Bonding Time With the "Teriyaki" Warriors

The main reason most people make the trip to Xi'an is, by far, the famous Terra Cotta Warriors, which Syd has been referring to as the "Teriyaki" Warriors for days. An estimated 6000 warriors, horses, chariots, etc. were created over 2000 years ago by Qin Shi Huang to protect him in the afterlife. Fast forward to 1974 when four peasants drilling a well here in Shaanxi Province uncovered the underground vault that held thousands of terra cotta soldiers in battle formation. 

Fortunately for us, our guide Jerry is native to Xi'an and visits the Warriors about 80 times a year. He was great at getting us to the right places at the right times to really have a chance to appreciate the "eighth wonder of the world." Here is my first glimpse of "Pit 1" - the largest pit. 

 

The scale is mind-boggling, especially when you understand that each of the thousands of warriors was modeled after an individual soldier and therefore, each is distinct from all the others. 

We also learned that only about 2000 of the estimated 6000 have been excavated. Over time, various groups attempted to destroy the warriors and managed to start a fire that made the original roof collapse over them - breaking or destroying many. Since their discovery, archaeologists have been slowly working to basically put them back together. And that, when originally unearthed, they were very brightly colored but within about a week, the colors faded to the color you see in the photo. This is another reason why so many have yet to have been excavated. There is a technology available to preserve the original coloring, but it's apparently very expensive so the work has been halted until it can be done properly. 

After visiting Pit 1, since we are in China, we of course stopped for a buffet lunch. Once again, our table was covered in far more food than we could ever eat, including delicious homemade noodles, made on site. Here is the noodle master:

 

 

Here's my favorite - noodles covered in pork sauce. Yum!

After too much lunch, we went back to explore Pits 2 and 3 as well as the Terra Cotta Warrior Museum. They have done a wonderful job in creating this historical site and despite crowds, it's a great experience and well thought out. We also had a chance to see some of the soldiers up close. The detail is incredible. 

 

 After the "Teriyaki" Warriors we headed back to our hotel, which took forever because, according to Jerry, Chinese people who have just gotten their licenses like to practice on the weekends. It was at this time that I edified him regarding the term "Sunday Driver." He seemed to appreciate it.

We spent the late afternoon wandering our Xi'an neighborhood and I'll be honest, I don't mind good-natured acknowledgement of my differentness, but I'm totally over being laughed at,b which just happened on the street 20 minutes ago. C'mon Xi'an, you are a tourist destination, I expect better from you.

So...what's up next? Tomorrow morning we pile back into our magical bus for a ride to the airport, from which we will travel from Xi'an to Guilin. I am really looking forward to the countryside!

Black Dumplings, Tandem Bikes, and a Wild Goose

Saturday, June 25

It was nice to wake up this morning and know that we would be able to go to sleep in the same place. In fact, we get to spend two more nights in Xi'an - so I did a massive load of sink laundry last night. As a result, our bathroom and the girls' bathroom look like something straight out of the Beverly Hillbillies. 

It was nice to catch up with our travel group, even though it was only for half a day. We bumped into most of them at the hotel's buffet breakfast. The breakfasts are always interesting - the larger cities have a pretty impressive assortment of both Chinese and Western foods, while places like Fuzhou, and particularly Nanping are Chinese only. Today I was pretty excited to see a pancake. Weirdly though, ice cream is also on the breakfast menu and let me just say that Flying Sparrow picked the WRONG day to sleep in and skip breakfast.

This morning's destination was the Muslim Market, which I was pretty excited to see - and I was not disappointed. It's a huge area inside the Xi'an City Wall in which Chinese Muslims set up an extensive array of stalls and shops and sell things like goat hooves, taffy, kebabs, and even cotton candy. The Muslim population has been in China since the Silk Road days and we are told that since they helped to drive out the Mongols, they are always welcome in China. While there has been a lot of mixing in marriages, and the Muslims appear very Chinese on the surface, many have a very unusual grey eye coloring - really unusual and striking. 

 

Muslim Market.

After the Market, our travel group once again left us behind - they headed off to Chengdu while we stay to catch up on Xi'an. We will meet back up with them on Monday in Guilin and then stay together for a few days. So we had to say goodbye to one of our favorite guides, Henry, before being turned over to our new guide, Jerry. We took a walk to a nearby restaurant for a dumpling banquet. Let me be frank: I adore dumplings. My entire family adores dumplings. After today, however, I'm going to need a day or two before I eat another dumpling. I would estimate that close to 100 dumplings landed on our table today - of incredible variety. They were amazing and unique - but they just kept coming! We could barely walk when we left. 

