Last Full Day in Beijing!

So today is our last full day in Beijing since we leave for Kinley's city, Kunming, tomorrow afternoon. Our guide Jerry will pick us up in the hotel at 12:30 pm to arrive at the airport early for our 4 pm flight. We hear it will take about 3 hours to get there and another guide, Vivianne, will be waiting for us. So as I am typing this it is 5 pm here on Saturday--which means it is 4 am for everyone back home. By my calculations, as long as things go as planned, we will be meeting Kinley in a mere 40 hours!!!

We had a busy and early day today in Beijing. We had to be in the lobby at 8:15 am waiting for Jerry so we could make it in time for the Holt orientation. We met another Holt couple today, Chris and Christina, who have a four year old girl named Katie who is also from Kunming! She is a cutie pie! They are returning to adopt a 22 month old girl from another Province, Nanning, this time. We will see them again when we go to Guangzhou, China for the last couple days of our journey. The other family was very lucky because they received updated pictures and information about their daughter today. The only specific information we got was updated measurements, which is very typical of Kunming so we were not surprised. The updates say that Kinley is about 18 pounds and about 27 inches. If these are correct she should fit nicely in the clothes we brought for her, although they may be a little on the baggy side :)

After the Holt orientation we went to lunch then headed for a tour of Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. We had an amazing time, but it snowed a little through the night so it was damp and cold today. Tiananmen Square is the world's largest public square, said to hold one million people at a time. It houses the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao--China's first president after the fall of the Emperor. Apparently Chairman Mao is in a sealed crystal tomb that is on display in the mausoleum. Needless to say we did not go see this, although I did take a picture of the outside of the building, as well as the portrait of him marking the beginning of the square and the end of The Forbidden City. Jerry says that a new portrait is painted and hung every October--and it always has a different background. The Forbidden City was built from 1406-1420 by a million laborers. It was the home of the Emperor and his household (the Empress, his many concubines, and his eunichs (servants) until 1924, when the Emperor was dethroned. The Forbidden City is absolutely huge---imagine 6 Meadowbrook parks with ballroom size (and much larger) buildings all over, occasionally broken up by courtyards and gardens. The detail work is unbelievable. I included a picture of a mythical dragon pronounced "chi ling"---this is the same pronunciation as our daughter's Chinese name, Qi Ling. Jerry confirmed that this is a very beautiful name and meaning, and says that it means the "heart of the family, very strong and beautiful, delicate Jade".

We spent some time at a silk factory and saw how they made silk from the silk worm's cocoons. It is amazing how many cocoons it takes to make fabric. In one of the pictures they let me help them stretch pieces of silk to make a duvet---lets just say I don't think they'll be offering me a job any time soon!

Local people continue to stare and ask me to take pictures with them. I noticed today in the large crowd that many don't ask---they just snap pictures as I walk by. Jerry says that they are "very shy" and too afraid to ask me. It's a pretty odd feeling, but it seems to be all in good nature. I sure haven't seen any Chinese people with curly hair, and apparently they haven't either!

Our plans for tonight are to maybe walk a few blocks to the mall, and then we need to rearrange our luggage in order to comply with all the weight requirements in China. I pretty much realize that I'm gonna have to pay a hefty fine to get my bags back home.....especially if the shopping in Kunming and Guangzhou is as good as I have heard from others.

Love you all!

Heather