Day 2 Friday, September 18, 2009

Our 2nd day in China was full of activities once again. We met Cindy, our guide, in the hotel lobby at 8:30 am and headed over to the Temple of Heaven with the rest of the people in our adoption group. Another family showed up today with a son about the same age as Derek (7), so our boys enjoyed having him around. The temple is a sprawling complex of both grounds and buildings rich in traditional Chinese architecture. In preparation for the 60th anniversary of China's National Day on October 1 (this is a big deal), there were all sorts of Chinese groups either singing national songs or dancing everywhere along the grounds. In one group, there was what looked like a marching band and hundreds of people singing. Another group had dancers dressed in traditional clothing. The Chinese really enjoy their leisure time, especially the older folk. They know how to slow down and enjoy life (or it could be they have nothing better to do?). From what we know, which is limited, most people retire at 55 and then have lots of time just to hang out. From the temple, we had lunch at a place that was kind of like a Chinese rain forest café with live entertainment. The traditional food was delicious. It was quite the spread with fish, pork, chicken, duck, rice, and soup. After lunch, we went on a Hutong tour (Hutong means little street) in the old part Beijing, complete with a rickshaw ride. We were told by a local tour guide that one little Hutong house with a central courtyard was worth 3 million U.S. dollars. It was kind of hard to believe because the house did not even have a toilet. In the Hutong communities they have central public restrooms (kinda weird). Typically, you only find the older generations in the Hutong communities because the younger crowd likes to have individual restrooms and they also enjoy the urban feel of the high rise apartment buildings. And speaking of buildings, there are many. Beijing has a population of about 16 million. There are people walking everywhere on the streets. I have never seen so many bikes and custom mopeds in my life. Even the deliverymen for KFC and Mc'Donalds ride bikes. Chris likes the fact that the traffic signals have lights for cars, pedestrians and even bikes. The one child policy shows up everywhere. You can see early in the morning all the people taking their children to school on their bikes and scooter. The children often sit side saddle on the bike's luggage rack. It is amazing to see the children texting on their cell phones, on the back of the bikes without a care in the world, meanwhile just inches away from a big bus. Throughout the entire day, I found myself (as did many other moms in our group) staring at these young Chinese children and babies. We have to keep pinching ourselves that in just 3 days we will all meet our children. In the evening our group went to the Beijing acrobat show. Amazing! Did not know the human body can bend that way. I kind of feel old when I tell my kids that the acrobats can stretch like gumby and they ask, "whose gumby?" You know, the green guy.... ah forget it. When we returned to the hotel room, we discovered that Chris had a letter waiting for him. It read "Required by China Disease Control Center, Could you come to the front desk and have your temperature taken twice a day." On the plane ride over we all had to feel out a form stating our current medical condition and if we had any flu like symptoms recently. On the form they ask also where you will be staying. Even when we disembarked the plane we were thermal scanned to make sure we did not have a fever. So now Chris has to go down every morning and evening to get his temperature taken. He never had a temperature, the government just likes to do random checks. China is taking this H1N1 thing seriously. We ended the day at an old familiar restaurant, Pizza Hut. Although, this had to be the best Pizza Hut we have ever seen. They did not have the old go-to pepperoni pizza, however. Most pizzas had some sort of seafood on it.