...today....

As adults, we wept. For everything that this place represents. Loss. Gratitude. Hope. 
But through Shawna's eyes, we saw happiness. And pride.
She didn't see what we saw… or even feel as we felt. 
She courageously showed the scars of her heart, a physical mark that metaphorically tells so much of her story. She smiled boldly. She was confident. And we all were proud.

Today

Today is the day.
I don't know that my heart is ready.
But more importantly, I pray that Shawna's is...

On the way to Xiushan

Posing with Bumblebee. Transformer 4 was filmed here.
And ordering off the picture menu again at McDonald's. 😁

Day 6 PM in Chongqing

the night before the 6 hour drive.....

There are times that I think that I should rename this blog "planes, trains, and automobiles" ... lol

We arrived in Chongqing Tuesday evening and were super excited to see our guide/translator Michael from 2009 meet us at the gate.  I was not so excited about the wall of humidity that also welcomed us back to town.

We checked into our hotel around 8 pm and called it a night.   Literally. That was it. Dinner was peanut butter crackers and potato chips. We didn't have it us to find food. Or navigate the unfamiliar area. Sara wasn't feeling well, so she was asleep by 9. And the rest of us were just unmotivated. We had a long day of sight seeing, a flight, and an hour car ride.  We were only at the Holiday Inn for the night as we were leaving for Xiushan at 9 am on Wednesday.

So our stay there was only for 13 hours, which was about 12 hours too long.

The good stuff? It was clean. And they had a self-service laundry.
But our rooms were super small.

And the bathroom situation was just weird. The shower was visible from the bedroom.  Ick. Ew.

That reflection?  That is the shower!

Yes- it was lightly frosted glass on the bedroom side but it was still visible. Not good with preteen girls and a teenage boy.  And--get this:  the door for the bathroom doubled as the door for the shower. So, when you were IN the nearly transparent shower, there was not a door to the bathroom. It was weird. We didn't like it.   It also didn't help that the shower was one of those hand held things.  Ugh.

We also didn't have enough beds. Like all of our stays here, we have two rooms. (China hotels are different than US. Max occupancy usually is 2/ room. You can add a rollaway for a child in a room with two twin beds.)  But, we didn't have a roll away bed and had a heck of a time getting one.  Sigh.

All in all, we made it work. But the shower situation pushed me over the edge. And we've requested a different hotel for our 2 nights when we return to Chongqing on Friday.

The good news ? I couldn't sleep so I got all of our laundry done at 330 AM.
We are off to Xiushan on Wednesday. It's a 6 hour drive…..

Arrived!

In a city of 9 million people, we know one. Michael. He was our guide and translator when we adopted Shawna in 2009. In a lucky twist of fate, he's the one that met us at the airport. As our friends posted on our Facebook page "God writes the best stories!"

Hello Chongqing and Michael. It's good to see you again.

Fun at the Xi'an airport

Fun at the Xian airport

Following lunch, it was time to bid goodbye to Xian as we had a plane to catch to Chongqing. Kimi helped us with our plane tickets and bags. Then, we said goodbye to him at the security gate. All was going well ... until we had our security screen. You see, we are bit spoiled in the USA with our fancy TSA precheck. We are used to tossing our bags onto the belt and walking through the mag gate.

We don't take off our shoes.
Or pull anything out of our bag.

Maybe there was a sign at security that said "remove all lithium batteries from your bag."
But, even if there was.... We couldn't read it. 😜

Needless to say, all of our backpacks got flagged because EVERYONE had a portable iPad/iPhone charger.  Everything got pulled out and rescanned.

Then... there was the tabacle of the BIG black multiple charger do-dad.

This handy charging device was loaned to us by friends who recently returned from their own adoption trip. He warned us that it might be a problem.  He even said "they (airport security) may confiscate this, but don't worry about it if they do."  Since we didn't have any problems on our previous flight, we kinda forgot about the warning.

Well... They pulled this bad boy outta of Dan's bag and started chatting about it like it was a stolen historical relic. They examined it. Showed it to colleagues. Flipped it over. Read the back. And at one point, I swear, they googled it. Having no idea WHAT was going on, Dan suggested that we snap a picture of the event to document our "fun."  Now, I don't know about you, but I am pretty sure that the TSA security check point folks are paid to NOT have a sense of humor. I'm equally confident that photos at security are frowned upon. So, y'all are just gonna have to take my word for it... I don't have photographic proof about this "event."

Anyway...

After nearly an eternity, a women with broken English explained that we would need a "flight xxx from desk. ". The xxx is intentional because I have no idea what she said. She had the black do-dad in her hand, Dan's passport, and was pointing to the other side of the airport. Somehow, we concluded that we had to leave security, go back to the ticket desk, and get a xxx.  Again, no idea what xxx was supposed to be.  Dan looked like he saw a ghost, so I volunteered to go.  I sent the rest of the crew to the gate, grabbed my phone, passport, and the black charger and left.

Really, I had no idea what I was going to do.  My gut instinct?  Find someone who speaks English. There were tons of American people at the airport with their tour guides. Remember those families we kept seeing at the hotel?  Well, they were all at the airport too. I figured that one of their guides would still be at the airport, and I'd simply ask them for help.

