New Jeep, Peeknuckle, and the Doctor

This past weekend we picked up Sydney's new wheels, courtesy of her Great-Aunt Bobbie and cousin (and Mayor) Nancy from Marlboro, Massachusetts. Now we're all set to cruise the neighborhood!






We also got back together with our Pinochle group, and Sydney was introduced to lots of friends and their kids. One of them in particular, Carly, happily volunteered to play with Sydney and walk around the house with her. Carly has a little sister, Lily, who is only 4 months old and apparently not quite as fun yet.

Here Sydney is helping Denise "bid her hand".

Sydney had her first pediatrician's appointment today, and she escaped without any shots this time. She sailed through the examination with no tears. Dr. Lyons will check on what to do first about bloodwork or immunizations but otherwise says she is perfect! We already knew that.

Here's Sydney's new way to use her Pooh pushcart - not sure if Pooh appreciates it.

Horses, Push Carts and Dogs

Today Sydney visited Grammy and Grandpa Pederson. As a nice surprise, Diamond the Horse came up to get carrot treats while we were there, and Sydney and Ellie got to meet Diamond up close and personal.






Here's Sydney with her Pooh Push Cart, getting stronger and braver than ever! She still holds onto our fingers when walking, which she likes to do A LOT. (In fact, she'd rather be up on her feet than sitting or lying down. Mommy and Daddy love straining their backs and wearing out their knees.)



And finally, the bond between Sydney and Ellie grows stronger too!



Random information for today: Sydney does not like peaches.

(This may change of course, due to the fickleness of babies. But she has refused them on two different occasions and in two different forms.)

However, she does like to blow bubbles with a straw into a cup of water, and then suck some of it in so that she can blow it back out or let it dribble down her chest.

Home at Last

Hello America!

We apologize for the long span of time inbetween posts. We have been home now for almost two weeks, are finally on the tail end of coughing and congestion, and are figuring out our daily schedule. Of course, it will have to be modified a bit when Brian and Wendy go back to work on Feb. 5th or 6th.

Both sets of grandparents and Aunt Marlys met us at the airport on January 11th, complete with signs and balloons (needless to say, Brian was not happy). We did find out that Sydney likes balloons. Ellie the dog especially likes her and will lick her face and hands and feet whenever she gets the chance. Ellie will also follow Sydney around while we're walking with her in the house, and gets concerned if Sydney is crying. She has been a trooper (Ellie, that is). Sydney is basically indifferent when it comes to Ellie but will touch her and pat her and push her head away if the licking is too much to take. Ellie generally likes to lie near Sydney as well.

Sydney is a great baby as far as the basic needs are concerned - she eats bananas, rice, cheese, broccoli, rice, spinach, tofu, rice, noodles, eggs, well, just about anything we put in front of her little mouth. She still takes her bottle of formula and rice cereal about three times a day. She poops when we hold her over the toilet (a trick our Nanchang guide, Mary told us about) and pees in her diapers regularly.

She usually has a short nap on our walks with Ellie the dog, plus another longer nap in the afternoon. Bedtime is absolutely a dream - from the first night home, she has been sleeping in her crib in her room. She only cried for about 20 minutes. Now, we brush her teeth and read her a story and then put her down, and she lets out one little "Aah" and then puts herself to sleep. She stays out for about 10-11 hours. So far so good, knock on wood!

Sydney has been to two bowling alleys and three different restaurants, and she is only mildly fussy when we put her in the carseat. On longer drives she just conks out. We stopped by Wendy's work - Rose City Blueprint - where Auntie Lori just went bonkers finally getting to meet Sydney. We also visited ASIA, our adoption agency, where she got to meet Fei and the other workers, and hook up with her a yi (Auntie) Jojo, one of the ASIA representatives with us in China.

Here's Sydney with Jojo in the lobby of the Victory Hotel in Guangzhou:

As far as milestones go, she figured out last week how to put Cheerios from her hands to her mouth. Before, she just held them, and opened her mouth for you to put something in it. Her eighth tooth is starting to come in. She is also trying desperately to walk - she skipped out on the whole crawling thing. Our guide Mary had told us that babies in China don't learn how to crawl because the floors are either filthy or nonexistent. So little Sydney has very little upper body strength. We are working hard to strengthen her core and her arms and legs so that she will catch up soon. We recently bought her a walking toy that she can hold onto and develop her muscles. Just today she pushed herself around a bit without the help of Mom or Dad.


