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Thursday, March 2, 2006
Today started early. We were both wide awake at 2:30 am! We
spent today touring outside of Beijing and saw the Summer
Palace and the Great Wall. We booked a pre-adoption tour
through OCDF and so far it has been fantastic. OCDF
specializes in booking tours for adoptive parents returning to
China with their children to learn more about their Chinese
heritage, as well as working to support the orphanages in
China through sponsorships of children and projects such as
fundraising to provide orphanages with coal in the winter. Our
tour guide is Tony and he has been wonderful about explaining
the history and significance of what we are seeing in the
context of understanding more about the country where our
daughter was born. It is incredible to be led through the
sights around Beijing by someone who understands so well why
we are here and has the wisdom to help us find not only the
things that will be important to us now, but is also helping
us think ahead about developing an appreciation for China
within our daughter.
We spent our morning at the Summer Palace. We had worried that
it might be too cold to see it, but we were blessed with a
gorgeous sunny day. Much of the Summer Palace was under
renovation in preparation for the Olympics, but we were able
to see the main residence where the emperor ruled in the
summer and spent some time walking by the lake. There were two
stone lions by the entrance, one with a cub under its paw and
one with a ball. Our guide teased us to figure out which was
the mother and which was the father. He said that the mother
takes care of the children and the father plays with the ball.
We will see about that…
The Great Wall was impressive and the scenery beautiful. It is
amazing to think that the length of the Great Wall would run
from Connecticut to somewhere around Salt Lake City in
America. The mountains reminded us of the mountains
surrounding San Diego and every now and then we would feel
like we were in California, only to catch another glimpse of
the Great Wall and be assured that we really are in China!
Apparently we set a record for our guide. We made it up to the
sixth tower and would have gone farther, but ran out of time.
He told us that his clients usually are doing extremely well
if they make it to the third or fourth. We met a friendly
camel at the fourth tower. Apparently you are supposed to
dress up in Chinese costumes and have your picture taken
sitting on him at the Great Wall. We opted for just taking his
picture. We are dreaming of taking a day on our next trip to
be dropped off at one location of the Great Wall and spending
the day hiking to another place to be picked up. For now, it
is on to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and a Hutong
tour ending with a visit to a kindergarten tomorrow. We are
enjoying every minute of being in Beijing, but can’t wait to
fly to Nanchang and finally meet Zoe. March 5 is getting
closer!
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