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Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
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1:36 pm - Leaving tomorrow morning
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We're leaving here at 4am to go to China to get Qi. We're going from here to Detroit, then to Japan and then to Beijing. We'll be in Beijing a few days then to Nanjing where we'll get Qi. After a few days there we go to Guangzhou for a few days then we leave. We have an 8 hour layover in Japan and a 9 hour layover in hawaii on the way home. We're also stopping in Minneapolis on the way to Houston. Seriously, is that a record for layovers???
Anyways, if you would like to follow our blogs, they are here -
First journal -
http://www.journeytome.com/index.cfm?fa=p.CheckLogin&j_username=tuqi&j_password=adoption
or go to www.journeytome.com click on public journals and search for Qi Keaton Lee
the other is -
http://www.babyjellybeans.com/web/do/site/home?ID=46930 and click on Bringing home Qi (it has not been updated yet) or go to www.babyjellybeans.com and search for Mia Roberts.
AJ, I havent been able to get yahoo to work on here. Please email me. I'm going to japan!
current mood:  anxious
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| Sunday, October 8th, 2006
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5:54 pm - Tu Qi
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Some of you know this, some of you don't. This is my son, Tu Qi, age 7 1/2, waiting for me in Lianyungang, Jiangsu China. I know its soon but his file was being sent back and we couldn't let it happen just because of the timing. We hadn't planned on doing this, we just saw him and it had to happen. He doesn't know yet, but he has agreed to be adopted by an american family. He just doesn't know he has one yet. He's been waiting for almost 8 years and all his friends are gone, here in America now, so he'll be shocked I'm sure. China gave us permission to be his new family on Sept 6th, so I am going to send him a package soon to introduce us to him and let him know he's got a big family here working to get him home.
( 2 more photos )
current mood:  scared
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| Thursday, August 24th, 2006
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1:38 pm - Update
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Okay, so we've been home with MiaoXin for a little over a month now. She's doing really well, has gained a few pounds, her hair is growing really fast and she is just as happy as can be. Aside from the fact that she never sleeps and thus I never sleep. She says bye bye, hello, mama, daddy and Jacob in English. In mandarin she says gei wo de, jie jie, huai, mao, mei mei and zai jian. I don't know what she says in cantonese because I can't understand a word of it. She understands a little more than she can say in English, like if I say get me a diaper, she'll get one. She knows no, go potty?, give it to ..., give ... a kiss, get it, come on, lay down, cup, eat and yay.
We were in China for around 14 days not including time in the airplane. We spent 5 days in Beijing first and fell in love with it. If Mason could get a job there, we'd move in an instant. The first day we went to the Bi Yun temple that was a peaceful little buddhist temple that was famous for its life sized carvings of over 500 buddhas (arahats). Our hotel was on Wang Fu Jing street which is famous for its shopping, so when we got back we walked up and down the street. At dark it seems all 16 million of the city's resident pour out onto the streets to walk around. We got stared at a lot because of our tattoos and my nose ring but it all seemed to be good natured curiosity. A few times people would point to the star on Mason's elbow and give us a thumbs up and a big smile. We found out later that the red star is the symbol of the communist party, and they thought we were american communists. Lots of people stopped us to take our picture or get theirs taken with us. I told Mason he could earn a decent living just standing in TianAnMen Square and charging a few yuan for getting their picture taken with him with his shirt off.
The second day we went to the Lama temple, which is a beautiful tibetan buddhist temple. It held a 75 foot tall Buddha carved from a single piece of wood. It was so huge we had to really crane our necks to see it (it was indoors!). After that we went to the Temple of Heaven which they say is the most recognizable symbol of China. I personally disagree, I think the great wall and Tiananmen Square are much more well known. We got to walk down the paths that were once reserved only for the emperor, and stand in the spot he thought was the closest point to God in the world. It was a little raised circle, barely big enough for one person to stand on, and they said if you shouted a prayer it would go straight to the god's ears. We also were able to see the Echo wall and the place where the emperor would burn the sacrificial calves.