So that's the update! Sydney is generally a happy, smiley, babbling baby. We loved our whole trip and would do it again (but maybe not for another baby, yet). But we are absolutely glad to be home and settling in for the next 18+ years!

Thanks to all who commented on the posts, and even those that just checked it out. We appreciate all your support and will be looking to those of you who are parents for sage advice once in a while! We will try to post occasionally so check back here every now and then, or email us!

The Final Step

We're sorry we haven't written much lately. There really hasn't been too much to write about or show pictures of. We have both been fighting a pretty nasty cold (as is most of our travel group, but thankfully, not the babies). So when Sydney goes down for a nap, we have been trying to nap ourselves.

However, today was a big day in the process. We went to the U.S. Consulate here in Guangzhou. But before we did that, we took a little bit of time to do the famous Red Couch Photo at the White Swan Hotel.

The White Swan Hotel is widely known as the final stop for most American families adopting from China. It is located very close to our hotel, and it used to be right next door to the U.S. Consulate before it moved a few months ago. It is a very nice hotel, and they have an amazing lobby with koi ponds, waterfalls, bird cages, and lots of expensive fine art for sale. They also have some nice red felt couches where adopting families will dress up their girls and put them on the couch for the obligatory picture. The sign near the couches says, "Hotel Guests Only," but we all looked like we could be anyway, so we just marched in like we owned the place. It was quite an event to get all six girls on the couch at the same time (Heather and John joined us in Guangzhou after traveling to Xian to get Jillian, hence the extra girl). Anyway, here is one of the best pictures we could get.


Sydney is the second one from the right; she is holding up Maya. The girls, from left to right, are Natalie, JoLi, Zanna, Jillian, Sydney and Maya.

By the way, the red silk outfits were courtesy of Paul and Lydia - Paul found them on one of his recent trips to Asia, so thank you very much, Paul!

After the White Swan, we left on a bus to the U.S. Consulate, which was about an hour's drive away, mainly due to the traffic at rush hour. We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside, so we don't have anything to show you. This is where we got Sydney's travel visa to enter the U.S., and once we touch down in Portland, she will officially be a United States citizen! We also had to swear an oath while we were there. This is when things got interesting...

Let me back up just a bit before I expand on that. Last week (I believe), Paula Zahn, on her CNN show "Paula Zahn Now," had a segment about adoption from China. The panelists she had were pretty ill-informed about China adoptions and said some pretty stupid things. Of course, none of the guests have adopted a child from China, worked with people who adopted from China, or really knew what they were talking about. Anyway, this apparently really enraged some folks back home in the U.S. who know about adoption from China, so the CNN folks aired a segment last night during Paula Zahn's show with a member of Families with Children from China (the FCC), and also read some e-mails they received from the Chinese adoption community. I read the transcripts earlier today from both of the segments. You can check out the transcripts at the CNN web site, if you would like. So, I thought that this issue was done with for Paula Zahn and CNN.

And now back to our appointment at the U.S. Consulate today. When we got to the room where we were about to do our swearing-in, there was a TV camera and sound guy filming some other families that were there just slightly before us. Paul noticed that the camera had a tag on it that said "CNN Beijing." The camera seemed to be following one particular group around, filming them as they went about their paperwork and swearing-in. Before the entire group did the oath, the vice-counsel explained that they would be filming for CNN, and if anyone didn't want to be filmed, they would do a separate oath ceremony for them afterwards. We all stayed put.

