Video of folding clothes

Well, I tried to upload the video and it's not working from here.  I did a video before, but that one was shorter so the file size was smaller.  Maybe we'll try again from Guangzhou.  So until later, all our love to everyone!  We meet our guide in 1 hour to go pick up Lydia's Chinese passport and then head to the airport for a 2pm flight to Guangzhou.

Catch you later -

and

Video of folding clothes

This video is of Lydia folding clothes.  Things like this make me seriously wonder what life in the orphanage was like.  I was impressed when I saw her fold her blanket.  But a pile of clothes!?  Sheesh!

Thursday, March 31 - Last day in Beijing!!

Today was our last full day in Beijing!  Tomorrow we are leaving for Guangzhou - the last main city of our trip!  We will be there for 5 nights while we finish the American side of our paperwork at our long awaited Consulate Appointment.  We are REALLY looking forward to a change of location since we have been in Beijing for 10 nights now.  That's a long time to be in one hotel room!  We have heard that Guangzhou caters a lot to all the American adoptive families, so to be completely honest we are looking forward to that.  Different environment, more adoptive families around, hopefully less stares everywhere we go.  We're also hoping that it is a bit easier to find what we need while we are there.  We are still very low on clothing that fits Lydia, especially warmer weather clothing which is what we will need in Guangzhou.  So we are hoping it is easier to find.  I guess worse case scenario, she wears things that are too big and looks like a beach bum in baggy clothing!

Today we didn't do a lot of sightseeing, just the Beijing Zoo.  We had two hours on our own there before meeting back up with our guide, and honestly we were ready to leave after 20 minutes.  By this morning we felt like we were just killing time waiting to be able to get Lydia's passport tomorrow.  Plus, the zoo was about the saddest one we have ever seen.  They had a fair amount of animals, but the habitats were extremely sad and the buildings were very run down.  Lydia liked seeing the animals because she clearly hasn't seen them in real life before.  But the whole trip made us very excited to get her home and show her a real zoo!

The best kept exhibit they had was the Panda exhibit.  There were three different pandas in three separate habitats.  This was the only active one and it was eating bamboo.

Lydia liked seeing all the animals

She really liked the monkeys, until two of them ran up to the glass right where she was standing.  A bit like the little pug moving toward her, she shrieked and jumped away, almost falling off of the little stone ledge she was standing on.  We had to move away from the monkeys after that because she didn't like when they moved!

The very sad bear habitat.  There were 3 bears in this pen.  There is nothing in there for them.  Not even water in the water hole.

People were feeding the animals all kinds of things - popcorn, potato chips, anything they had.  The thing we are never allowed to do in zoos across America because we all know it isn't good for the animals.

Despite the signs everywhere, people still feed them.  We have seen many examples here that rules with no enforcement are no rules at all.

The sad lion exhibit.  Again, nothing in the pen.  Not even water in the moat.

Same story with the elephants.  No water, nothing for them to do.

Another elephant pen.  Many run down buildings.

What you see here is the whole habitat for this rhinoceros.  From one wall to another.

They did have a lot of zebras.  And they were very close up to the fence.  Of course that also meant that they were eating whatever people were choosing to give them.

 After the zoo, we didn't do a whole lot because we needed quite a bit of time in the room to clean up the disaster this hotel room has become, and to start packing up our bags for our flight tomorrow.  


I don't have many other things to write about from today, but I do have a couple of photos I can post just of fun stuff.  These are a couple of cute pictures from the zoo.  They had a line of little coin-operated rides for kids, two of which happened to be characters from Lydia's favorite cartoon.  We let her sit in them, but she didn't get to ride on them since we didn't have any Chinese coins.

 And a couple of funny things from the zoo:  the gift shops had really random things in them, not just things we would think of at a zoo store.  They had any cheap toy that they thought some kid might succeed in begging for.  Our two favorites were these - what do these have to do with the Beijing zoo exactly??

Mickey Mouse ears??  At the Beijing zoo??

Or how about a US space shuttle?

As soon as I finish this post, I am going to start uploading a video too.  I started to put it in this post, but it was taking too long to upload and I couldn't publish this one until the video was done. So I thought instead I would get this one finished, start uploading a video in a new post, and then go to bed.  And I will publish the video post in our morning after it has finished uploading.

Onto our three things we are thankful for today...


1.  That in zoos at home kids are not allowed to poop on the sidewalk.  Yes, we saw this today.  No, I'm not kidding.


2.  That we are leaving tomorrow for the last leg of our trip.  Starting into the home stretch now!


3.  That Lydia said her first mostly English sentence today.  It was a hybrid sentence, mostly English with one Chinese word.  She was looking at photos and one of me came up wearing a hat.  She said, "Mama has a 'mow-duh' on!"  She pronounces the Chinese word for hat as 'mow-duh'.  So she used her Chinese word for hat, but put it into an English sentence!  Yay for small steps!