Day 3 started with an adventure through a neighborhood in Beijing called a Hutong. With overpopulated being so great, most of the cities hutongs have been demolished to make way for high rise apartments. The hutong is now a rare sight and I believe this one was saved and preseved as a historic area. The people who live there get the place handed down to them throughout the generations and will someday let their child have the house. We rode in a pedicab to one family's house for lunch and to talk to them about living in China. They were muslim chinese and let families tour their house and eat with them for extra money. They were amazingly nice, and told us that if we ever come back to visit them and we will always have family in China. The neighborhood itself looked very old and run down (well, it was very very old) as if it were a low class area by US standards, but the houses were very nice on the inside. Much nicer than you would guess by looking at the streets and buildings. They cooked us a great meal and then the cricket man showed up to teach us about one of China's most popular hobbies...cricket ownership. not only do people keep them as pets, but they fight them also, like people fight pit bulls and roosters here. He said a champion cricket costs more in China than a horse! We learned all about how to care for, train, breed and fight crickets but its still not a hobby I see myself picking up any time soon. After lunch we rode in our pedicabs to a local kindergarten/day care school. We met the children who were very rowdy and excited to see us, and the younger kids sang and danced for us. In return we all sang "twinkle twinkle little star" to them, which they thought was hilarious. From there we went back to the van and headed out to Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City. We could actually see this from our hotel room window, but it was much more impressive to actually be right there. There were only two times I really felt overwhelmed and awestruck, one was staring up at the large picture of Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square knowing the history of the place and the second was sitting on top of the Great Wall of China. I really felt as if I were dreaming and could hardly catch my breath walking through the square. I had seen it on tv so many times throughout my life, really being there was indescribable. The square is actually just a public meeting place and the gate to enter the Forbidden City. Let me just tell you, the Forbidden City is HUGE. Its really magificent though, just as you could imagine the emperor's palace to be. Very ornately decorated with rich vibrant colors, extremely detailed carvings and everywhere were dragons and lions. There were, if I remember correctly, 999 rooms in the palace. We did not see most of them, but we did see the throne room, bedroom, sitting room, and some concubine's rooms. We also walked along the narrow path that, if you have seen The Last Emperor, that he rode his bike up and down after he learned his mother was dying and he wouldn't be allowed outside the palace to see her. On this night I believe was when we ate at the minority restaurant where they did traditional dances for us, then we went to the kung fu show to see the Shaolin monks perform. Mason got busted for trying to record the show on our camcorder heh.
The next day was our last full day in Beijing. We went to the Jade and Cloisonne factories, then headed off to #2 on the list of greatest places in the world (#1 being the pyramids in Egypt) the Great Wall of China. I was completely exhausted from all the walking we had done the previous days, and actually had fallen twice on the stairs at the jade factory before we even got to the wall. I was seriously whipped. Mason tried to convince me to just hang out with our guide at the bottom and everyone else in the group assured me they wouldn't think less of me and it was no big deal, but as tempting as it was to sit down I said no, this was the great wall of China and I was going to climb it even if it killed me. And it almost did! That wall is one steep son of a bitch. The steps are also very uneven so you can't get into a groove. Many times you'd have to literally use the hand rail to pull yourself up. Mason walked behind me because a few times I literally almost fell backwards. When I got to the top of the first tower (which was a hell of a long way up) I stopped to rest. I saw there was a shop there that sold plaques that said "this hereby certifies that ___________ has climbed the Great Wall of China on July 8th, 2006" so I bought one and decided not to continue climbing. Mason climbed to the second tour, which took him another hour to get up and down to where I was again. On the way back down I got the jelly legs, from the steepness and exhaustion. I think I may have been a bit dehydrated too. It really kinda sucked ass. I told everyone I was SO glad I forced myself to climb it and SO glad I never had to do it again. For the record there are other spots like Badaling and Mutianyu where the climb isn't as steep, and you can take a cable car up and down. Our guide wanted us to get the "real" experience so she took us to the steepest and most challenging area to climb. I forget the name but it started with a J. As if that wasn't enough, we then went to the Summer Palace, an imperial garden that the infamous Dragon Lady used to reside at. Most of it was under construction but we did get to walk right on the shore of Lake Kunming which is a very large man made lake, with a mountain on the side made from the dirt dug out to make the lake. We also were able to get an up close look at the marble dragon boat and the marco polo bridge a little ways out. It was very nice but honestly at that point I was so tired I couldn't focus.
That night we went to a restaurant that specialized in Peking duck. We got to watch it being cut (in I think 126 exact slices) and learned how to eat them properly. We then went to the acrobats show which was amazing and back to the hotel. We really wanted to spend our last night in China walking up and down WangFuJing street but we were so tired from all we'd done that day that we hit the bed as soon as we walked in the door.
 
more to come from the rest of our trip later.
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