We were a few rows back as they had us take the oath, and I'm pretty sure that the camera had to have us in the picture as we all did the swearing-in. Tim and Inge approached the cameraman and sound guy afterwards and asked them what they were filming for. They told us that it was a segment for Paula Zahn's show. They also said that it would take a day to edit and get ready for broadcast, and it would show the next day. That would make it Thursday, which is tomorrow! I think her show is on at 5:00PM, so you might just see us on TV swearing our oath at the U.S Consulate! How cool is that? We'll be home by this time tomorrow, so we are going to try to record it with our DVR, but if anyone can find any way to save this and put it on a DVD for us (we don't have a VCR anymore), that would be great! Even if we aren't on the video, it will still be neat because we were there!

So now we have to pack everything and get to sleep, as we have a 4:00AM wake-up call tomorrow. We leave for the airport at 5:30AM, and we should be taking off around 8:20ish tomorrow morning. Then we go to Tokyo for a very short layover, then on to Portland, where we arrive at 7:00AM on the same day we left. You have to love the International Date Line! Time travel should be interesting.

We can't wait to come home and bring our daughter with us! We'll keep posting on this blog in the coming weeks, as we try to adjust to the time zone change again as well as our new schedules at home with Sydney.

Thank you again to everyone who has been reading this blog, and to those of you who have sent us warm wishes from home! We really appreciated that!

Here are few more shameless exploitation photos for you to ponder. See you soon back in the United States!


The family Red Couch Photo.


Hungry little girl!


Sydney trying to walk (with lots of support). Note the abnormally huge head, thereby exponentially increasing the cuteification factor.

Leaving Nanchang, Heading to Guangzhou

Yesterday was our last day in Nanchang. The day before, our local guide, Mary, took us out to a village that was actually quite close to the big city of Nanchang. She wanted to take us there to show us how 75% of China lives - in small rural villages. She said that our daughters were most likely born into this kind of situation, which may help us better understand how a family might arrive at the decision that they cannot care for that child.

Here are some pictures of the village we visited.


This is the outside of one of the houses.


This is the kitchen inside the house.


The children loved getting their picture taken, especially when you would instantly show them with the digital camera.

It was pretty humbling. It was also quite a contrast with the modern-style city of Nanchang, a "small" city of only 4,000,000 people. Apparently a lot of the men in the village work in the city and come back to the village at night to live. While we were in the village, we hardly saw any men at all. Needless to say, it was hard to see, but our guide told us (and we could see) that the people there were pretty happy, even though they had almost nothing. The kids followed us around as we toured the village, and the old ladies were very happy to see all the babies we were carrying around.

The next day, we left the Gloria Plaza hotel and headed to the airport. This was the place where Sydney decided to have a meltdown, much to our dismay. We think that she was hungry and tired, because we were traveling mid-day, so she missed out on a nap and her eating schedule was thrown off. Once we boarded the plane, she was mostly okay, and all of the babies did quite well on the flight. However, this flight was only one hour long, but we are all crossing our fingers that this is a good sign for the extremely long days of flying coming up...




Sydney's first airplane ride!

When we got to Guangzhou, one of the first things we all noticed was palm trees! Guangzhou is in a subtropical climate, and we have all been looking forward to some warmer weather. It has been in the mid to upper 60s here, so we are all very happy to finally be able to put our cold-weather gear away! Guangzhou is also a much more modernized city than any we have been to so far. It is almost easy to forget we are in China, especially while on Shamian Island, which is where our hotel is. Many of the buildings are of European construction in this little area.

We are staying at the Victory Hotel, and Wendy and I must say that this is one of the finest hotels we have ever stayed at in our lives! Most of our travel group agrees. The rooms are huge! What a fantastic place to end our journey.

Today we go to get a medical exam for Sydney and take care of some more paperwork. Then we will get to do some sightseeing around the city, and hopefully enjoy some warm weather!


The requested family portrait...


This was just too cute to not put on the blog.

Just a few more days, and we'll be home! Needless to say, we are all looking forward to that. The end is in sight! Or is it merely the beginning? Hmmm...

Shameless Close-up Pictures

We've had a few requests for more close-up pictures of Sydney. So, putting all shame aside, here goes some helpless exploitation of a very cute baby. A few of the pictures aren't quite in focus, but we don't care.










Sydney is watching Mommy talk on the headset to Nana and Papa Joe.




Sydney got her first bath (from us) last night. This was taken shortly after we dried her off.


