Yesterday was another exciting day. But first, you might be asking yourself “why all the sightseeing? Why don’t they just get the baby and come home?” Our agency is amazing, and the way they planned things out makes sense. There are a few reasons for coming a few days early. 1) It gives us a chance to get acclimated to the time difference. After four days, we are doing better, but we cannot seem to stay up later than 9pm and we wake up before 6am. Maybe it helps us get acclimated to Chinese culture, as well. 2) We are here with 11 other families, and we will more or less be together for more than two weeks. It allows us a chance to get to know each other before we all get our babies. All or most of the families come to Beijing, spend a few days together, disperse to get our babies all over the country, then meet up again in Guangzhou to finish up the adoption process at the American Embassy. 3) Lastly, we are told that it is ridiculous to come halfway around the world and not see the obligatory sights--the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tieneman Square, etc. So EACI, our agency, arranges it so we see all of the sights.

We started the day again with breakfast, then departed for the Great Wall. The Great Wall was about a 90-minute drive by bus, but first we stopped at a Jade factory. We saw how the jade is made, and shown how to distinguish between different qualities of jade. The factory had a huge showroom and Kristi and Mimi were sucked in by the salespeople showing them bangle bracelets. I saw the prices, and knew that as they were looking, they were not considering the conversion rate. The bracelets were beautiful, but very expensive--a little above our standard of living. Anyway, when the salespeople pulled out the calculator, I laughed as they both changed their minds. In the end, they each did end up buying some small jade items.

Next, we went to the Great Wall. It was an amazing sight. The wall was on both sides of the road, and Zhou explained to us that if we climbed one side, it would take us all day. He suggested we try the other, as it was not as high and we needed to be on the bus in an hour. Mimi decided to stay with some others at the bus--there were some shops to keep them busy, and Kristi, Thatcher and I joined some of our group to climb the wall.

We started the climb and it seemed like there were a million steps. We climbed, and climbed and climbed steps and we each peeled off our jackets early in. The view was amazing and while it was hard, we had fun and joked the whole time. Thatcher was a trooper. Except for one set of steps where I carried him on my back (I thought I was going to keel over!), he climbed the entire thing himself. Then when we got to the bottom, I needed an “I climbed the Great Wall shirt,” so we went to the shops.

There were about 10 or 12 booths filled with t-shirts, sweatshirts, silk kimonos and junk. When I went to the first one, I was offered a shirt for 180 Yuan ($27). I thought that was a bit expensive, and wanted to look at the next booth. When I tried to leave she began to shout at me, “Hello! Hello! OK! OK! Cheaper! Cheaper!” She even grabbed hold of my jacket. It was bizarre. As it was, I bought the same shirt a few booths down for 25 Yuan (a little more than $3). By the time I left I had several booth people shouting at me to get my attention. I don't really care for that.

Next, we went to a Cloisonné factory. These are objects--from vases to jewelry to trinkets--made of copper and using a tedious process painted with enamel and polished beautifully. We took a short tour and ate lunch in a restaurant on the second floor of the showroom. The meal was really good and consisted of several dishes including soup, rice, spring rolls, some kind of fried seafood and meat and chicken dishes. It was similar to food at a Chinese restaurant in the U.S. After lunch, we were able to shop a little at the factory before departing for our next destination.

Next, we went to the Olympic Stadium. We walked around it and through it. It is massive and a very interesting design. As we passed through the Olympic facilities, it seemed as if most were unused now. Beijing has to be using these facilities for something, but if not it seems like a waste. I do know that some of the facilities will be used at the upcoming Paralympics games.

As usual, we were running behind schedule, and we had some of our group that was lagging behind. Zhou went back to get the stragglers as we headed for the bus. When everyone was on board, we departed for our final destination of the day, the acrobatic show.

The acrobatic show was very interesting. We were late, but it seems once again that Zhou is important enough that the show waited for us to arrive before it started. It was held in an auditorium a little larger than a large movie theater, complete with a balcony and Joe had seats for us on the front row. There was lots of jumping, balancing, plate spinning and other feats of daring and everyone enjoyed it.

We returned to the hotel at about 7pm local time and after putting our things in our room, we met our friends Traci and Harris from Alabama and Cindy and Bob from Michigan and all went around the corner to Pizza Hut. We needed some American food. The pizza was really good, but the restaurant was blistering hot. In addition, because we had instructed us not to drink fountain drinks (because of the water) I had to run out and buy a couple of Cokes at the newsstand outside. Oh and for the second night in a row, Thatcher fell asleep before we got dinner. He has not quite adjusted to the time change perfectly. After dinner, we returned to the hotel for bed. Sunday we were leaving Beijing for Guangzhou.

Today, Sunday, we woke up, packed and went to breakfast. Not a very eventful day, except that everyone in our group was flying out to the cities where they would pick up their babies. We and four other families were traveling to Guangzhou to get our babies, and everyone else is coming there to meet us later. Zhou herded us all on the bus and got us to the airport and on our planes. The flight was uneventful except for Kristi spilling a Sprite in my lap. Really.

The Island in Guangzhou where our hotel, The Victory Hotel, is located is geared towards adopting families. The American Consulate is on the island from the beginning it was very evident that many Americans come through here adopting. When we checked into our room, we were first amazed at the size, but then impressed at the amenities. Our room was already equipped with a stroller, a crib and a baby bathtub. Then when we Kristi and I walked around the block we saw all of the shops with baby supplies like diapers and bottles, but also clothes. Kristi has talked about "squeaky shoes" since she found out about us coming and she has already found them. In addition, The Victory Hotel is much more convenient to shopping and a variety of restaurants than our previous one. There is a Subway and a Starbucks right on our block.

We ate dinner in the hotel with our Alabama and Michigan friends, Thatcher again fell asleep before dinner, and I had to carry him up to his room. While the hotel is nice, we were not very impressed with the menu or food. I had fried fish and could not eat it. My crinkle-cut fries were fine, though. Kristi and Norma had fried chicken wings and they were ok. Mostly we sat around, joked, and talked about getting our babies.

I have not talked too much about getting babies, because it has just all seemed a little surreal, but tomorrow is the big day. We will go with our five families and probably many more to the adoption center. The caregivers will bring our babies from the orphanages in the country and give them to us. The caregivers might give us a little information and maybe a written feeding schedule, but not much else. We have been told to expect our babies to be stressed and maybe unhappy, but Zhou tells us that in just a few days our babies, if brought back to the orphanages, will not want to leave us. I hope so. Kristi and I are both a little nervous. She gave me a book called “Parenting the Internationally Adopted Child” a little while ago and it scared me. We have already done much and I am sure will do a lot more praying, but I think that if we concentrating on loving her we will be all right. I cannot wait to meet our daughter tomorrow. Thatcher is excited as well, but I do not think that he realizes just how much his world is going to change.