Today we were up really early and ready to go. It was a day of extremes. Extreme vastness, extreme excessiveness, extreme humidity, extreme traffic, extremely small...
Our first visit was Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Very interesting places but waaaayyy too many people and waaayyyy too humid to spend 4 hours at a snails pace. (Sorry that sounds a bit complaining and ungrateful - definitely not intended, just keeping it real.). It was hard on Megan but she was a trooper. It for sure is an amazing place and so vast it's hard to truly capture its size and the grandeur it once held within China. One fact ...there are 9,999 1/2 rooms within the Forbidden City (that 1/2 a room really would have made this palace a little too big) (lol).
We enjoyed a rickshaw ride through the Hutong region of Beijing. This is the ancient city where more than a million people still live. A local family prepared an amazing meal for us. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures as it was raining quite hard. The afternoon consisted of a visit to CCCWA (China Center for Child Welfare and Adoption). This is where all adoption paperwork is processed. I really thought it would be much larger than it was, but it's only a few dozen people. We were able to see Megan's file but Nat's file has advanced to the archives. The girls participated in a Chinese painting class and then it was on to Peking Duck dinner. Good, but the local family meal was much better. It was an extremely busy, interesting, hot, great day!
Want pics? You'll have to see my FB page. For whatever reason, all the devices I got to make this easy has turned into a pain!! Sorry.
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
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Following along and reliving my own memories of our trip last year. We had similar issues to facing TS and TFC for the third time -- too much time spent there! And I'm impressed and a little jealous you got to see M's file at the CCCWA.
ReplyDeleteAll we were allowed was to to peer through the glass at the closed offices and were told "this is the file room, this is the matching room, etc.) before the calligraphy demonstration. Kelly
Not sure I could handle all the "closeness" of China
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