Beijing Chaos & Beauty

Our first two days in Beijing, Thursday & Friday were quite the adventure. From seeing how they live, what they eat to how they get around it was quite the adventure. Although we are still trying to adjust to flying through 13 time zones, we are managing to do as much as we can. On day 1 we hung out in Beijing, and walked a lot. The only sight-seeing we did other than immersing ourselves in the culture was the Forbidden City which is across the street from Tianemin Square. There were thousands of people there. It was overwhelming. And although they are across the street from each other, you go back and forth through an underground tunnel. For the street is 8 lanes wide. I would have enjoyed Forbidden City more perhaps if we had arranged a guide. I guess the tall Americans were easily identifiable. After every turn we were constantly approached by peddlers and willing tour guides saying they would give us a good tour for $$$. We were warned about the peddlers. Not only do you not want to purchase something, because then they all will swamp you. The danger is that the item is of course over priced and they will give you 'change' with counterfeit money. After awhile with so many people and so many peddlers I just wanted to get out of there. Which is a shame because I am sure we would have enjoyed it more.





On Friday we went to the Summer Palace (which was Dawson's, Bill's and my favorite), a jade factory, the Great Wall (Dakota's favorite) and a silk factory.




Bill and I were discussing our observations. The Chinese are hard workers. It is in their culture. From building the Great Wall 2,000 years ago to the Summer Palace being built and a lake literally hand dugged 300 years ago (approx.) We seem them going to work on bicycles with children toting along either on a lap or in the back or miraculously hanging on somehow. If they need to delivery packages (several) or cabbage or 8 fooot long poles and only have a bike, that is what they do. We see a lot of 'delivery' of what we would consider freight simply done on bikes. Our joke is "There goes UPS." But in all seriousness, if we had so much to cart around, and only had a bike, most of us would say, it cannot be done.

Beijing is huge. 20 to 30 million people (we've heard both). As an outsider, it is chaotic. For them it is organized chaos. How they manage to get through the streets alone is something you have to laugh about or you will have anxiety wondering if you will survive. Somehow they turn a two lane road into 4 or 5 lanes. Sometimes go the wrong way on the road and if all else fails, they use the sidewalk. We even saw a bus simply parked on the sidewalk. No big deal, huh? One of my favorite pictures that Bill took to describe the organized chaos is a mess of electrical lines streaming from everywhere and then jumbled all together in some kind of crazy configuration.

Today we have a meeting with other adoption families and are going to hang out with our kids. This is our last night as a family of 4. Then tomorrow we will fly to Fuzhou to get Nina-Li.


Love to you all.
Michelle