So, there you have it. As we take more close-ups, perhaps we'll post some more of those. One more full day in Nanchang, then we fly out tomorrow for Guangzhou and the final leg of the journey!

36 Hours Later...A Progress Report

We've been a family for a little more than 36 hours now! There are some things that we have already noticed about Sydney, and there was some important paperwork that we filled out yesterday.

We took all the babies to the Jiangxi Province Center for Social Affairs (or something like that), which is where the department is that oversees adoptions. While there, we had a family picture taken for our official adoption paperwork, had Sydney's picture taken for her passport and met with a provincial official who conducted an interview with us as a final step in the process. She gave us a gift of porcelain, because Jiangxi Province is known for their work in this area.

Afterwards, we traveled to a notary office, where he verified all the paperwork we just finished. Then he gave us our official little red folder, with the paperwork inside that finalized the adoption. So, she is now officially ours! Today we pick up her passport.

By the way, after we typed the last post, we went to dinner in the hotel lobby with the rest of the group. Once we got back to the room, Sydney's aversion to her father was gone. She is now very comfortable with me, as I am with her. She doesn't mind who is holding her anymore. She will play with both of us, smiles, and talks to both of us. So that hurdle has already been overcome! As a matter of fact, she let Daddy feed her this morning. Here is the proof (although, since it is a photograph, it may have been doctored...)



As far as eating, Sydney likes to drink her formula/rice cereal mix. She also likes to eat rice, broccoli, mandarin oranges, hard-boiled eggs, scrambled eggs and crackers. She does not like egg custard, which some of the babies here just love.

For behavior, Sydney likes to always hold something in her hand. It doesn't matter what it is - we have given her the spoon, a small box, a little container of Carmex, her feeding bottle, her toys, Mommy's hair, Daddy's chest hair (ouch!); just so long as she holds something. She also likes the toys she has at this point, and she is pretty easily entertained. She makes a little scratching motion with her hand sometimes, and we think that may be a nervous twitch or some sort of comforting behavior.

We've been trying to log her eating, sleeping and diaper change times so that we can quickly figure out her routine. She has slept pretty well through both nights, and she takes several naps per day.

Overall, she is a lot of fun to have around! She keeps us smiling all day long, and we can't say the word "cute" enough! We have lots more pictures to prove this, but we'll put up just one more for now:



As I type this, Sydney is taking a nap on the bed. When she wakes up, we'll all head down for some breakfast. Later this afternoon, we get to pick up her passport. Meanwhile, Wendy and I are both trying to stave off colds - something that is going around between all of our travel group (and some of the babies) right now. It's a little frustrating, but we'll get through it!

We'll post more when anything interesting happens. We don't leave Nanchang until Sunday, so we have a few lazy days ahead of us without much planned, which all of our travel group agrees is a good thing. We could have taken a trip to Fuzhou, which is the city that the orphanage is in (and where most of our girls were found), but it is a 2.5 hour drive one-way, and we collectively agreed that although that would have been nice to go to the place where our daughters were found (Sydney was found at the gate of the Huali Restaurant by an employee of the restaurant), we didn't want to put the babies through that long of a day already, especially since they just had such a day 2 days ago, and it rocked their world big-time!

Thank you, everyone, for your warm wishes and thoughts in the comments. We really do appreciate hearing from everyone and knowing that we have so much support back home! We are less than a week away from coming home! Yeah!

The Package Has Been Delivered!

Here she is! Sydney was handed to us about 4:30PM local time! We don't have much time to type right now, so here are some pictures:



Sydney is the second one from the left, in the pink and white.




Sydney and Mama playing in our room.


Sydney and Mommy bonding.


So far, Sydney seems to be scared of Dad. I can't say that I blame her! I'm sure she's never seen anyone that looks like me before! We'll just give it some time; we've heard that sometimes they will bond with one parent right away, and it just takes a little while before they warm up to the other parent. So, Daddy is keeping his distance right now, because Sydney gets upset when I get close.


