Ladybug Adventures

Saturday, November 12, 2005 7:13 AM CST

Subject: Our last day in Beijing

Today we met our guide at 10:00 am and went to tour a Hutong. A hutong is the old style neighborhoods in Beijing where cars are not allowed because the streets are too narrow. The only transportation in a Hutong is either by foot, bicycle or rickshaw. Our guide hired us two rickshaw drivers and a Hutong tour guide who showed us around for about an hour. Believe me, a ride in a rickshaw is definitely an experience. We got to visit a beautiful park, a kindergarten for the hearing impaired and the home of one of the residence all in the Hutong.

It was amazing to see the home of this family in the Hutong. It was very small and very basic. Yet the lady of the house told of how their life had gotten better in the past few years as they now can afford to own two television sets. One in the small living room for her husband and one in the small bedroom for herself, so she and her husband would not argue over what to watch. :) She said that she and her husband, both in their early 60's are retired and together they receive a pension from the government of equivelant to about $300 US for the month and that is enough for them to survive.

There was another tour group there at the same time we were, who were from Australia. While the lady of the house was talking, Xue Zheng was more popular with some of the Australian ladies than the tour. They were very interested in the fact that this was our second adoption and thought it was great. They lady of the house was also happy that we were adopting Xue Zheng. She kept telling us Xie Xie (Thank you) for adopting her and pointed to her and Lisa's chest saying we had a good heart. She also liked seeing the photos of Emilie and was very pleased to see we had adopted two girls from China.

Our guide then took us to the shopping plaza down the street for pizza at Pizza Hut. She ordered for us and paid the bill and then had to leave, which brought on Xue Zheng's first and only melt down for the day. It is a very helpless feeling to be holding a screaming child in a Pizza Hut 6000 miles from, especially when everyone around you is watching and can understand what your child is saying, while we can not. She finally calmed down after about 10 minutes, only after we gave her some Sprite. We have found that they started her on soda much earlier than we would have preferred and she is very much attached to the sweet drinks. One thing we will need to work on when we get home, but are tolerating at the moment since she has had so many other changes in her life this week and many more to come as we prepare to take her from this culture she is so accustomed to, into a very unfamiliar environment for her.

After pizza, we stopped by a small ice cream stand to get a small cup of ice cream to share among the three of us. And of course, Xue Zheng loved the ice cream. We have not found a sweet thing yet that she does not like. :)

We brought Xue Zheng back to the room, so she could take a nap and she slept for nearly 3 1/2 hours. Steve decided to go for a walk while Lisa stayed in the room with Xue Zheng. Steve walked from our hotel down to one of the gates of the Forbidden City, which is only about a 10 minute walk. Steve took a few pictures around the gate of the Forbidden City until the batteries went dead in the camera. He then returned to the hotel and when Xue Zheng and Lisa woke up from their nap, he went to get some KFC for our supper. Pizza Hut and KFC are a pleasant change over the authentic chinese dishes we have been having all week. Don't get me wrong, the food we have had all week has been very good, but something somewhat familiar from home has been a great change.

We are in the process of trying to get everything packed up into our suitcases. As tomorrow we meet our guide at 9:15 am where she is taking us to the airport to catch our flight to Guangzhou. So this will be our last post from Beijing and if we can get everything to work we will post again tomorrow from Guangzhou.

Emilie, mommy and daddy love you and miss you very much!

Love,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng

Friday, November 11, 2005 7:05 AM CST

Subject: Still in Beijing

Today we met our guide at 9:30 am and we immediately went back to the police station we were at on Monday when we applied for Xue Zheng's passport. Today we were able to pick up her passport. So this officially completes the Chinese portion of the adoption.

From the police station, we went to a silk store where we made a few purchases. Then proceeded on to a tea house where we got to taste several different Chinese tea's. And of course, we were then offered the opportunity to purchase the teas, tea sets, etc. Being the silly American's we did buy two small containers of tea.

Then it was time for lunch where our guide took us to a dumpling restaurant. Our guide ordered 3 kinds of dumplings, one tofu dish, and one rice noodle dish. For us, the rice noodle dish left a little to be desired. The rice noodles were very thick, long and slimy. But everything else was very good.

We then returned to the hotel, where of course Xue zheng had her daily melt down when our guide left. She did calm down rather quickly and fell asleep in Lisa's arms.

While mommy and Xue Zheng took a nap, daddy decided to head off for a long walk to Tianamen Square. Unfortunately, he never made it to Tianamen Square because he got tired of people trying to scam the silly American. As you walk the streets of Beijing, people are always trying to sell you something (Beijing books, Mao watches, post cards, rolex, etc.) or they try to get you to come see their art exhibition where of course you will pressured to purchase. And if you don't get one of these, you get someone who is just begging for money. Steve even had one girl ask him to have a drink with her and also one girl tried to get him to leave the shopping mall and walk outside with her. He figured they were both trying to set him up to get him alone for some dishonest reason. Needless to say, he went with neither of them. :) WE ARE BOTH VERY READY TO LEAVE BEIJING AND
GET ON TO GUANGZHOU AND HOME. Beijing is nice for a couple of days, but for a couple of small town Indiana people, a week is a bit too long.

Anyone who may be reading this that is preparing to come to Beijing for their adoption or any extended visit, learn to use chopsticks before you come. The first two days, we were mainly taken to restaurants that were used to westerners and had forks available. However, for the past few days, our guide has taken us to much more
traditional Chinese restaurants where we could get a real feel for the culture here in Beijing and they have had nothing but chopsticks available. Luckily, Steve and I both knew how to use chopsticks, but just weren't very skilled at it. We will probably be pros by the time we get home.

