Nanning

After a 3+ hour flight from Beijing, we arrived in Nanning in Guangxi province.  The first thing we noticed here is the humidity.  It is warm like Beijing but super humid, very tropical with palm trees, etc.  Nanning is a thriving, growing city of 6+ million.  It is amazing how much construction is going on here.  We have checked into the Majestic hotel and have met up with one of the other 2 couples in our group.  We had dinner at a local restaurant where there were tons of choices of food.  We decided to play it safe and stick with rice, dumplings and noodles rather than try the gelatinous pork blood and chicken feet.  Tomorrow we have a meeting with our facilitator to go over the program and then we meet Siena in the afternoon!   More to follow soon!

J

Ming Tombs

Also visited the Ming Tombs today a bit south of the where we saw the Great Wall at Badaling.  While it was pretty cool to drop down over 100' underground to go see these excavated tombs that were built around 1400 and then excavated in 1956, it was tough to compare to the Great Wall.  While we expected to see some very ornate art and sculpture, it is basically just a mausoleum made out of stone.  What is pretty cool is the location as it is located deep into some rural countryside just outside of Beijing and gave us a better feel for this area outside of a bustling city with gridlock traffic.  There are cherry trees and many roadside farmers selling fresh produce nearby.  Having hiked several miles with some serious elevation changes, we were excited to get back to the hotel for some food/drink and to sit down.  After enduring some pretty tough Beijing traffic and some narrow escapes from other vehicles, we made it back to our hotel for tea time and sat back to relax.  When we pulled in to get dropped off, there was a pretty ritzy wedding going on with many of the hotels limousines queued up with the bridge/groom and wedding party.  The local security were giving our driver a hard time about him dropping us off at the front door, and the heated exchange in Chinese was pretty interesting.  Our driver was pretty convincing though and he delivered us to the door.  Tomorrow we leave for Nanning in the south, about a 3 hour flight and the location where we will finally meet our daughter on June 1. 

J

Great Wall

Wow!  Another busy day sightseeing in Beijing.  We shared a van today with another couple to tour the Great Wall at Badaling and the Ming Tombs.  The ride to the Great Wall really gave us a sense of how big a city Beijing is.  Today was in the 90's, but pretty windy which cooled it down some.  The Great Wall is really something to see - pictures don't do the job to describe how awesome it is.  We spent about 2 hours climbing up and down the wall and in some parts it was a challenge to walk up it due to how steep it is, never mind what they must have had to go through to actually build it.  It was VERY crowded and at times you really had to push your way through especially when you come to some of the narrow passageways that everyone has to go through. They say the wall stretches for some 8,000+ miles - that is about as far as we flew from Boston to Beijing.  Really unbelievable the scope of such a project.  At Badaling, the wall is approximately 25' tall and 16' wide in most places and was a heavily fortified section for protection of Beijing.  Not only is it a very popular destination for foreign tourists, but for the Chinese.  I would estimate that at least 80% of the tourists were of Chinese descent.  It was funny how many times our group was asked to pose for pictures with people from China as a novelty.  

J

Tian'anmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace and Pork Chips?

We had a busy but great day today.  The weather was perfect, mid-80's, sunny and breezy.  This morning seemed like it was a little smoggy but by early afternoon there was bright clear sky. 

We walked from our hotel to Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.  Both are spectacular and it is hard to imagine how they were constructed.  The Forbidden City is a great example of imperial architecture and has over 800 buildings and 8,700 rooms.  Needless to say we didn't see them all. 

We then took a cab over to the Summer Palace which also gave us a great view of Beijing as we traveled through it.  Our cab driver was very nice, he didn't speak more than 2 words of English but he tried to give us a tour.  The only thing we understood that he pointed out was the Beijing TV Tower.  It was kind of funny but we enjoyed him and his efforts. 

The Summer Palace was my favorite and a definite must see.  It is a huge royal garden that was built in 1750 by Emperor Qianlong to celebrate his mother's birthday.  What a gift!  We spent most of the afternoon wandering the grounds and the palace.  This is also where we decided to get "lunch".  The selection was limited.  The most popular item was a microwaved hot dog on a stick which we both decided we were going to pass on.  We decided to get a snack of Lay's potato chips and bottled green ice tea.  Well we didn't realize that the potato chips were pork flavored until after we opened them.  Since I am not someone who ever passes on any sort of chip I gave them a whirl.  Needless to say, they were not good!  We both ate 2 and threw them away. 

We headed back to our hotel and had "Afternoon Tea" in the lobby of our hotel complete with cucumber sandwiches and scones.  Quite yummy!

Tomorrow we are off to The Great Wall!