However, as you can see from the pictures, she is bonding quite well with Mommy in this first hour of us together as a family! She is playing with a ball, eating a cracker, drinking some formula and playing with a little stuffed Beijing Olympics mascot that Mommy and Daddy got for her in Beijing!

Sydney is very talkative! She is babbling lots of noises, which we interpret to mean that she is feeling pretty comfortable.

By the way, out of the five babies, she absolutely has the loudest crying voice of all! She is REALLY loud! So as long as Daddy keeps his distance, we don't hear that loud voice...


And now, the moment that the grandparents have been waiting for: the reveal of Sydney's middle name! Here is her full name:


Sydney Quan Pederson


So now you know! We'll try to post some more info and pictures as time allows.

T-minus 9 Hours and Counting...

Well, as I type this, we are 9 hours away from the arrival of the girls! They are going to come to our hotel in Nanchang, and we will meet them in a conference room on the first floor of the hotel. Needless to say, the excitement was in the air for all of us last night! They will come to our hotel at 4:00PM local time, Wednesday, January 3rd.

It is currently 6:46AM while I write this, and my computer shows that it is 2:46PM yesterday afternoon back home in Vancouver. It is currently cold and rainy here in Nanchang, which helps us feel right at home!

We went on a shopping trip yesterday to the Wal-Mart (I know, for shame!). If you think you've seen a busy Wal-Mart in the U.S., you haven't seen anything! We were even told by our guide that what we saw was the typical day at that Wal-Mart. They had 75 checkstands! It was crazy. I'm sure we'll be going to that store again before we leave for Guangzhou.

Well, hopefully we'll be able to post some pictures of us with Sydney tonight!

By the way, we were able to update all the pictures we meant to post from the past three entries. Also, thank you to those of you who have been commenting on our blog - it is very nice to hear from friendly, supportive voices back home! And the rest of you, it is okay to post comments, you know...

New Year's at the Great Wall

Today was the day we have been waiting for, and we weren’t disappointed. Since it had snowed yesterday, we were a little worried that the roads up to the Great Wall might be closed, but they weren’t! After a brief stop at a jade factory (we’ll talk more about these suspicious little side trips later), we drove north to the Badaling section of the Great Wall!

It's hard to see, but the sign says "Beijing 2008: One World, One Dream"

Once the Wall finally came out of hiding from the foggy, snowy surroundings, we were all in awe. When we finally arrived at the site to start walking up the Wall, we were all giddy with anticipation. We were told there were 2 paths we could choose: the one to the right was not as steep, and the one to the left was more challenging. Some chose the easier path, but not us. We were in a very adventurous spirit, so we joined Tim, Inge, Janet, Karen, Paul, Lydia and Joanna, who had to leave us after realizing her shoes were not helpful in scaling the snowy, frozen wall.
Since it is wintertime, and it was very cold, and a little dangerous, the Great Wall wasn’t very crowded. Also, since we chose the more difficult of the two paths, there were even fewer people. It was absolutely amazing! We began our ascent on some stairs, and then there was a small incline, but it was rather challenging due to the conditions. We used the hand rails as best we could. Then we came to some steeper stairs, then a steeper incline. Then we came to the really hazardous part, which was a very steep set of steps that also curved to the right. Also, the steps are not the same height, and the hand railing at this part was very low. Keep in mind that there was also snow on all the steps (about an inch or three), and you can see that we had quite the adventure. It was a lot of fun, though, as we just took our time and helped each other out. We also got quite a laugh when Lydia fell on her backside on a somewhat steep downslope - she wasn’t hurt, so she just slid down as if she were on a sled. She repeated this maneuver several times on the way up the Wall.

Would you believe me if I told you that we walked all the way to the end of the Great Wall? Well, it’s true! We kept getting to the next watch tower, then we would all look at each other and say, “One more?” The answer was always emphatically, “YES!” We were all running on endorphins at this point. We weren’t even cold due to all the exertions. Then we finally arrived at this spot:

Of course, the Great Wall does continue from that point, but it is closed off to the public. Here are some things that you may not know about the Great Wall for your educational fulfillment: first, the Great Wall is not one continuous wall. Secondly, it was not all built at once, but over many years, and by different emperors. Third, it can not be seen from space - a Chinese astronaut recently laid that rumor to rest. Finally, the end of the Great Wall is in the Gobi Desert in the West, and some of the Great Wall is no more than an earthen berm held together with straw.

