Thursday, December ?? I have no idea!

Our computer problems continue as we had our laptop up and running for one evening and then the battery went dead and we have not been able to get the charger to work. We are down to using Katrina's laptop and between long days of fun, being very tired by the time we are back to the hotel, and everyone wanting to check email it has been hard to sit down and post. But we came back early to the hotel today to pack for our early departure tomorrow morning to Hefei. The flight is not that early, but by the time you add in last minute packing, having breakfast, checking out of the hotel, leaving time for the daily traffic jams, then getting to the airport early, it puts us up and going early.

Jeff and Katrina just returned to the hotel with my first Starbucks on this trip. We have seen them, but have been too busy to stop. It tastes really good and hits the spot. Okay so moving on. I feel like there is so much to share with you, so many impressions of Beijing, and memories that we have made. Our first few days were spent with Kathy and Snow, Snow and Lily are the local guides our families use when the tour Beijing, so Kathy had us use Snow for the first few days and Lily for the last few days. We can truly say we enjoyed both women equally. They were both very easy to talk to and ask questions. We have had the same driver and van each day and I must report watching the driving in Beijing is like watching a very intricate dance as the drivers weave in and out of the lanes of traffic, sometimes creating their own lanes. Our driver has been excellent and seems to magically appear everytime we are ready for him.

Beijing is cleaner than I expected. They have older woman everywhere with brooms sweeping the streets to keep them clean. We have been very lucky with beautiful weather almost everyday. We have enjoyed sunshine everyday but one, and that was the day we visited CCAA, so it really didn't matter. The air is cold, but we brought enough layers to keep warm, it has not been very windy which is also nice. We brought the hand warmers you can buy and when they are exposed to air they heat up for about 8 hours. It has been fun to share them with Snow and Lily, and today I gave mine to a grandmother who had her little one at the park and she let me take the baby's picture. Lily explained to her what it was and after we walked away we could see her showing it to other people. Everyone is very friendly here, we are getting many, many stares. Meng gets the most, if I had any thoughts that she would blend in here, I was totally wrong. Katrina is counting the number of times someone asks Meng if she speaks Chinese. Katrina draws stares too, mostly from the men. Jeff and I draw a few, but mostly they look at Meng and then look at us. Both girls are handling the attention very well. We figure it will be worse in Hefei, and better in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

Every landmark we have visited has either been beautifully redone for the Olympics or is in the process. All the temples are being repainting and are magnificent. We see a people that are very proud to be Chinese. It seems that there are a lot of affluent people, as there are cars everywhere, and the shopping malls are filled with people spending money for items that are not inexpensive. Lily told us she rents an apartment on her own and owns a car, so she must be doing pretty well in her occupation. Our hotel is adjacent to a large, large shopping mall. Christmas is everywhere, another of my misconceptions of no Christmas in China. The mall is blasting Christmas music in English, and there are Christmas lights outside and big Christmas trees ( fake ) all over the city. Kathy explained that although they do not celebrate the religious part of Christmas they get together with friends and enjoy going out to dinner or a movie. I forgot to ask her if they buy Christmas presents, but judging from the stores I would guess yes. We have also gone shopping at mall that carries fake everything, Gucci, Polo, Dior you name it and it is there. It is very hot inside with small individual stores with sales clerks yelling " Hey lady, I make you good deal." Kathy, Snow and Lily did most of our bargaining, but we also did some, feeling quite proud of ourselves, and still probably paying way too much for the items we bought on our own. But it was fun. We also managed to find a restaurant for dinner the other night, ordered, ate and made our way back to the hotel. Again feeling very proud of ourselves. We are located in an area of Beijing that I would compare to Times Square in New York. It is very full of stores, lights, traffic and people. I love the energy, but it gets very tiring too. I have manage to catch a cold, which is annoying but not slowing me down too much. Otherwise we continue to be healthy, eating a Western breakfast at the hotel in the morning, and Chinese food the rest of the day. We are figuring out the dishes we like and everyone but me can eat very well with chopsticks. I use them some, but the fork is still a mighty nice and effective tool.
I must admit to being a bit worried about the toilets, but again have been nicely surprised. They are plentiful, and almost everywhere there are western toilets. Mostly clean, and most have attendants. If anyone out there has this worry, you can let that one go, it will be okay. It least in Beijing, I am still cautious about what to expect in Hefei. We are carrying waterless soap and use it often. The water is always cold and there are no paper towels, only the blow dryers that don't work too well.

We have been to both the acrobat show and the Peking Opera. Both shows have been fun, the acrobat show was incredible as I don't think the human body is suppose to move like that. It was mainly young children and young adults and the music and talent was fun to watch. Last night we went to the Peking Opera and enjoyed it too. Although having not exposed my girls to opera, they were both a bit not impressed with the singing. The costumes were very colorful and the dancing was beautiful. I enjoyed the singing, it takes a lot of talent to be able to sing in that way. It was only an hour long, just long enough to enjoy after a busy day. Everyone agreed if you only have time for one show the acrobat would be the best choice. It just depends on what you like.
Our visit to CCAA was nice. They have build a new building and they are the only occupants. There are many empty floors that CCAA hopes to rent out. It looked like the pictures I have seen, with stacks of files on shelves waiting to be worked on. I could tell the Heritage files by the color green we use to send the dossier in. It was easy to see that not many other agencies use that color, although there were other shades of green. I was able to see the two recent dossiers we just sent to Kathy being worked on by the log in person. I talked with several of the department directors asking questions, they were very nice to take time out of their busy schedules to talk with me. The big directors of CCAA were out of town, but that was okay as I would have been very nervous to talk with them. It was a good experience and nice to put faces to the people that I have written to for years. Kathy was very comfortable with everyone, and everyone was impressed with Meng. They were able to pull up her file from 1996. It is in storage now, but they plan to someday have all the children's files in the computer system so families can come and look up the file of their child. I think this is a long way off though, as they have many children's files in storage. It was a privilege to be able to visit and I was glad that Kathy was there with me. Wednesday morning she left to go back to Guangzhou to be with Heritage families. We will see her again in Guangzhou for a few days, and then she will return to Beijing.
By the time I write again we will be in Hefei. We are excited to take this next step in our adventure. The days are all blurring together as they do on a long trip and we are enjoying every minute of this journey.
Thanks for all of your support, Vicki