Stupid Mongo-ri-ians, they come knock down our wall...

For those of you who are not followers of South Park, the title for this post references an episode in which the City Wok guy complains about the Mongolians breaking down the Great Wall. I'd reference the episode for you in a link or with more detail, but I can't find it right now because the Internet filter in China is more restrictive than the draconian filter in the school district where we work, if any of our colleagues can even believe that! (I am emailing my blog entries to my wonderful brother Jim who is posting them for me, BTW, so a huge thank you goes out to him for doing this!!)

Anyhow, today was the day we got to hike along the Great Wall. It was insanely awesome. Actually, it was so much fun that I didn't even notice how cold it was (18 degrees F) and Larry got so sweaty under all of his layers he spent the rest of the day freezing. He was a good sport about it: every time we got to a new station, I would say "Just one more" and he would oblige. While we hiked, we got a lot of mileage out of the "stupid mongolians" jokes from South Park because our tour guide gave a very long and impassioned speech on the bus as we arrived about how the Mongolians WERE always trying to knock down their wall! (Video forthcoming, MJ.) We hiked to 5 stations and back in the 90 minutes we were allotted and it was the first time we were somewhere that we didn't have to stay with the whole group and go the pace of the slowest person. Lar and I hiked with M, a college student/ brother to adopted girl in our group and had a very pleasant time.

Pics above include Lar and I at the wall, me looking cold but happy, and Lar on patrol spotting in-coming Mongo-ri-ans.

As I send this to Jim to be published, you are all waking up on Christmas morning. We are exhausted, but are finally flying to Abigail's capital city tomorrow (as you are all sitting down to your Christmas dinner). Our "Christmas dinner" this evening was Yaki Tori and sushi.

Tips for future adopting families:

Be prepared for "adoption tourism". It means that you will have several days of being herded like cattle from one souvenir place to another, from one tourist destination to another. It is exhausting. And all you want is to get your kid. You may not interested in going to the Jade Mall to buy a $125,000 USD jade statue of a bull or the silk factory to buy a silk comforter, etc. But be prepared to do it.

She'll see it later, honey, her eyes are frozen

Happy Christmas Eve from China. To all of my family spending time at the old farmhouse in PA: however cold Mom may have set the thermostat, just remember, we are so very much colder! (The "feels like" temperature today was 12. Nope, that is not Celsius.)

Today was spent almost entirely outside. We left the hotel later than expected (after waiting 25 minutes for the ever-self-absorbed von Trapp family) to go to the Forbidden City. The first picture was taken outside the Forbidden City, before the cold really set in. I had 5 layers on my top, but the worst part was my feet: I couldn't feel them after the first hour- just a burning sensation in the general area where my feet are located. After that, we walked (jogged really) through Tiananmen Square to get back to our tour bus.

Then we got to do a quick tour of a silk factory (and gift shop), had lunch in the freezing cold basement of some restaurant, and then had an hour tour through the Hutong. Our tour guide said "If you haven't been to Beijing, then you haven't been to China. If you haven't been to Hutong, then you haven't been to Beijing." While that seems like the logic-statements with which we challenge our geometry students in a lesson on syllogism, it wasn't too remarkable. Think of NYC's Chinatown and then make it older and poorer and put it in Beijing. We got to do this tour in pedicab. (If you look closely at the pic below you will see that my eyes actually were frozen at this point, and it was right before someone spilled tea on me so I had soaking wet jeans while it was 12 degrees.) Larry kept saying "I'm so cold I'm so cold" so that it became a sort of mantra.

For dinner, Larry and I did enjoy some Peking Duck, at Jim's suggestion. It was succulent. Unlike the Christmas Story movie, it was not smiling at us. :)

We don't want to complain or seem like we aren't having fun, but it is indescribably cold and we just want to get our daughter. We do like most of our travel group and they seem just as cold and just as eager to get their kids too. There is a precocious little boy D, and a sweet little girl K who are also excited to be getting their siblings.

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Tips for future adoption travelers:

1. When you bring the electrical converters, be sure that you bring one for your 2 prong devices (such as a man's electric razor) and also for your 3 prong devices (like a laptop). We were lucky that the nice guy working at the desk lent us a 3-prong one or blog entries were going to be short and far-between!

2. When your agency advises "This is an adoption trip not a vacation" and "please be on time" LISTEN TO THEM.

All of the families in our group have to constantly wait for one family: It isn't fair to all of us and it is going to be madness in a few days when there are a dozen babies in the mix. Please BE ON TIME!

3. Our agency said there were "laundry facilities" at the hotel. We thought this meant coin laundry and only took enough clothes for 1/3 of the trip. However, "laundry facilities" means that there is a laundry service at $3 per pair of socks,bra or underwear, $5 per t-shirt, $7 per pair of jeans, etc. You can re-wear jeans and sweaters, but...