As you can imagine, we didn’t want to leave the Great Wall. It’s not every day that you get to one of the wonders of the world. As far as describing the experience, I liken it to trying to describe the Grand Canyon to someone else. Words cannot do it justice. Hopefully these pictures help a little bit, but even they can’t begin to show how absolutely incredible and beautiful it was, especially with all the snow. It is just so humbling to be in a country with over 5,000 years of history. We took some good video here, too, including a short segment of Brian and Wendy fighting off the Mongol horde with snowballs…

After the Great Wall, we visited a cloisonné factory and had lunch. Then we went to the Sacred Way, which is where the Ming tombs are, and they have a pretty cool stretch of statues on either side of the path that the emperor’s spirit would go down after he died on his way to heaven to be judged by the animals and honored citizens. We topped off our evening by having a wonderful roast duck dinner at one of the most famous restaurants in Beijing. We found out that they have served over 1.3 million roast ducks since they opened in the mid-to-late 1800s.
Well, Happy New Year, everyone! As I type this to you, it is about 10:30PM Beijing time. Tomorrow we leave for Nanchang, and that means we are just three days away from Sydney!

Tiananmen Square

After our excellent lunch, we traveled to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was a little surreal to be standing in the spot we’ve seen pictures of so often. Way in the distance, we could see the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which is the famous picture you’ve seen with Mao on the gate. Tiananmen Square is huge - it was made to fit a million Chinese in it so Mao could review his military from his perch above his portrait. We also saw the mausoleum that houses Mao’s body, although it was closed by the time we got there. Some of our travel group mates that went there the other day said that he looks like wax, and suspect that the body you view may very well be made of wax. He died 30 years ago, so they said the body looks a little too well preserved.



As we walked across the square, we were faced with many vendors, hawking their wares. “Bu yao” was a favorite expression, meaning, “I don’t want it.” We walked by a pillar that was erected by Mao in the middle of the sqaure. It is chained off now, and has been since the student protests in 1989, because that was the focal point of the student gatherings. There are guards all over the square, and apparently there are a lot of undercover officers in plain clothes that go around and watch people as well. The guards are very intimidating. Some just stand there, while others march around the grounds. We also saw the spot where that one man stood in front of the tanks in 1989 during the protests.

We crossed under the Gate of Heavenly Peace, under Mao’s portrait, and entered the Forbidden City, so called because not just anyone was allowed to enter. This was where the emperor lived. It is huge as well, and there are lots and lots of gates to pass through. The entire area, including Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, are all oriented along a meridian line, which runs through the middle of everything. Again, the scale of everything is difficult to convey. We kept passing through gate after gate, and each time there were more temples and palace buildings. The moats that surround the Forbidden City were all frozen, just to illustrate how cold it was there.

Did I mention that it was cold?

Even after we walked through the Forbidden City, there is still a temple high on a hill behind the city. Apparently when the dug the moats to surround the city, they piled up the dirt behind the complex on which to build a temple. According to our guide, this had something to do with feng shui, as they believed something about water in front of you and a mountain behind you was good for placement of buildings.

The main part of the Forbidden City.

After completing our tour of the Forbidden City, we went to dinner at a local restaurant called the Red Lantern. We ate hot and sour soup, salad, a potato dish, string beans with peppers, celery and onion, sweet and sour pork, chicken and cucumber, a beef and onion dish similar to Mongolian beef and watermelon. It was good, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the Noodle King lunch. Then we went to an interesting show called “The Legend of Kung Fu.” It was a pretty cool show that featured lots of young men who were very good at kung fu, and it had a story about a young boy who goes to the temple to become a kung fu master. It was quite good, and they had pretty good special effects. The highlight was when they demonstrated that their bodies were made of iron by breaking iron bars over their heads and busting concrete and wood blocks. It was an entertaining experience!