 

One of what felt like 1000 baskets of dumplings. Yes - half of them are black. 

So what do you do when you can barely walk after overeating delicious dumplings? Go for a nine-mile bike ride, of course. Xi'an boasts a pretty spectacular and intact city wall - which is a mere 600 years old. Originally used to defend the city, it's now a great way to explore the inner city from above. At some point in time, someone was smart enough to introduce the idea of biking around the wall, which is about 36 feet wide, which is more than enough room for plenty of walkers and bikers. We were lucky in that while it's still hot and humid, it was somewhat cloudy, so our biking wasn't uncomfortable. EXCEPT for the bikes - which were incredibly uncomfortable. Regardless, we enjoyed every minute. I teamed up with Spring Flower and T teamed up with Flying Sparrow. We laughed the entire time and even saw a wedding on the Wall. 

 

Despite evidence to the contrary, Flying Sparrow actually did most of the pedaling.

At this point, we were pretty wiped out - but when we met back up with Jerry, he had other plans. One more stop - the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It was worth it. The Pagoda and Temple were built by a famous monk who traveled to India and brought Buddhism to China. It's gorgeous except that the entire Pagoda is covered in scaffolding - after an earthquake it apparently started "leaning." Jerry turned us over to an "official" Pagoda tour guide, who, to be honest, was terrible. We did learn a bit about the temple but at the end of the tour there was a really hard sell to buy an array of products. We turned most down but did decide to have the girls' names done in calligraphy by a local artist. 

 

"Spring Flower" and "Flying Sparrow." Oh - and don't you want to also lug home the $700 painting in the background?

Now we are back at the hotel and feel like limp dishrags. We stayed up a bit too late last night so I'm hoping for an early evening. I guess we do have to figure dinner out - but please don't let it be dumplings!

On The Road Again

Friday, July 24

Another incredible day here in China. To be honest, part of me was a bit anxious about the trip just because I knew there would be so many elements in play - the constant travel, the emotions of the adoption experience and so forth - but we are having the trip of our lives. New people, new vistas, familiar haunts, and so much more. Every day is literally an adventure.

This morning we woke up in Nanping and Spring Flower and I met Sophie for "Operation Finding Flyer Distribution." We spent about an hour and a half walking from park to park talking to people and handing out flyers. The people of Nanping were absolutely wonderful. They immediately wanted to do what they could to help. They suggested contacting the orphanage and the government (gee, why didn't we think of that?) but also suggested putting up posters (which I fortunately came prepared to do) but what they did most was tell SF what a beautiful girl she is and that she will find her birth family and that they will do whatever they can to help. They would pat her arm and just give her huge smiles. After a while, we had drawn a crowd of probably close to 40 people and it got a bit crazy as we got separated from Sophie and weren't able to ask or answer any questions. It was about at this point that SF started to get very emotional, quickly followed by me, and then, believe it or not, even Sophie. Three women completely overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of spirit of the people of Nanping who treated SF like a returning rock star. I will never forget this day.

 

SF and me with some park goers, holding flyers, before things got really crowded.

After the park experience, it was a bit hard to change gears but we had agreed to meet one of the orphanage workers for a walking tour of one of the mountains just across the walking bridge that you can see in the background of the photo above. It was insanely hot and humid by the time we set out at about 9:30 but we did climb the first part of the mountain. It was gorgeous and shady and breezy but we decided not to go any higher as we knew we had a long day ahead. We sat to enjoy the breezes when SF found a fairly malnourished dog along a path. She asked if she could pet it and I told her to be extremely careful. 

 

Unfortunately we didn't have any food, but I poured water into her hands and the dog gratefully drank the water. We didn't want to give him too much so then SF just sat and patted him for about 15 minutes. He seemed to love it. When we had to leave, it was tough for her to walk away and gut-wrenchingly, he began to follow her. A very difficult few minutes ensued and I know part of it dealt with all that SF had experienced in the preceding 24 hours. 

Then it was time to depart Nanping and catch a train back to Fuzhou, We absolutely loved the new bullet train between Nanping and Fuzhou and the station is wonderfully modern. Below are SF and Flying Sparrow, waiting for a train American style. 

 

After an easy 45 minute train ride we had an hour-long drive to the Fuzhou airport. Sophie got us settled in at our gate before she headed to her own gate on her way to Beijing. After only knowing her for a bit more than 24 hours, it was tough for me and the girls to say goodbye. She was so very good to us and so understanding of SF's need to try to make some sort of birth family contact. 

