around 4:30 p.m. and got to our hotel about 7:00 p.m. To say the least we were exhausted. We went to bed around 8:00 p.m. and woke up about midnight. Between midnight and our 6:00 a.m. wake up call, sleep was intermittent. Abby and Grandma could not fall back asleep, so they had tea parties with raisins and played games. We are staying in the Peace Hotel in downtown Beijing. This is the same hotel we stayed at five years ago.

On Saturday morning, we met up with about twenty other people, who are also here for adoptions, and began our day of touring. This time around is a little different than when we were here five years ago. We will be with these families through Monday, then we travel to various provinces to get our children, and than arrive in Guangzhou on different days.

With Abby, we had a travel group of about sixteen families. All of our children were in Hunan Province, so we traveled together on tours in Beijing, traveled and lodged together in Hunan and Guangzhou. Most families in this travel group (“Hunan 8’) have kept in touch over the past five years through e-mail, Christmas letters, and an annual reunion. We are the only family going to Matthew’s province, Jiangsu. So we guess it should be pretty easy coordinating reunions for the Jiangsu travel group.

On the plane ride, we met a nice couple from Louisville who is adopting a daughter through another agency. Wendy spent some time on the plane talking with the mom and Abby played with their four year old son, Nate. We will try to connect with them in Guangzhou. We also are getting to know a family from Chicago that is with us during this time in Beijing. They have two little boys, ages 5 and 8 that are entertaining to Abby.

Beijing has changed a lot in five years. Lots of new construction, even more traffic less bicycles, more wireless devices, and lots of lights at night. Our guide told us Beijing has about 15 million residents and about 5 million registered automobiles (Wisconsin’s population is 4 million). Traffic is beyond description. During the week they restrict by license plate numbers who can drive which days of the week.

The tour of the Great Wall was, well, great. Abby was so excited on the trip to the Wall. We were, too. Wendy and I did not see the Wall the last time, so it was a first for us all. It was cooler yesterday (mid 40’s). As we arrived at the Wall, Abby was so excited. From the parking lot, it is a twenty minute uphill walk to a lift that takes you up to the Wall. You are bombarded by souvenir vendors as you make your way up. We also learned there are more vendors on the way down. The best way to describe the experience with the vendors is to say it is like camping during peak mosquito periods. Abby had the best phrase to deal with the vendors: “Whatever it is…I don’t want it.”

But the Wall was worth it. We spend an hour actually on the Wall and Abby had a blast running up and down different sections. Hopefully, we can get some pics posted today.

After the Wall, we had lunch at a tourist trap connected to a pottery/porcelain factory and then proceeded to an older section of Beijing being preserved by the Government. Abby fell asleep on the bus ride back. We could not get her up, so she slept through the rickshaw ride and the tour of the traditional Beijing home.

When we got back to the hotel, we were able to get Abby somewhat conscious and just ate at the hotel. Abby kept falling back asleep at dinner, so we got her in bed around 7:00 p.m. I am writing this around 4:30 a.m. and Abby is still asleep. Hopefully, she will be adjusted to the time. I think we will all feel less like zombies today.

Today we have a three hour orientation and then we tour Tiananmen Square and the forbidden city.

We will try to post again tonight. The tours are nice distractions as we wait to meet Matthew, which will happen tomorrow.