After a 13 and 1/2 hour flight from Chicago, we landed in Beijing yesterday around 3:30 PM local time. The Beijing airport was gorgeous: spacious and modern with sleek lines and curves. It was like one giant open space but much quieter and cleaner than any American airport I've ever seen. The customs agent was intimidating, though. He didn't say a single word to us. Not one. I'm not sure if that was meant to psychologically rattle us or if he simply didn't speak English. He did smile, however, when Bean thanked him in Mandarin.
We gathered our suitcases and cleared the final customs barrier. I kept waiting for someone to arrest us for carrying obscene amounts of cash but thankfully, that particular fear never materialized. Just past customs, we met our agency guide and 3 other adopting families, all of whom were extremely nice and just as exhausted as we were.
13 and 1/2 hours is a looong time to be on an airplane. Landing in a foreign country in what would normally be the middle of the night for us was challenging. Staying awake for the drive to the hotel in Beijing rush hour traffic after all that was nearly impossible. The lights, the billboards, the crush of humanity, and the skyscrapers were all mesmerizing, but after over an hour in stop and go (but mainly "stop") traffic, Bean was asleep, Angry Driver was asleep, and I felt like someone had dumped sand in my eyes and taken a meat cleaver to my skull.
Thankfully, our guide stayed with us to facilitate the hotel check-in process. A few of the hotel employees speak English, but most do not and there are some things that are just difficult to pantomime. As it turns out, most of the families in our group went out to dinner but we didn't find that out until this morning since we went to our room and crashed...hard.
All 3 of us were asleep by 7:00 PM (it was 5 AM "our time", after all). Of course, all 3 of us were wide awake by midnight, but we managed to sleep off and on until 4 AM. At that point,we gave up on the idea of more sleep and just started our day.
Breakfast didn't begin until 6 AM, so we spent some quality time with Facebook (thanks Panda Pow VPN!) and some Chinese television to while away the two hour wait time. The breakfast buffet was impressive and I think we would've actually really enjoyed the mix of Western and Chinese options had we not been obsessively trying to determine what we could safely eat and drink versus what we should avoid in order to minimize our chances of explosive diarrhea and horrible, horrible death.
At 8 AM, we met our guide "Tom" for some sightseeing via tour bus. By this time our group had grown to, I believe, 7 families. As it turns out, an evening flight from the US arrived after ours and that poor group of people didn't make it to the hotel until 10 PM. There is a lot of variety in the group in terms of geography, family composition (first child, second child, four children, etc), and personalities but everyone seems laid back and fun.
Our first stop of the day was the cloisonné factory. Cloisonné is the French term for enamelware, which is a beautiful art form involving shaped copper and seven layers of very detailed paint application. The results are visually stunning. I would love to show some pictures, but the computer is not cooperating. Maybe I can add them later on, though.
Naturally, no tour would be complete without a stop at the gift shop. This particular gift shop was huge! After we found a few small pieces we liked, one of the sales ladies followed us around, likely to make sure she got the commission for the final sale. She was very helpful, though, and we found plenty of souvenir and gift options. We got Bean a mouse since he was born in the year of the mouse. Then we purchased a rabbit for Pearl who was - you guessed it - born in the year of the rabbit. Angry Driver wanted a set of chopsticks and he also bought a set for our good friend who will be one of Pearl's baptism sponsors. I found a pretty bangle bracelet for myself and we also selected one to give Angry Driver's sister as a gift since she will be Pearl's second baptism sponsor. Finally, I bought a beautiful figurine of a Chinese lady carved holding out a small green flower with her left arm while her right arm hides a sword behind her back. This will be a gift for Pearl when she is older. It was pricey, but I think Pearl should have some well-made reminders of the culture of her birth. Also, the figurine effectively illustrates one of my guiding philosophies: trust but verify. Ladies should always present a generous and open heart but be prepared to protect themselves when necessary.
Our expensive visit to the gift shop did earn us a few "free gifts": two small bracelets (Bean immediately commandeered one for himself to use as an anklet) and two little plush Christmas ornaments. Another member of our group thought the ornaments might be stylistic representations of local animals, but our guide Tom quickly assured us that these are not animals that exist anywhere in China.