As it turned out, I got lucky.  There was a Hainan airline employee standing by the airline check-in. She spoke English. She knew what I needed. And helped me get the xxx for the black charging box.  The mysterious xxx ?  It was a 5x7 sheet of paper. Security collected the paper when I went back through the screening area. I have no idea what that paper said ... Or why we needed it. I think it may have been for the wattage of the black box. Maybe

Day 6 recap: The 14 km bike ride, the Big goose pagoda, and lessons in Buddhism

Day 6 recap:  The 14 km bike ride, the Big goose pagoda, and lessons in Buddhism

Sounds like a pretty eclectic day, eh?

On the Xian city wall with our guide, Kimi

We started our day with a bike ride on the city wall.  Our original plan was to have 3 single bikes and one tandem. But the single bikes were a bit tall... and Sara acted like she'd never, ever rode a bike before. Ugh. So, 10 minutes later, we relented and swapped the single bike for another tandem. Thankfully for everyone's sake, we were still in the bike shoppe and hadn't started our ride yet.

The goal for the 14 km ride? Relax and enjoy it. Specifically - our direction was
"This isn't a quest to be conquered but a journey to be enjoyed!"

City view from the wall 

I said it so many times, I'm sure the kids can quote me. But, as siblings often do, they think everything is a race. That life is one big competition. It drives me nuts!  And, it nearly killed me at the Great Wall. Geesh. We were climbing those stairs like they were on fire. A great workout? Yes.  But that's not the objective here.

Anyway.. back to the Xian wall...  the bike ride was super fun.

We sang. We whistled. We laughed. And we posed for pictures.
When we stopped for this picture, several natives lined up to also take pictures.

 For fun, I took a picture of the picture taking.

Unbeknownst to me, Dan captured this video while we were singing our ad-lib version of "she'll be coming round the mountain ..."

We enjoyed our journey so much that we lost count of the turns. And arrived back almost 15 minutes late. Oops!

Next up: Big Goose Pagoda is a 1000 year old Buddhist temple that is home to around 30 monks.

We saw several practicing Buddhist while we were there, and learned a lot about Buddhism in general.

The main Buddha. 

The helping hands Buddha. Happy Buddha.  And the Buddha for good fortune and wealth. Honestly, I didn't know there were so many.  And photography was prohibited on many of them.

Most of the concepts of Buddhism  were lost on the kids. The idea of religion, other than their own, is bit too complex for the girls to process. We did our best to keep things simple, hoping that they simply gain a respect for the others beliefs.

Lunch was nearby at a local Chinese restaurant where we were served an entirely vegetarian meal.  Although we aren't vegetarians, this meal was a family favorite by 4 of the 5. Seth was not a fan.

Day 5 PM recap : terracotta warrior museum

We stopped at the ceramic art factory before the museum. The factory makes replicas on the terra-cotta warriors.

Outside, you can pose as one!!  I laugh every time I see this picture!

The terracotta warrior and horse museum :  The museum was amazing. It's hard to even describe the magnitude of this place. These warriors were discovered by accident in the late 1970s by a farmer who was digging for water. They are estimated to be close to 2200 years old.

Their purpose at the time? To protect the tomb of the emperor in the after-life. Most of the statues were crushed by rebels and have been rebuilt. Piece by pieces.  I can't even imagine .... it must be like a life sized Lego set, without the instruction manual.

The archeologists have "hospital beds" that are used for the assembly process.

Only one warrior was found to be completely intact.

Kneeling warrior guy 

We had some interesting learnings at the museum that had absolutely nothing to do with the warriors... but told us a little bit more about Shawna's heritage.
Take this guy, for example.

Southern China 

He is thought to be a middle ranking officer from south china.  The smaller eyes, nose and mouth are indicative of the southern regions. This guy ?

Northern China 

Well,  he is high ranking officer from northern China. Again -  the facial features are the key. Bigger eyes, bigger nose and mouth.

When we were in Beijing, Dan and I observed that Shawna really didn't look like many of the locals. Vivian knew immediately that Shawna was from southern china because of her eyes. Embarrassingly -it wasn't until this "lesson" at the terrocotta museum with Kimi's explanation that it finally all made sense.

An evening at the opera house :  Dumplings. Dumplings. And more dumplings. Xian is famous for dumplings,  and I bet we were served 20 different kinds at the dinner theatre opera house. Meat
dumplings. Veggie dumplings. Purple dumplings.

Even dumplings shaped like gold fish. (Ps. These were cute but not-so-tasty).

The performance was filled with beautiful costumes music and dance. Similar the the Kungfu show, it was hard to keep our eyes open once they dimmed the lights. Maybe we aren't quite over the jet lag.

Day 5 AM recap: Muslim street

Day 5 recap: Muslim Strret

Holy hard bedding. Geez!  I'm pretty sure that we each slept on a slab of concrete last night disguised with a sheet.  I remember reading about hard mattress in China... but omg. That mattress isn't worthy of the name "mattress!"