One very easy and relatively ontime flight later, we arrived in Xi'an and we met by yet another guide, Jerry. We always get a kick out of the names chosen by the guides, to accommodate the Americans who typically can't handle the actual Chinese names. 

We're now settled in to our beautiful hotel in Xi'an and are ready to explore another famous city in China. We will rejoin our travel group for the morning before they head off to Chengdu and we try to catch up on Xi'an. After Xi'an we will truly rejoin them in Guilin. So for the next few days it will be just us and Jerry and maybe a few thousand Terra Cotta Warriors! 

There's No Place Like Home

Thursday, June 23rd

Anyone who has slogged through this blog in its entirety is aware of how important the visits to the girls' hometowns are to me. Further, if you read the last post, you will be aware of what kind of shape we were in when we rolled in Fuzhou - severely lacking in sleep. Rather than the 1am bedtime I had hoped for, we instead laid heads to pillow at about 4am. Honestly, at that point I lapsed into a coma and don't remember a thing until I woke just before my alarm at 7:15. 

Before heading down to breakfast, we took a photo of T, Spring Flower, and me in the 12th elevator lobby of the Lakeside Hotel in Fuzhou - the very Genesis of our life with Spring Flower. Wish we had had a bit more time but we literally had a train to catch. Before that, however, we quickly had breakfast (so fun to remember those first few breakfasts with Spring Flower) before heading out for the train station. 

The bullet train in China is great! What used to be a three-hour one-way drive from Fuzhou to Nanping is now an easy 45-minute train ride. Progress! I also enjoyed the ride because it gave us a chance to get to know our guide (and Sun Travel head guru), Sophie. I had some reservations about her initially because she is the "Boss," but am so happy to report that she is flexible, supportive, funny, and just genuinely loves people, Sophie is from Xi'an, but spends most of her time in Seattle. In the summer she oversees heritage tours pretty much every week but personally takes many families to the individual orphanage visits. 

From the train station, we were picked up by a driver from the orphanage who took us straight there. Talk about "ready or not, here we come!" I immediately recognized the area because I had a general map of the Nanping area in my head and because I have studied so many photos of the Nanping Yanping SWI (Social Welfare Institute), aka Spring Flower's orphanage. 

 

I knew that SF's finding area was just outside the gates of the SWI, so, unprepared, I was suddenly standing there with her and started tearing up. She seemed okay and let us take her photo, but I don't know if it had really sunk in with her yet. Next we were warmly invited to come inside for a tour and to meet many of the staff members. They were absolutely wonderful. They all seemed so genuinely happy to see SF, though when I showed photos of her when she was a baby, we were told that the amahs in the photo had retired. We also met the Director, who was very kind and friendly, but he took over in 2004, two years after SF's departure. 

His assistant took us for our tour and we got to visit with many of the children at the SWI, which is now almost 100% for special needs children as most non-special needs children now typically live with foster families. SF just lit up having a chance to interact with the children. She held babies, hugged toddlers, and helped one little girl go down a plastic slide at least 100 times. At this point, coincidentally, a second Nanping adoptee arrived for her tour. The crazy part is that they probably only see a dozen former adoptees a year, as only about 300 children, total, were adopted from this SWI (and we know more than ten personally). I think SF liked not having 100% of the attention on her.

 

At one point of the tour, something crazy happened. Apparently, according to Sophie's wonderful translation, one particularly nice amah commented, "she came back? She was here last year." Upon further questioning, the amah claims that she thought SF was another 14 year old who visited in 2015. She says SF looks exactly like her and could not stop staring. Cue the Twilight Zone music. My stomach lurched just with the possibility that it could be anyone who resembles SF closely enough that it could be a possible bio relative. Sophie was amazing and asked lots of questions. She also got the amah's contact information. A bit later one of the "helpers" - a former orphan, who now works in the orphanage, confirmed that a girl who looks remarkably like SF had been there last year and she thought she had a photo on her phone. Try to imagine our stunned silence as we waited for her to go through her photos. She wasn't able to find it, but again Sophie got her information and asked that she let us know if she finds the photo. Sophie has also agreed to follow up with the SWI to try to find out which girls visited last year. I will definitely be following up via the two huge Chinese adoptee groups on FB. We have to find out more about this.