First experiences

Now that we are a bit more coherent from sleep, thought I would jot down a few more details from the flight/arrival.  We flew a 777 which was 3 seats x3 x3.  We were fortunate to have a 3 seat row to ourselves which was nice to spread out.  There were tons of empty business class seats, but we could not talk our way into those.  Another couple traveling with us was not only on the same flight, but sitting right behind us  - So the 3 of them (including 5 year old daughter) and us were able to talk about plans and what to expect, etc.  When we arrived at the airport, some health inspectors boarded the plane and had infrared tempature guns that they shot at everyone's forehead on the plane.  Once we got the all clear that no one was "infected" we were allowed to get off the plane.  Once outside we had to go through another health screening station and show some health related paperwork that we filled out.  There was also an infrared camera station where they were essentially screening people again as they approached this station.  Then through customs (which was easy).  Our luggage arrived pretty quickly (shorter than it does at Logan, but that is not saying much).  We had arranged to have a hotel limo waiting for us at the airport so that we could make it easy on ourselves - what a nice surprise to slide into a BMW 750il for the ride.  The traffic was moderate, but everyone drove pretty safely (not necessarily what you would imagine).  We arrived at the peninsula hotel and were impressed with how nice it is.  Marble everything and very modern amenities.  The staff was excellent and other than the mattress being very firm, pretty similar to other upscale hotels in the west.  The streets here are very clean with flowers everywhere.  I am not sure if it is leftover from the Olympics or not, but a step up from a cleanliness factor from other major cities we have been to (at least what we have seen so far).  We ended up going to a local restaurant after a nap at the hotel and were able to get a few dishes that were up our alley:  Spicy chicken with peanuts, Taiwan style fried noodles, steamed pork dumpling and some Chinese beer to wash it down.  We were amazed to only pay about $18 for all of that.   We paid almost the same for a couple of large waters and some M&Ms from an adjacent convenience store. 

Well, that's it for now - will send an update later after we have seen some sights, etc.

 

J

We Made It!

Well, we made it to Beijing. We started with Adam picking us up at 5:45 AM EST (thanks Adam) and we landed at Beijing at 1:50PM their time, which is actually 1:50AM EST. Long flight, but actually not that bad. We had remotes at our seats and we could choose from many movies to watch, so it helped pass the time. The hotel we are staying at (The Peninsula) is very nice and we have yet to explore outside our room as we both layed down to relax and slept for few hours. At any rate, it is 9PM here and it is time to get something fun to eat!

Talk with you soon!

The night before the Trip!

Here we are - putting the last few items into our suitcases - we have been very careful to only add what is needed to keep the weight down. The plan is to do periodic laundy so we don't have to pack too much - that and wear the same clothes. We are traveling with a mini-pharmacy and hoping we won't need most of it.

Hard to believe we are finally leaving to get our little girl Siena. It has been a long time and now we are here. Everything seems to be organized and we are ready to go. Check back in with you from China!

J

Masks!

We were waiting for one last appointment and we received it! The Guangxi Civil Affairs has confirmed our appointment for us to meet/receive Siena on Monday, June 1st .

The Civil Affairs requires that when we go to meet our daughter, everybody (including the facilitator) must wear a mask. I hope we don't frighten her!

Travel Date!

The US Consulate has responded and confirmed the US Consulate appointment date for us. It is June 10th, 2009-we didn’t get our first choice of June 9th.

We plan to arrive in Nanning on Sunday, May 31st and meet Siena on Monday (June 1st) and do the adoption paperwork with the provincial authorities the following days.

Our Consulate appointment is June 10th in Guangzhou. We will be taking the oath and getting Siena's US Visa in the US consulate on the afternoon of June 11th .

We plan on traveling a few days ahead of time and will be contacting the travel agency tomorrow to figure out our flights and hotels. Woo-hoo!

Travel Approvals!

Finally our travel approval is here!!! Our agency has requested June 9th for the appointment date at the US consulate in Guangzhou. If this date is granted we will be leaving around the last week of May and arriving into Nanning on Sunday, May 31st.

The Alliance for Children should hear back from the Consulate in a couple of days and let us know as soon as it is confirmed.

Second Care Package

We decided to send a second package to Siena while we wait for our travel approval. We contacted Ann at Red Thread China and once again she didn't disappoint. We decided to send her a summer outfit, and book. For her caregivers we added some spicy peanuts, a letter and another camera. We are hoping that they take tons of pictures of Siena and that we are able to get the cameras returned when we get to China. Keep your fingers crossed!

What's up with this swine flu (H1N1) already?

Getting frustrated watching the world blow this flu out of proportion. I certainly understand protecting everyone (especially babies) from coming down with it, but we live with other flus all the time and still manage to function. Obviously, we are a bit more frustrated as we are awaiting our Travel Approval in order to schedule our trip. Let's hope they mail them with words of caution. I thought the 3 year wait was bad. . .

JL