Beijing Tour, Day One

We have been unable to post for a few days; we think it is mainly due to the effects of the Taiwan earthquake a few days ago. Anyway, here we go! We are having trouble posting pictures right now, so you'll just have to wait for that.

Wow! That is just about all we can say about our first full day in Beijing. We did 3 major things today: the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City and we saw a kung fu show.
It was very cold today. We bundled up, but it still chilled us all to the bone. But it was a dry cold… However, that did not deter the amazing number of retired Beijing citizens, who go to the Temple of Heaven park every day to do tai chi, ballroom dance, play badminton, cards or dominoes, or sing, either with a few people or a very large group. It was quite a sight. We were there before 9:00AM, and most of the people get there quite early in the morning, even in the extreme cold. It was very cool to see the sense of community these people share.

Then we went to the Temple of Heaven, which is the 3-story round structure you see in the picture here:

It is quite gorgeous. Our tour guide, Wendy Wen, explained that there is a reason for everything in Chinese architecture. For example, the three layers of the roof represent heaven (top), the emperor (middle) and the people (bottom). This represents that the emperor is the link between heaven and the people. There are also three tiers carved in marble that surround the temple, and each tier has nine steps. Nine is a powerful number, according to the Chinese, because it is the largest single-digit odd number. So you see this number everywhere: the number of steps, the number of columns on the railings of each tier is a multiple of nine, the number of golden “nails” on a gate that indicates the relative position of the occupant within (the emperor had 9x9 of these on each door), and other places. Wendy (our guide) also told us the significance of the colors used to paint the temple: blue for heaven, green for life, yellow/gold for the emperor, and red is a good fortune color in China.

Here is something cool we saw at one of the gates. Note the lower character in the blue picture above the gate that Wendy is pointing to. It is part of the characters that make up the name “Quan”!

One of the most interesting things we saw in the Temple grounds (they are quite large) was a large group of people standing near a wall, singing their hearts out in unison. It was a patriotic Chinese song, and there must have been 200 men and women all belting it out - there was even a man in the middle directing, as men and women had some different parts.

We also witnessed the water painting of Chinese characters on the path leading to the temple. It was so cold, the characters froze! The men were writing poetry and messages of good luck and prosperity.

A couple of side trips to tell you about:
A silk factory, where they explained how silk is obtained from the silkworm (very fascinating) and then hawked their quilts, pillows, beautiful silk clothing and everything else you can think of that’s made of silk.

Here’s the machine used to create silk thread from 10 silkworm cocoons per slot.

We had a fabulous lunch at the Beijing Noodle King, where we were served pork with tofu wraps, beef & onions, potatoes & green peppers, caramelized yams, tofu & mushrooms in brown bean sauce, broccoli, kung pau chicken, fried pork balls, sweet and sour pork, eggplant, some fruit called haw, and big bowls of noodles with all kinds of veggies. Some of these dishes may sound familiar to you, but we can assure you that they were nothing like what you get in the US! Our other guide Susan told us that the food is Beijing-style. The wait staff consisted of all young men who were very loud and boisterous.

As a side note, we are thoroughly enjoying our first day bonding with our travel group and are becoming fast friends. We finally met Janet and her sister Karen, from Chicago. They had a bit of bad luck as the airlines lost their luggage. We also met Heather Seymour and her friend John, from Thousand Oaks, CA who are adopting from the Xi’an province. Tim and Inge were our travel buddies from Tokyo to Beijing (even though they got bumped up to business class and got to fully recline their chairs as they ate scallops and shrimp as appetizers…but I digress). Paul and Lydia are the expert world travelers and are our go-to couple for help.

Joanna and Ama have had the most tragic event occur as Ama couldn’t find his passport after deplaning in Tokyo. They are pretty sure it was lost at a checkpoint and never returned to him. He was subsequently returned to Portland while Joanna stayed in Tokyo for a day. She then flew on to Beijing alone. He is now attempting to get a new passport in Seattle and then fly to Hong Kong where he can get a visa to China in 24 hours. Please keep them in your thoughts. Joanna’s parents have arrived tonight so she has family support to go along with all of ours. We’re hoping Ama can join Joanna and the rest of us by January 2nd.