 

Next we were invited to sit down and have some local fruit (the cherries in this area are unlike any I've ever had - they even have a prickly outer skin - but we all proclaim them delicious and they wrapped some up for SF to bring back to the hotel. Meanwhile the girls were then able to review their official orphanage files. Wow. Most of what is in the file we already have at home but there were some amazing additional nuggets including her finding ad - which I didn't know existed - and which gave us a few additional details about which we had been previously unaware. This means so much to us. They both SF and the other visiting adoptee were asked to put their handprints (in red ink) in a book of all the children who have come back to visit. They asked if we had any photos of SF growing up and I told them that the gift we had presented was a photo album. They asked to open it and of course we said yes. It was an absolute joy to watch them seeing all of SF's photos they told us repeatedly that it makes them so happy to see her living a good life. 

Next we headed off to lunch in a local restaurant and I did my best to remember my Chinese table manners and apparently the girls had paid attention to my adominitions because they were reminding Tony to leave a morsel of food on his plate to be polite. I had a chance to chat with the other adoptive mom and her daughter, who is 18 and about to start her freshman year of college. 

 

After lunch the orphanage staff dropped us at our hotel, which while VERY Chinese, is also extremely comfortable and has a gorgeous view of the Min River, which snakes its way all through the middle of Nanping. I LOVE this city even though people literally stop dead in their tracks to stare at me. I have not seen a single non-Asian person since we arrived except the other adoptive mom. 

In the early afternoon Sophie took us for a walk. She has been to Nanping once before and proclaims it one of her favorite cities in China. Beautiful mountains form a back drop, the river is beautiful, and the neighborhoods are really cool. We wandered around the back alley markets and I can't believe how much fun it was - especially with Sophie, who stops to speak to many people and ask them questions. The people are incredibly nice and enjoy explaining things to her so that she, in turn, can explain then to us. 

Then our amazing day took a turn for the ridiculously amazing. We stopped into a tiny tea shop run by a young man who was maybe 30. His parents opened the shop several decades before. Sophie was asking questions about the tea, and he began mixing up multiple batches and proceeded to keep filling our cups for the next 30 minutes. She explained why we were in Nanping and he and his friend were very interested. Like all Chinese people here, they offered advice for what we should do. But his plan was brilliant. He immediately took a picture of SF's "search" poster and put it on his WeChat account (sort of like Chinese Facebook). He also explained that there is a channel within WeChat for people in Nanping that is basically a "classified" section like a newspaper. He put a post there for us and now has Sophie's phone number in case anyone responds. While we were there enjoying our tea, four of his friends reposted for us. How flipping incredible.

 

Our WeChat hero (right) who also brews a mean cup of tea.

We continued our exploration of Nanping and we all just loved the charm of this relatively small but very quaint city. We stopped for a quick dinner in a small side restaurant that specialized in dumplings, fish soup, and won ton soup and I have to say the food here was better than what we had in Beijing.

I hesitated about asking Sophie about posting some "searching" posters for Claire but she was amazing about it and suggested that we should try talking to some of the locals and hand out the flyers I had made. We agreed to meet on Friday morning at 6:30am to try to talk to some of the people who regularly gather in the parks. 

To be continued...

Bye bye Beijing

Wednesday, June 22nd

We all love Beijing. And while the sights have been remarkable, we also just really enjoyed being part of this city for a few days. There's just this cool vibe in the city and the people are super eclectic and proud. I could people watch here all day. Every time we ride the bus around the city I just lean my head against the window and take in people going about their daily lives. It's endlessly entertaining for me. 

This morning we did a whirlwind tour of Tiananmen Square before moving on to tackle the Forbidden City. Again, one of those deja vu moments when you encounter something in person that you have read about or seen photos of for your entire life. Unreal. 

The day started out a bit overcast, which made for our most comfortable day of sightseeing this week - but after the sun popped out the full heat and humidity returned. Regardless, nothing could take away from the grandeur and incredible history of the Forbidden City. When I get home I can't wait to watch "The Last Emperor" again. The only movie ever allowed to film in the Forbidden City. 

The downside of today is that the other families are already on the bullet train to Xi'an so we had to say goodbye to them for a few days - and have already said goodbye to two families who are wrapping up and heading home. Originally we were scheduled to go to Xi'an today but had to shift things around because Spring Flower's orphanage won't allow us to visit on a weekend. So - we will be hopping a flight to Fuzhou at 8 tonight instead. I think it will be a late night as we don't land in Fuzhou until close to 11pm and I recall the drive to the hotel taking about an hour. So if we are lucky, we will be in bed by 1am. And we are still having trouble staying awake past 8! 

Tomorrow morning we hope to have a few minutes to visit the 12th floor of our hotel, which is the exact spot where Spring Flower was placed in our arms nearly 14 years ago. Then we will hop on a bullet train to visit her orphanage and hometown in Nanping. I'm not sure I'm ready for the inevitable wave of emotions but I need to get it together to be on hand for anything Spring Flower needs tomorrow - whether it's helping her deal with her own emotions or just letting her act like it's no big deal. She gets to call the shots. 