Wednesday, March 30

Our adventures today took us outside the normal itinerary that the travel services usually book for people.  We were originally scheduled to go see the Temple of Heaven, but we decided that although this is an icon of Beijing, we weren't all that excited to see another mostly empty piece of architecture - impressive as it may be.  Especially now that we have a three year old in tow, who is getting busier by the day, we thought something with a little more to see and explore would be better.  So we took Kirsty's recommendation and went to see the Drum tower and what they call the Hutong area around it.  Then, very nearby that area is a shopping area with a big lake and beautiful walkways.  In hindsight, this really was such a nice area, we could have stayed here all day instead of moving on somewhere else in the afternoon.  I wish we could go back.

To get to the drum tower, we took a rickshaw.  These things are all over this area, and we took a tour where the rickshaw drives you up to the drum tower, you tour the tower, and then the rickshaw drives you all through what they call the Hutong areas.  

Getting ready for the rickshaw ride

These drivers must have some amazing quad muscles to pull a load like us!

More rickshaws coming toward us.  These narrow "streets" are what we were on the whole time.

 The drum tower is part of the historic buildings of Beijing.  There is also a bell tower very near to the drum tower.  They were used to mark the time for the emperor in ancient times.  They would ring the bell each hour through the morning hours, and the drum each hour through the afternoon hours.  Now if you go to the drum tower, you can not only go up inside it (Ugh - more stairs!)  but you can also see a drum performance.  We wished we had taken the camera with video ability.  We have pictures, but the video would have been better.

A shot of the drum tower from the front

Jim is smiling happily for the camera, but he's really thinking, "Are you kidding?  I have to carry this kid up MORE STAIRS!?"

Some of the drums up in the tower.  These are of course not original, because those would be too old to actually play.

Getting ready to start the drum performance

Going down....

....and down, and down...

 After touring the drum tower, we got back in the rickshaw and rode around an area they call a Hutong area.  The word hutong basically means well area - so originally these neighborhoods were centered around a well, and they were made up of many courtyard areas where people lived in very small houses all connected together.  There are a lot less of these Hutongs in Beijing now than there used to be, but they are still active residential areas.  Many people live in these areas, with tiny homes all connected in courtyard areas.  There are tiny stores and markets all right in the Hutong, and there are no bathrooms in the homes, so there are public bathrooms in among the homes that they all share.  This was an eye-opening tour into some of the real life residential areas in Beijing.  Of course, there are many other kinds of residential areas as well, but these Hutong areas are heavily populated and many people live and work there.  As we glimpsed life here, we were sobered by what we saw.  It did shed a new light on some of what can go into the very situation that causes a little one like TingTing to need a forever family.  There are many people that may simply be in a position of not being able to best care for a child and they are left with no other choice than to give the child the hope of a different life.  All speculation of course, but the area we rode through today made us wonder what kind of beginning TingTing's life may have had.  All of these pictures are from our ride through that Hutong area.  The doorways are views into the courtyard areas where people's homes are.

 After the rickshaw tour of the Hutong area, we went to an area of shops on a lake with lots of pretty walkways and bridges.  We didn't really have a lot of time planned in for this before we headed off somewhere else, but in hindsight this is the place I wish we would have stayed all afternoon.  The weather was perfect, it wasn't busy, there were shops and small restaurants and tea houses, and in the shops the workers didn't even yell things at you!  I would love to have time to go back!

Unfortunately, we left this wonderfully peaceful area, and went to a place called Yashow market.  Similar to the popular silk market that every tourist in China MUST go to, we went instead to this Yashow market because we heard it was better than the silk market.  I have no doubt that the silk market is perhaps even worse than what we experienced today, but either way it is the absolute worst shopping experience EVER for the Bennett family.  We are not the world's most enthusiastic shoppers anyway, so for people who are I suppose they would love this.  For us, it was pure torture.  We went there hoping to find some clothing that would fit TingTing better than what we brought for her, but we left with a huge dose of insanity!  It was stall after stall of everything - coats, men's clothing, women's clothing, kid's clothing, silk products, scarves, chinese souvenirs, electronics, jewelry, and on and on and on.  And everywhere we walked, we were met with shop owners calling to us, "Halloo!  You want some scarf?  You want a coat?  You want some jeans?  Hey lady!  You need a purse?"  Then, if you actually brave one of their stalls and look at something, then you have to bargain with them for the price.  Back and forth, back and forth, them trying to convince me to pay more for something than I could get it for right at home in the US.  Torture.  Torture.  Torture.  Oh to walk into a Kohl's and find what I need for TingTing all in one place, without in-your-face store owners and without price wars!

The best picture I got of the outside of this Yashow market.  It's in an old department store building now filled with bargain shops - more like an indoor flea market.

Get me out!  Get me out!  Get me out!

One more group of pictures just for fun!  We've been really having fun seeing Lydia's personality come out more and more throughout this past week of having her with us.  She has relaxed more and more, she has begun to test our authority, and she has really begun to show a bubbly and exuberant personality.  The best part of our day isn't the amazing sightseeing or the food, and it certainly isn't the shopping opportunities.  The best part of our day is just being with Lydia, playing with her, doing nothing much at all - just becoming family.

 

 

Three things we are thankful for today...

1.  That we have been successful getting taxis several times since that one bad experience

2.  That employees at retail stores in America are NOT trained to sell like used car salesman


3.  For the mother that is out there somewhere who grew and birthed this sweet daughter that we are now blessed to have