July 13-14, 2014

BEIJING

Yesterday we departed Hubei for Beijing to begin our group tour through Beijing, Xian, Chengdu and Guilin. We have met up with five other families, all with adopted girls from China. Dawn and I will admit, this is the part of this trip that we were the most anxious about. We prefer to travel independently and the prospect of group travel made us a little anxious. However, the opportunity for our family to interact with people that could identify with our story and to share this experience with them was compelling.

Travel Group 

It’s strange to transition from the immensely personal experience of visiting the girls’ home cities and orphanages to a rather typical group travel experience. But we really like the other families and it’s been fun to see our girls interact with the other adopted daughters. The other girls range in age from 14 to 22, so Xixi and Jing are the youngest. They have been pulled right in by the older girls and are having a terrific time. Xixi said she loves the group!

Most families on this type of heritage tour visit the orphanages at the very end, before leaving for the USA. We did it backwards as it was the only way we could make the timing work to travel with the group. It’s been fun to hear our girls explain their orphanage visit experiences to this older group of adoptees. And in turn, although it’s only been a day, it’s been so nice to have our girls interact with such terrific role models. The older girls appear to be tolerating their new “shadows” and if they are annoyed by the constant interaction Xixi and Jing are seeking, they haven’t shown it. We’ll see it that continues of the next 13 days!

Like a lot of China, Beijing has changed so much and so fast. Over the last 10 to 15 years, Beijing has added 500,000 new residents each year. It’s added a “Seattle” every year during that time period and now has 23 million citizens. The last time Dawn and I were here was 12 years ago, before we had children. It was pre-Olympic build up. At the time there were still a lot of bicycle riders, now you hardly see any. Beijing has been renamed the largest parking lot in China. We’ve lucked out regarding weather and smog (especially for July). Today we saw a lot of blue sky, there was a nice breeze and the heat was tolerable.

Today we visited a Hutong. A Hutong is the traditional Beijing residence that is comprised of several buildings surrounded a common courtyard. For centuries it’s how Beijing residents lived and the Forbidden City is modeled after this model…although on a much larger scale.   In modern Beijing the Hutongs are largely gone and the one we visited has been preserved as a heritage site. It’s still a family residence but the family opens it to public tours and the government ensures its preservation. It was a little “touristy,” but the girls loved it and the rickshaw ride to get there.

Chris and Xixi on the rickshaw ride to Hutong.

Dawn and Jing on the rickshaw ride to Hutong.

We then went to the Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was the second time for Dawn and I to visit these sites, so we focused on watching the girls and getting to know the group. It was very crowded and I was struck by the number of Chinese tourists. During our visits to China over the last 12 years the rising standard of living and increasing wealth of the Chinese citizens becomes more and more apparent. Although my memory is starting to fade, I swear that 12 years ago there were only one or two car makers….and only a few models on the roads. Now it looks like any other American city with all the major auto brands represented.

Tiananmen Sqaure

Roof Tile in the Forbidden City

After dinner we headed to a night market that is close to the hotel. It’s famous for its variety of food booths and the exotic items they sell to eat on skewers; everything from starfish to larvae to scorpions. Xixi, two girls from our tour group, and I tried fried scorpion. To me it tasted like extra crispy fried chicken. We have a really fun video of Xixi eating her scorpion skewer (I’ll post it when we get home).

Xixi enjoying scorpion.

Tomorrow it’s off to the Great Wall and an acrobatic show in the evening.