Beijing- The Next Day

Our first Saturday in China found us at the Holt Orientation session for all of the families adopting through our agency who are here in Beijing right now, about 20 families. We've gotten a chance to talk to several families, and it is so interesting to see who is here. A military family, whose dad will leave China and fly back to Afghanistan, farmers from Nebraska, a fellow ER nurse and her retired cop husband, some fellow Texans who live about 45 minutes away from my parents. One family is here for their fourth adoption, having adopted previously from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Guatemala. Several families are on their second Chinese adoption. Most of the kids being adopted by this group are cleft lip/cleft palate kids like our Emerson. Several families fly out with us today (Sunday) to our province, Guangdong, where we will spend most of the next 12 days together. It's comforting to know that other people are in the same boat as we are.

Holt is a big enough agency that they keep an office and a staff here in Beijing, as they have large groups of adopted families through almost every week. Les, who is on staff, spent some time in the morning helping us get to know China a little bit more.

I can't adequately describe the driving here, there are just no words. On the Tour Bus of Uncertainty the other day, I looked out my window, and we were so close to the cab next to us that I could see not only that the fare was texting on her cell phone, but that she was texting to her friend to meet her at 7 for drinks. There are as many bicycles/scooters/electric bikes on the road as there are cars, and they share the same road space without people dying on their commute. I saw a man on a bike yesterday with what appeared to be a queen sized mattress strapped to the back.

Les is on staff with Holt here in Beijing, and he is British, which just made our orientation that more interesting, because it was presented in a British accent. Les gave us a couple of traffic tips, such as, when crossing the street, stay in a large group so that you will do more damage to the bus when they hit you. He also confirmed for us what we had already appreciated as we were walking around town: Beijing is a very clean, safe city of 19 million, and there were really no areas that were "off limits", even at 2 am. Chinese people are very friendly, and they have no issues with violating your personal space, or standing next to you and taking you picture. Someone grabbed Brandon yesterday and took their picture with him, because, according to Les, many Chinese tourists who travel to Beijing may have never seen a white person before, much less a giant blond man.

The best part of orientation was receiving a little booklet with updates on our children! I got several new pictures of Emerson, and besides having a mess of hair on that girl's head, she looks to have quite the little personality on her.

I smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

This looks like a girl who just may be able to hold her own with some certain brothers and sister I know...

(Please excuse the "I took pictures of my pictures" photo quality of these.)

Later yesterday afternoon, we went to the Forbidden City, where Brandon photographed every building from every angle he could find, and then on to Tienenman Square, which our Chinese guide said was famous because it was right next to the Congress building. Hmmm. That's funny. Because I thought people died there at some point, too. But she never mentioned anything else about Tienenman Square. We stopped by a silk factory on the way back to our hotel, where some sweet Chinese ladies showed us what they do to these worms all day. Vewy, vewy interesting, but it just couldn't top getting new pictures of Emerson. We snapped lots of pictures throughout the day, but I'm too short on time right now to plow through all of them. Tomorrow afternoon is Gottcha Day!!