Nonetheless, the jet lag was starting to wear off so most of us slept relatively well ... despite the concrete-like experience.

Breakfast in Xian brought on some new menu selections. Fried teriyaki fish and fried teriyaki chicken.  American pancakes ( with were really floppy pieces of French toast).  More beans. And several soups that I didn't recognize. The adventures in food always make the blog list. Dan went with cereal and toast.

Xian is a small city by China standards. Only 9 million people (compared to Beijing's 21 million).  The city center is surrounded by a 600 year old wall, which was previously designed to protect the city from invaders.  It's one of the few city walls still standing.

We started the day on Muslim street... an entire street block linked with food vendors. Noodles. Beef. Squid. Lamb. Homemade yogurt. Dried fruits and nuts. More noodles. It was all there.

Sara in her glory- potatoe chips on a stick

Squid on a stick

We sampled some persimmon filled something, homemade potato chips on a stick, noodles, and homemade yogurt.  I was surprised by a few things:  the amount of raw meat just hanging around (literally and figuratively), the number of people on Muslim street at 10 AM, and the number of selfie requests.

The blondes were quite popular on Muslim street. (Although Shawna was a bit disappointed that no one was asking her for a picture. 😔) The snacks were pretty good too.

Next up?  The ceramic art factory (mandatory shop #3) and the terra-cotta warrior museum.

The journey to Xi'an via high-speed train

The journey to Xian

The ticket said "2nd class soft seat."  Apparently, there is also a hard seat option. Lol.

The train ride was comfortable. It felt similar to airplane.  Just with more leg room.

Part of our crew fell asleep as our train zipped through the countryside at 320 km/hour.

 I had intended to use the time to update the blog. But, we lacked wifi. Boo.

We arrived in Xian and met our guide, Kimi.

Our hotel in Xian was beautiful!  And surprisingly filled with westerns!  Seriously - more guests from the US than natives. We actually saw several familiar faces-  families that had been at our hotel in Beijing were also at our hotel in Xian.  We continued to see these same families throughout the next few days. Hmmmm... I wonder if we all used the same travel company!! 😂😂

After the fiasco from the previous night, we decided to dine in rather than venture out. We were tired. Hungry. And weary. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant and headed off to bed.

Day 4 recap: Old Hutong

I really had no idea what to expect.  The agenda said "visit old Hutong sightseeing on a rickshaw. Visit a local Beijing family and have homemade lunch there."  I was excited for the "local" experience but a bit worried about the homemade lunch option.   While the rickshaw ride was clearly a commercialized tourist attraction, the integrity of the Hutong appeared to be real.  Real people. Living in the Hutong.  Usually extended families share an alley.  They also share a bathroom; there isn't indoor plumbing within each of the residences.

The women's bathroom 

The bathroom lacks privacy and a door. I can't imagine having to walk outside and down the road to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. It was a humbling experience to say the least.

   Our "tour" on the rickshaw took us around the perimeter of the Hutong so we were able to see many different homes.  The residence looked very modest ( ok ..primitive would be a better description) and old beaten up bicycles lined the street. But there were also a decent number of cars. Shiny, new-looking cars.   So the visual was a bit confusing.   I guess that the advantage of the video.

Lunch was served by a local family that owns a local restaurant.  We didn't eat AT the  restaurant. We ate on their back porch!

It was decorated beautifully and clean.  I don't know exactly what we ate, but it was pretty good.     After lunch, a local guide shared some of the history of the residence. We heard traditional music played on an instrument that I didn't recognize.  And said hello to the family pet.

A cricket. In a itty-bitty bird cage!

Shawna really bonded with Vivian by this point in the trip.  Early in the day, an older couple asked Vivian if Shawna was her daughter.  When Vivian explained our family, the older couple smiled and nodded in approval.  I think Shawna really enjoyed the attention.


When we arrived at the Hutong, Vivian and Shawna shared a rickshaw. Vivian wasn't supposed to come on the rickshaws with us.  But Shawna asked her to ride with her-  Vivian couldn't say no.  We
were grateful.

I'm not sure why the boys are scowling. 

By early afternoon, it was time to head back to Beijing. We had a train to catch.

The train station was wickedly busy!

We still took the obligatory selfies. 

  Thankfully, Vivian was able to accompany us all the way onto the train.  (While I consider myself a fairly seasoned traveler, I don't know that I would have been able to navigate the train station without her help! )  Once our luggage was stored at the back of our car and we found our seats, we bid farewell to Vivian.  And settled in for the 4.5 hour train ride to Xian.

More pics from the temple of heaven

The actual temple and an inside view

Surrounding the area is the "echo wall."  Here's the wall and the description.

  Of course, we had to try it out.  

Shawna was a bit hesitant ... but no surprise. Sara was happy to test her pipes against the wall. 

And really-- you don't have to yell. And surprisingly- it really works. Dan and Seth were on the other side and could here us talking to them. It was pretty cool. Of course, Vivian was in hand with the assist to make sure that we stood in the correct place etc. 

Next up?  The circular mound.  Constructed in 1530, the mound was an alter used to worship the heavens at the beginning of the winter solstice.