Pandas, Palaces and Peking Duck

Our day started with a quick stop at the Beijing Zoo to see the panda bears. The panda is the national treasure of China and pictures of pandas can be seen everywhere. In addition to the pandas that normally live at this zoo, they have also brought in 8 more pandas specifically for the Olympics.

Next, we went to the Summer Palace. As its name implies, the Summer Palace was used as a summer residence by China's imperial rulers - as a retreat from the main imperial palace known as the Palace Museum (or 'Forbidden City').

Our last stop was The Temple of Heaven. The Temple of Heaven, literally the Altar of Heaven, is where the Emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties worshiped Heaven and prayed for good harvests.

For lunch we had a typical "group tour" lunch...Chinese style. It was good and really did not differ that much from the Chinese food we eat in the U.S. For dinner tonight we had the traditional Peking Duck that is said to be the signature dish for Beijing. It was delicious! They bring the duck out to the table and carve it and then you eat the duck on these little pancakes with various condiments. We were expecting the dinner to be expensive since it was in a very nice restaurant, but it was only $21 total!!

We have met many of the families that are also with our adoption agency (some will arrive tomorrow or the next day). Everyone is very nice and we are enjoying getting to know each of them.

We certainly feel like this part of our trip is a vacation, but we are anxiously waiting for the real reason we are in China....HANNAH!!!!

To tip or not to tip...that is the question?

This was the joke of the day because it seems like everything we did required giving someone a tip. None of us really knew what we were doing, who to tip, how much to tip, and when to tip. But we managed and had a few good laughs along the way.

We took a tour of the Hutong area in Beijing. I found this link that provides a pretty good overview and probably explains it better than I can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutong

We were invited into a local family's home in the Hutong. He served us tea and we talked to him through our guide. It was very interesting to see how the people of this area lived. The residences are all very, very small and the people in the neighborhood have to share a public bathroom because the homes do not have a toilet. I didn't take many pictures in this area because it all went by so quickly (I didn't even know what to take a picture of, if that makes sense). We took a modern day rickshaw around the Hutong (picture above).

After that we went to a few tourist shopping sights, had lunch at a Thai restaurant (it was very good) and then Matt & I ventured out on our own to find the Hard Rock Cafe (I collect the pins from Hard Rock so I wanted to be sure and get one from Beijing). It turned out that the Hard Rock is not that far from our hotel so we decided to walk back rather than take a taxi. It was interesting to walk along some of the back streets and see how the people live in Beijing.

That's it for day 1. Tomorrow we have a full day of touring, so we are hoping to get some sleep tonight.

We made it!

We are in Beijing, exhausted but ready to get this adventure started! The next 3 days will be spent sightseeing in Beijing. I will try and post some pictures tomorrow. Just wanted to let everyone know we arrived safely.

Ready, set, GO!!!

We are officially on our way to China. We left Tulsa at 6:00 am this morning and now we are at the Chicago airport waiting on our flight to Beijing. So far everything appears to be on time. Still hard to believe that this day is finally here.

Saying goodbye to Alex and Tara was hard. Tara was especially sad to see us go even though we have planned for this day for many months. This is the longest we have both been away from the kids at the same time. I know they will have a good time in Oklahoma and will be well cared for by our family. Even so, it is hard to leave them behind when we are going to be on the other side of the world. They are eagerly waiting for our return with their little sister!

Next post will be from China....IF I can access blogspot. If not, I will have to send emails.

This time next week.....

One week until China!!!

We made it to Oklahoma and now we are working on all the last minute details for our trip to China. Our flight last Friday from Italy was long, but we made it without much trouble. The last flight was delayed 2 hours, so we didn't get to my mom's house until 2 a.m. It was a long day and we are still trying to recover from the jet lag and adjust to the time change.

I guess my only news from Oklahoma is that I got my hair cut yesterday...really short(see what happens Tina when you don't make time for me?? Just kidding!!) I'm sure I will be posting pictures soon enough with Hannah.

Grazie, Xie-xie, Thank you

We have received many gifts for Hannah and I think for now we have most everything we need to get us started on life with a baby. A friend of mine hosted a baby shower for me and we received clothes, toys, baby essentials, blankets, a car seat...and much more! Others have given us money to use as we needed. Needless to say, we have been blessed with gifts, well wishes, and prayers for our little Hannah.

I ordered some cute "thank you" cards that I wanted to send, but naturally they did not arrive before we have to leave for the states. But please know that we have truly appreciated each and every gift, prayer and kind word. We are so fortunate to have friends and family that support our decision to adopt and are as equally excited to meet Hannah as we are (well, maybe not quite as excited as we are!).

So THANK YOU in every language!!!!

We have travel dates!!!

It has been a roller coaster week with the ups and downs of waiting on FINAL travel confirmation, but we can finally say that plane tickets are purchased and WE ARE GOING TO CHINA!!!

Here is our itinerary:

June 13 Arrive in Oklahoma
June 24 Depart Oklahoma for China
June 25 Arrive in Beijing
June 26, 27, 28 Sightseeing in Beijing
June 29 Fly to Nanning, China
June 30 GET HANNAH!!!!!!!!!! She will stay with us for the rest of the trip!
July 1, 2, 3, 4 stay in Nanning, China
July 5 Depart for Guangzhou, China
July 6, 7, 8, 9 stay in Guangzhou (this is where the U.S. Consulate is located)
July 10 Return to Oklahoma with Hannah (and with my niece, EMILY---more on that later)
July 19 Matt leaves for Italy
August 6 Marla, Alex, Tara AND Hannah leave for Italy

The Beijing portion of the trip was optional. At first we didn't want to go to Beijing and do the whole sightseeing/tourist thing. But in the end we decided "why not"??? We might as well wait for her in China as wait in Oklahoma. There are several other families doing the Beijing trip so we will be with a travel group. It should be fun and the days will probably go by quickly.

Another exciting turn of events is that we will be traveling home with my niece, Emily, who is spending six weeks in China working with her cousins (from her other side of the family) who live in China. We believe it was truly a God thing that we were able to return on the same day and the exact same flight. I told my sister that it assures me that His plans are far greater than any of my plans!

22 days till Hannah!