Our next stop was The Great Wall. It is great and it certainly is a wall. My family and I immediately began climbing the steep and uneven steps. Angry Driver - being Angry Driver - insisted that we climb to the very top of the wall. After five minutes, we realized that no one in our group was climbing with us, but that did not deter Angry Driver one bit. We were going to climb to the top if it killed us. No joke.
After 45 minutes of the Worst Stair Master Ever, I was wheezing, lightheaded, and nauseated. Bean had to be carried a few times, but amazingly enough, he generally climbed on his own. Had I been alone, I probably would've stopped and descended. Since my husband doesn't believe it is a true family vacation unless we are all physically and emotionally demoralized and/or someone vomits, we kept going. The view from the top was admittedly quite awesome and I suppose there is something to be said for making it to the top of a famous landmark that we are unlikely to ever have the privilege
of seeing again, but I was beat and we still had to climb all the way back down.
Thankfully, the descent was steep but a lot less strenuous than the climb had been. We even found a man selling medals and metal certificates which he helpfully if not skillfully engraved with Bean's name and our family name, respectively.
About halfway down, I saw a cute young Chinese lady wearing a fake fur hat with ear flaps emblazoned with a red star. I admired her hat and asked where she bought it, as I was hoping to buy one for myself. The young woman obviously did not speak English, but she immediately took off the hat and insisted (I'm guessing here based on the tone of the flood of Mandarin speech and her repeated attempts to force me to accept the hat) that I take the hat. I kept refusing, embarrassed that she likely thought I had asked to have her hat when I simply wanted to buy one of my own at whichever gift shop sells them, but she was not to be deterred and soon her entire group surrounded us and insisted I take the hat. I finally took the hat and put it on my head to appease them. They all cheered and began taking photographs of the young lady, me wearing the hat, and Bean. Apparently, fair haired Caucasian children are quite the novelty on The Wall. I'm sure we are famous on the Chinese version of Instagram or Facebook at this very moment.
After the photo shoot, I took off the hat and tried to return it to its rightful owner. She would have none of that so I am now the proud new owner of a fake fur hat with ear flaps. I feel terrible about the whole thing since I could certainly afford to buy my own bizarre novelty hat. I feel like an entitled Westerner and a thief. However, Tom assured me that the young lady probably really wanted me to have the hat and I probably looked cold. That's nice of him to say, but I'm from Wisconsin; we don't do "looking cold".
At the bottom of The Great Wall, we reunited with our group who all apparently spent the preceding
hour and a half milling around on level ground taking pictures. I'm not sure who had the better experience, but I'm going to make myself feel better by saying it was us.
We then went to the jade carving factory. The tour was informative in that now I know about many different colors of jade, the symbolism behind various sculpted figures, and the way to discern true jade from fake (so long as I have a mirror anyway). We lunched at a restaurant on the second floor of the building. It was quite tasty and I'm now convinced that all meals should be served family style on a lazy Susan.
Of course, we were (perhaps contractually) obligated to visit the jade factory gift shop after lunch. We bought rabbit figurines for Pearl and Bean, a family ball (sounds inappropriate but is actually beautiful and quite wholesome), and a jade bangle bracelet for me. The bracelet was not cheap. Boy, was it ever not cheap, but the sales lady told me with much authority that it is an heirloom piece and. Also, my birthday is in two days so I guess it is my present to myself.
We then went near but not to the Olympic Village. I say "near but not to" because apparently President Obama visited last month and the area is still blocked off to visitors. I'm not sure why this is necessary but I guess security is taken very seriously here, even when the person needing protection is thousands of miles away. Therefore, we viewed the Village from an embankment off a busy road. The aquatic center, or "Cube", resembles a giant box of bubble wrap. The Bird's Nest looked like, well, a bird's nest. The street vendors were out in full force so I got to trot out my Mandarin phrase du jour:
"búyào xièxie"
This is the Pinyin representation of "I don't want it, thank you". Naturally, the response to this was a flood of Mandarin that was incomprehensible to me. My lack of comprehension seemed to bewilder the would-be merchants and we quickly got back on our bus.
The plan for tonight was to brave the local area to seek out dinner but Bean opted instead for Plan B.
Plan B entailed falling into a sleep of soap opera coma proportions at 5:30 PM and turning into a rabid possum in response to any and all attempts to awaken him. Maybe it was the thousand (or 1,000 X 1,000) steps that did him in for today.
Oh, well. I guess I can look forward to enjoying some Chinese television again at 4 AM tomorrow.
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