Day 1 Beijing

This morning we met 2 other adoptive families- one is with CCAI and will also be adopting their son from the Henan province.  The other was actually a WACAP family who was with our group to take advantage of our excellent guide, George. Coincidentally we are all adopting boys, all with same special need, and we all started out trying to adopt from another country before ending up in China SN program.

This morning we took a rickshaw ride to a "historical" area of Beijing.  If you know me well you can imagine I was mortified by the prospect of having another human pull the two of us around on a bike, but there was not much to say about it, I just gave him a big tip!

We went to the home of Ms. Wu, who had lived in her one room home for 40 years. She told us a bit about her life (translated through our guide George) and served us tea and snacks.

                                                     Ms. Wu's bridal trunks

We then went to the government-run silk factory.  After getting a demo, we were set free for some shopping, where we bought a traditional outfit for Ben to have and a few other gifts.

Silk cocoons

Last, we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  It is COLD in Beijing, and even though we are from Chicago, we usually don't spend 2 hours outside in the cold.  By this time, I was FREEZING.  Eventually our other group members (from Wisconsin and Denver) admitted they were frozen too.  You can only pack so much, so no one had warm boots or down coats.  Luckily, we ended right before sundown.

 Our little group in the square, across the street from the forbidden city 

 Tom with a turtle-dragon

Trying to see inside the emperor's home

Jetlag has hit me the past 2 days at 5pm Beijing time- I fall into a coma for about 2 hours but am then fine.  Tom of course, is fine! Just 3 more days until BEN!