The Jacksons in China, Day Four: Beijing to Zhengzhou

First things first!  I apologize for my last post, which upon later reading was really jumpy, almost as if there was a movie on at the same time and I was only paying half-attention to writing my post.  The reason for this is that there was a movie on and I was only paying half-attention to writing my post.

Big thanks again to our friend Nanette for posting all of our ramblings.  If any of you are ever in Pennsylvania, give her a hug as you're passing through.

Not a ton to report on today, as today was the day that all of the families we met in Beijing split up to head off to the various provinces where our children are.  The biggest chunk of the group by far came to Zhengzhou, a giant city of a few million people that seems to have sprung up out of the dirt road shanty towns into new (and half-constructed) buildings overnight.

We still seem to have some bad jet lag that is only gradually subsiding.  Every night since we've come, we'll go to bed exhausted, then find ourselves wide awake at 2:00 a.m.  Last night I made it as far as 4:00, and I'll take what I can get.  This morning we decided just to accept it and turned on the lights to get packing.

After a nice breakfrrrst (that's how you say it with a Beijing accent) we hopped on the bus, said our goodbyes to Cindy our Beijing guide, and took off for Zhengzhou.

Jen and I really miss Beijing.  Sometimes you'll visit a place and feel a strange connection or a bond to a city and start to wonder about a life there, about coming back, about all the facets you couldn't have the time to explore.  This is how we felt about the massive city with the ancient stone buildings smashed next to the giant glimmering office towers surrounding one of the oldest civilizations on earth.  Also, I could eat steam buns *every day*.

Some more snapshots of Beijing:

 - Jen and I were walking from one section of the Great Wall to another, and we run into none other than our German lady friends from the restaurant the other night.  This was apparently the highlight of their day and they made their other friends take pictures of us and said danke again for the help.  Glad we made their trip, and I hope you enjoyed that little beef wrap-thing you ordered.

 - There is a two-block massive shopping center south of our hotel where the streets are closed to cars, so it's a giant walking mall with every square inch of visible space crammed with jumbotron televisions playing ads, flashing signs, or ads for Estee Lauder, Hugo Boss, etc.  We found a kid's toy store and laughed at all of the knockoff toys from American favorites like "G.I. Soldier" and some probably less-than-authorized Disney character cartoons.  Also, I wanted to buy a remote-control flying robot.

 - Scam attempt no. 1: Leaving the mall, a young man came up to us and said "hello, my friends!"  We politely say hi but keep walking in the same direction. "Hello! Me and my friends are art students [red flag code phrase] and we would like to invite you to..." but we have already said no thanks and are halfway across the street.  C'mon, pal.  That's like the first scam that every American tourist reads about.  We'd rather not go to your "art show" in a dark back alley and get intimidated into buying your crappy "art" prints for ridiculous prices.

 - Dear Crowne Plaza: you are indeed a very fine five-star hotel, and your central atrium is beautiful with the little waterfall and large comfy chairs in which we can lounge and use your wifi to write these posts.  BUT, if you are going to have a woman sit at the piano and play soft, relaxing music (which is a nice touch, but the way) then PLEASE, oh please oh PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY SPEND THE FIFTY BUCKS AND TUNE THE FREAKIN' PIANO.

 - Scam attempt no. 2:  Jen is back at the hotel room, and I have been sent off to get steam buns from our steam bun shop and water from the 7-11.  As I am leaving the latter a woman walks up to me and starts saying "Hello, friend! Hello!  We are talking!  I see we are talking to you!  I am student [oh boy] and I am like to practice my English with you [big red flag code phrase]!  Maybe we are going to get a beer together!"  She keeps talking like this as I head for the hotel while being polite but not actually engaging her. She finally gives up and shouts at me "YOOUUUU STUPIIIIID!!!"  C'mon, lady, that only the second most popular scam in China.  The idea is that we would go to get a drink or go to a fancy tea ceremony or some other function down a dark alley in a small room and then I'd get stuck with a grossly inflated bill at the end.

 - Seriously, though, that stupid piano had two keys so out of tune it was like a cheese grater on my eardrums everytime she played the lower intro to "Paint with All the Colors of the Wind."

 - We never got the chance to eat at "WESTREN FOOD RESTAURANT."


But we have more important things going on!  The flight to Zhengzhou took all of an hour and change, and as we got closer to the ground I saw mostly isolated little villages on dirt roads.  Most of the way into town was the same.  On the bus, we met two more families that had been to China before and skipped the Beijing tour to meet us in our adoption towns.  We've already agreed that more hanging out needs to happen with many of our fellow adopting families, and we're becoming fast friends,and so a Utah-Montana-Minnesota-Pennsylvanina-Connecticut-Tennessee-Florida-Virginia-Maryland trip is in the works.

I'm pleased to add to Jen's general pleased-ness about having taken the time to learn some Mandarin before we came... after throwing our bags in our room, we headed our for lunch and on a good recommendation from a woman in our group who had adopted from here before, we sat down in a huge restaurant nearby, realized we were the only white people, and still managed to order the most amazing Chinese food meal I have ever eaten, bar none.  We had some peppered beef, some breaded chicken in a sweet glaze, and some really, really amazing rice.  We just had to look up a couple of words in our dictionaries to get the check paid.  Great food and a better experience all for about $17 U.S. (in case you were wondering, most of our meals are significantly cheaper).

Lunch eaten, the next order of busines in Zhengzhou was loading up a secret hidden wallet with a giant pile of U.S. dollars, walking terrified across the street to a bank, and exchanging that pile for an even giant-er pile of Chinese Yuan.  This of course made me totally freaked out about everyone I walked by, but somehow I still made it to the 7-11 for water and snacks and back to the hotel.  This cash will be used mostly for paperwork fees, adoption fees, and a blood test.  Apparently the U.S. consulate wants to know whether she has tuberculosis before bringing her into America.

We ate dinner with most of our group, and we all bonded further over enormous bowls of hand-pulled beef noodles with stories of why we were adopting, why China, and the weirdness of returning to our rooms after the bank and discovering that our cribs had been brought to our rooms and set up.

We are ready.  We have our diaper bags, snacks, and Nora's ducky ready to go.

It's late, and this turned out far longer than I planned, but in about ten hours from now my life will be completely different and I'm excited in ways I can't really piece together in my head but I want to remember every little thing.  None of this seems real right now.  For months we've been looking at her picture and telling her that we're coming... well, here we are.

We're here, Eleanor... we're really here. See you soon