After supper tonight, Steve, Xue Zheng and I walked down the street to the Wangfujing Night Food Market. The sights and smells were unlike any we had ever experienced. It was like a street fair back home, except with much more exoctic choices. We saw things like squid on stick, starfish on a stick, baby chickens on a stick, baby
snake on a stick, lots of different types of stir fry, baked goods, and many things we could not identify. Neither Steve or I were brave enough to try anything, as we hope to see more than just the bathroom for the rest of our trip. :)

A thought for anyone preparing to adopt an older child. Definitely send a photo album to your child before you come and then bring more with you. The photo albums have been great for us. It was obvious the someone had shown her the photo album before we got here, and she has loved looking at them here in the room. She also loves the Disney Princess play cell phone we brought her.

And knowing chinese probably is not a necessity, but it sure does help. Steve and I knew a few words and phrases before we got here, which have greatly helped, and we have learned more since we have been here. We also have a couple of phrase books and chinese dictionaries that have been very helpful.

Xue Zheng continues to do very well, and is mostly a very happy little girl. She has smile that lights up the whole room. We are seeing little signs that she is bonding with both of us a little more every day. We know your prayers are with us as the terror alert has been lifted and we have seen the the tropical storm/typhoon is
weakening. Guangzhou will probably still get some rain, but hopefully not the flooding that was once predicted. Please continue to keep Xue Zheng's transition and safe travel and good health for all of us in your prayers.

Emilie, mommy and daddy love you very much and we miss you terribly. We will see you in 1 week.

Love in Christ,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng

Thursday, November 10, 2005 6:57 AM CST

Subject: Zoo and Temple of Heaven

Hello from Beijing. It has been a busy couple of days. Yesterday Lisa was not feeling well, so she stayed in the hotel room while Steve and Xue Zheng met with our guide around 10:00 am. Our guide took them to the Beijing Zoo and Aquarium. Steve said they went to the aquarium first and while there they saw an indoor show which
featured dolphins and sea lions. Steve said the Beijing aquarium was huge and one of the best he had ever seen.

After the aquarium, they took a quick trip to the zoo to see the giant pandas. Steve said the zoo felt more like a park and that the animals he did see were in pretty poor shape compared to our standards. The panda house was neat, but the outside area for the panda looked pretty ragged.

Since Lisa had not been feeling well, our guide then had lunch sent to our room. After failing to be able to get Xue Zheng down for a nap, we decided to go for a walk. We walked quite a long ways and saw lots of interesting sights. We even found an out food market where everything smelled wonderful, but looked very exotic. We found
one booth that was selling sea horses and scorpions on a stick. We even got watch them thread the live scorpions on to the stick. (Yummy) We had our dinner at McDonald's and then came back to the room.

Today our guide picked us up at 10:00 am and took us to see the Temple of Heaven. It is a place where the Emperor would come to pray to the Jade Emporer in Heaven asking for good weather, etc. for a good harvest for the year. It is a beautiful place, although it is currently under renovation, so we could not see everything.
Surrounding it, the grounds have been made into a park where the local Chinese gather, to play cards, checkers, chess, musical instruments, exercise, sing chinese opera, etc. It is a very interesting and colorful place.

After the Temple of Heaven we went to a Hot Pot restaurant, outside the south gate. It was a bit different than the hot pot we had the first night we were in Beijing. Instead of each of us having our hot pot to cook things in, there was one large hot pot for the entire table. It is essentially the chinese version of fondue using boiling
water instead of oil.

After lunch, we returned to the hotel where Zheng Zheng, Mommy and daddy all took a nap. We woke up and played here in the room for a couple of hours, then went to dinner at a restaurant here next to our hotel. It was very good as usual.

Xue Zheng continues to do well for us. She is amazingly happy most of the time. However, she does still throw a fit when our guide leaves, but the crying bouts get shorter and shorter each day. She has also begun to test us a bit and tends to pout when told no. Even with the language barrier she is basically a very good child.

She is currently singing a chinese song and looking at books while we write this post. She the only words we recognize are Mama and Baba (daddy). It is very cute.

Now we would like to ask for your prayers. Many of you may have heard the U.S. Embassy here in China has issued an alert to all U.S. citizens because the Chinese government has told them of some terrorist threats on 4 and 5 star hotels frequented by U.S. citizens. We are not terribly concerned about this hotel, because we
are one of the few westerners here in this hotel. We are however, slightly concerned about the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou where we will be staying beginning Sunday.

Also, a tropical storm/typhoon is threatening Guangdong Province where Guangzhou and the White Swan Hotel are located. It is expected to make landfall on Sunday, the same day we get to Guangzhou. They are expecting lots of rain and flooding. Please keep us and our travel group in your prayers with these possible threats to our
safety, that we can complete our adoptions and make it safely home.

One last prayer request. Last night was not as good a night for Xue Zheng. She was awake 2 or 3 times crying in the night. It almost appeared as though she might be starting to have night mares or night terrors. As we went through this with Emilie, we know what a traumatic experience this can be for these poor girls.

Hope this finds you all doing well. We will try to post more photos soon.

Emilie, mommy and daddy love you and miss you very much. Your sister still can not wait to meet you. She is as goofy as you are. :) We will be home in one week. :) Trust me, we would come home tomorrow if we could.

Love,
Steve, Lisa and Nikole