That's it for today - just spending a few quiet hours in our hotel before going back on the move. We hope our other travel families are having a blast on the train to Xi'an and maybe Henry is regaling them again with his version of Chinese rap! 

 

Bucket List

Ever since I was a kid who fell profoundly in love with books I have imagined what it would be like to visit certain landmarks. I have been incredibly fortunate to be able to visit several of what I'll call my "Top 5," which includes places such as Notre Dame in Paris and the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel in Rome. One that has eluded me, until today, is the Great Wall of China. 

I woke up a bit grumpy at just after 3am this morning. The problem is that there isn't much you can really DO for two or more hours in the dark while the rest of your family slumbers. My saving graces have been my iPod nano (books on tape) and my iPad (ebooks and social media). The upside of 3am in China is that all your friends at home are wide awake and I was able to chime in on a chat with Carol and Xiomara at about 4:30 about Madeline's first pair of pointe shoes! So excited for her! The little glimpses into life at home make us feel like halfway around the world isn't quite so far.

Even the rest of my family manages to roll it out pretty early and we had breakfast at about 6:15 again. Amusing solely because that IS a normal breakfast time for the girls and me but T - not so much. 

Our fabulous bus and driver appeared as if by magic again - this time at 8am to take us out of Beijing and to the northwest. Because it's China, first we stopped at a jade market, which included the perfunctory history lesson and the mandatory sales pitch. Fortunately for us, we were actually in the market for jade. My original jade bracelet, purchased 14 years ago, broke about two years ago (demonstrating its poor quality). Meanwhile, the higher quality bracelets we bought for the girls in China in 2005 were stolen from our house a few years ago. Yes, we were definitely in the market. T helped me pick out a new bangle, all the while the salesgirl kept telling me "you have a good husband," to which I kept replying, "yes, I know!" We let Spring Flower and Flying Sparrow make their own choices and they each selected a jade pendant and jade earrings. They are both proudly wearing their earrings and it makes the Chinese part of my heart very happy!

Next stop, Great Wall!

According to TripAdvisor, our guides picked a great spot for our climb - not crowded, not too far away, and great views. They delivered! It was virtually deserted today. We had The Great Wall of China to ourselves! : )

We were told repeatedly that there was an "easy side" and a "hard side." Those of who know me - would you care to guess which side I chose? Okay, so I kind of assumed that they meant that the "hard side" was named by spoiled Americans who get no exercise. Boy was I wrong. The hard side was HARD! Here is what I will call Phase 2:

 

This was after an already "heart-rate raising" climb. Of course we pressed on. Note the building at the top - it plays a role in Phase 3.

 

Welcome to Phase 3! We are now standing next to the building that was visible from Phase 2. This seemed like the perfect time to pay homage to our fearless leader of Herndon, VA, Madame Merkel. So I donned my 

Merkel Mayor 2016 shirt and got this photo. I think she is pleased with my efforts to support her candidacy. 

More about Phase 3 - see the building I am pointing to? The insanely high one? That was our final destination. Flying Sparrow was having some panic attacks about the heights - the steps are insanely steep and uneven - so T decided to stay behind with her while I forged ahead with Spring Flower and two of the other girls with our group. I won't lie - I wanted to die at several points during the ridiculously steep climb. I had to sit on the steps at least 10 times to catch my breath. But guess what my friends: I did it! Out of 26 people in our group only 3 girls and 2 adults made it to the top and Spring Flower and I were among them and here is the photo to prove it, which I think only goes to prove the point that it's true what they say about ballerinas and OCD people: they can both make it to the top of The Great Wall!

 

To be honest, I was a bit concerned about the descent since the railing (oh, how I loved the railing!) seemed too low to offer much help on the way down. Regardless, and despite ridiculously shaking legs, we managed to get back down in less than half the time it took us to get to the top. Time for selfies!

 

On the way back to our hotel we got a look at some of the trademark 2008 Olympic venues including the Bird's Next, the Olympic Village, and the Water Cube. We just had time to shower off half the dirt of The Great Wall before jumping back onto the bus for a very impressive acrobatics show. The girls LOVED it. 

Tomorrow morning it's Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City before most of the families head off to Xi'an, while we fly to Fuzhou in anticipation of Spring Flower's orphanage visit on Thursday. It's our last night in Beijing and I still cannot believe I'm even here in the first place!

Forgot one photo

Pre rickshaw race. Love this.