China Walmart

So we ventured out on Tuesday to get some necessities for all at China's Walmart. We had to take a taxi. The People's Congress of the Province of Shanxii is having their annual conference at the hotel we're staying in and so the front gates are closed to everyone but special government officials, there are army and police officers crawling all over the outside of the hotel and a section of the frontage road in front of the hotel is roped off by police tape (which everyone casually lifts to walk under or over at will with no consequence). All of this also means that the taxi's are not available near the hotel and so we had to go out to the street to try to hail one. Having only hailed a cab twice in my life (in Chicago), this was a bit intimidating. We probably waited only 10 minutes until we got one, but at least 50 taxi's came by in that 10 minutes, all with passengers.

Well, eventually we got a taxi which took us about a mile or maybe just a little more in downtown traffic to the Walmart - cost 6 RMB (Chinese Yuan currency) which is a little less than a dollar. Signage and prices were similar to US Walmart's, but the inventory was quite different. A very large part of the store was full of produce, meat and fish, including bins near the checkout full of frozen fish, unpackaged, to be purchased by scooping an amount into a bag and paid by the pound.

We spent quite a bit of time looking for peanut butter, determined that it could be found and which 1 store attendant and 2 guests told us we would find in the direction they pointed, but they likely had no idea what we were asking. Apparently there is really no universal sign or words to explain peanut butter - although we tried pointing to peanuts and making a hand gesture like spreading something to no avail. We eventually gave up on that one. We did find powdered milk for Ahn-Bao, diet Pepsi (surprisingly recognizable by it's light blue vs. dark blue label), baby snacks (we opted for the "Great Value" brand which was half the price of the Chinese name brand), and some Ritz crackers. Didn't find strollers or children's shoes or peanut butter.

The other interesting difference in the Walmart was the HyVee "helpful smiles in every aisle." Literally every aisle of the store had two Walmart employees working, apparently stationed to help people find things. They couldn't help us find peanut butter - but then Minnie, our guide told us on Wednesday that peanut butter is not really a product that you find used in China.

We hailed another taxi to take us back to our hotel - having appropriately planned in advance by taking a card from the front desk of the hotel with the name and address of the hotel in Chinese and English printed on it to give to the taxi driver to get us back. The taxi driver hesitated when he looked at the card - which caused only a minor panic - but then we made it back to our hotel, this time for a price just a little more than a dollar - go figure.

It's a boy!

At 10:30 a.m., 1-21-08 (China-time) we met Ahn-Bao for the first time in person. Lots to say about the event but now that we have him, it's hard to tear myself away from him to write. He is cuddly, sweet, playful, a great eater, a good napper, and everything I've been dreaming of!

Aunt Lisa's stacking cups are the ultimate hit -- he's been totally engrossed in them and they are great entertainment! I can see he's a genius child from the way he can handle them!

We had to sign paperwork saying we would have him overnight for bonding and will have to tell them tomorrow if we still want to keep him -- they must be insane -- they couldn't pry him away from me! I'm in love!

Flight Delay!

We were supposed to take a flight out of Beijing at 11:45 a.m., 1-20, China-time to fly to Xi'an in time to make an appointment at 5 p.m., 1-20 to meet Ahn-Bao. We got bumped from our flight due to an earlier cancelled flight that made our flight overbooked (snow in Xi'an apparently). We spent a couple of hours in a hotel room near the airport and then our awesome guide, Sy, came back to our rescue. He not only got us rebooked us on the next flight (5 p.m. scheduled but left at 6:15 p.m.) but got us compensation for our trouble.

As of 10 p.m. China-time, we are checked into our hotel (Sofitel on Renmin Square - http://www.sofitel.com/sofitel/fichehotel/gb/sof/5949/galerie_flash.shtml) and the new appointment to meet Ahn-Bao is 10 a.m., China-time tomorrow (or MN-time, 8 p.m., 1-21).

Will give more details later, but now must rest to be ready to meet the boy!

The Home Front

While I am around-the-world away, Bob is busy keeping the home fires burning. I am really missing being part of that routine, but know we each have to do our part and mine is over here. Elias was at his first wrestling tournament on Saturday and here's a little of what that looked like from around the globe via technology . . . .

Observations . . .

Photos of two government buildings and one of the Olympic stadiums still under construction and some random thoughts about some observations on touring in China today . . .

• Our guide, Sy, looked at Ahn-Bao's picture today and said that Chinese fortune-telling theories would say that his broad forehead and long ears would indicate a good destiny for his life. He also commented, "Why would anyone abandon such a beautiful child."
• I am struck by how many more employees seem to be assigned to work in each job in China than what I am used to in the States - by that I mean, that I don't see one Chinese employee working alone, always with several others. It looks like about 3 Chinese employees are assigned to jobs that would be done by only one American -- my statistics are not scientific, but I was struck in the restaurant, that there were something like 6 waitresses handling 8 tables in the area we sat at lunch today. Sy advised that the restaurant was a private enterprise, not government-run, so the restaurant owner makes the choices as to how many employees are needed to run his business. When we went into the grocery store, there was at least one employee standing in every aisle just "manning" the aisle, and two girls at each sample station. Construction sites (lots of them to get ready for the summer Olympics in August) were full of lots of workers, many of whom looked superfluous.
• Traffic - pedestrians, cars, buses and bicycles operate according to a set of rules that are incomprehensible to us, but seem to work in some kind of crazy way. Pedestrians and bicycles weave in and out of buses, cars and trucks and I cannot understand how people are not killed. At one intersection, there were 8 lanes of traffic going in each of 4 directions and pedestrians were walking on don't walks, bicycles balancing between buses and cars on either side of them, and cars turning left in front of oncoming traffic, and the oncoming traffic (one of them, our driver) pulled to the left of the left turning cars before getting back to the right lane of traffic.
• Bicycles here, most of them 30-year old rusted Schwinn's, carry varied and heavy loads -- saw the following items being carried on the back of bikes: beer, vegetables, children, 2 interior house doors, 12 chairs, and a mattress.
• Everyone in China has something to do -- Beijing is a huge city - almost 15 million people and someone is always going somewhere where they are not -- but no one is standing around, loitering, or looking idle.
• Sy suggested that his opinion is that 90% of Chinese people are supportive of adoption of Chinese orphans by U.S. and other international adoptive parents. He related a tear-jerker story that he says was highly publicized in China about an adoptive family who adopted a Chinese girl who ultimately needed a bone marrow transplant and the family made many trips to China and ultimately sold their house and used all their money to fund their search for a biological relative of the girl in China, and ultimately located a biological brother who became her transplant donor. I have to think that this story is viewed positively by Chinese with regard to adoption.

Breakfast

We enjoyed a convenient and slightly unusual breakfast -- bean curd milk (didn't try it), steamed bread (good), rice with eggs, various cooked

vegetables . . .

we're learning to be flexible and live outside our comfort zone - what choice do we have!

Tiananman Square

We enjoyed a fabulous lunch at one of Sy's choices of a nice restaurant -- we stayed away from turtle, duck heads, and a whole chicken cooked with the head and beak still attached (the menu had photos). It seems odd to sit in a restaurant without kids to attend to -- but now we're counting hours until we will be doing this with our boy!

After lunch, Sy took us to Tiananman Square - another amazing, and awesome piece of China's history. The army soldiers stand guard completely still like those in the picture for 2-hour shifts, so still that they look like statues.