New Friends

Today I met new friends, and one of them lives in Raymore! Her name is Laine. The other girl's name was Kinley. She lives in Japan but is moving to Ohio soon. We had a blast! It's sad I won't Kinley her again but Laine and I plan to meet up again sometime. First we went to the Temple of Heaven.  As we got there we walked past a bunch of older people sitting around in small groups playing dice and card games and other games.  That was cool to see.  Then, later we went to the Summer Palace.   At the Summer Palace we met a 6 or 7 year old girl. She could speak English very well. She said her name was Mary. She LOVED looking at pictures of Violet and us. Mary said we had a lot of pictures. We all took a picture with her. The Summer Palace was like a maze. It was also still raining. Dad and I bought ponchos from a street vendor. The street vendors are very aggressive and make me nervous.  Laine was with us and she bought an umbrella. Laine and her family took a train tonight to Xian with most of the group.  Kinley and her family fly to Guangzhou in the morning early.  We are flying to Chongqing in the morning.  I'm tired and going to bed...goodnight!

~Lydia




We started out the day at the Temple of Heaven, which was beautiful.  The weather was gorgeous this morning.  It has rained quite a bit in the past 24 hours which cleaned the air and the whole city some.  It seriously looks like air and the city had a shower and it made the whole city smell better too.  After the Temple of Heaven, we went to a pearl factory.  That was pretty interesting.  They taught us how to tell real pearls from fake ones.  I can't wait to get home and see if the pearls I bought Lydia and I in China last time are real. From there we went for lunch.  They serve meals around a round table for 8-10 people with a large lazy Susan in the middle.  Then, you just spin the lazy Susan around to help yourself to whatever you want family style.  This restaurant thought they'd really impress the Americans by bringing out french fries and ketchup.  We tried a few and they were okay.  I'm not much of a french fry fan. 

Then, after lunch we went to the Summer Palace where the Emperors used to stay in the summer because it was cooler there with a breeze off the lake.  It was raining a bit but not too bad.  Lydia and her friend, Laine, that she met on the trip were walking around just chatting.  At lunch we discovered that Laine lives in Raymore, MO.  Like 15 minutes from us!  So, the girls are making plans to get together sometime.  There is also another family along who lives in Olathe (about 30 mins from us).  They are in one of the other groups.  Our group is divided up into 3 smaller groups and each group is assigned to a different bus.  Anyway, Laine and Lydia were chatting at the Summer Palace as we sat in this large gazebo.  There were many Chinese people sitting around.  Craig, Jake and I were sitting in a different spot so the girls appeared to be alone.  But, of course, they sat there chatting in English.  Craig and I looked around and noticed many people just staring at the girls in complete awe, shock, confusion I'm not sure what.  Then, a little while later, this little girl comes up as I am showing Laine a picture of Violet and she starts asking us about our pictures in the most amazing English you could imagine with an English accent!  Does Rosetta Stone teach English with an English accent?  We thought maybe she was learning it that way or from a tutor from England.  Either way, she was amazing.  I think her dad sent her over to us to practice her English with us, which was great.  He was very nice and spoke English well himself, though not as good as Mary, his daughter.  It turns out that many Chinese people have a Chinese name and an English name.  Our guide, Allen, told us that he has a 2 year old son.  He told us his Chinese name but then said that his English name is Will.  

When we walked into the Summer Palace there was a man painting Chinese characters on the sidewalk with a gigantic paint brush. It was so cool how precise he could be.  Then, our group got surrounded by all of these photographers who were apparently professional photographers trying to photograph Americans.  But, they wanted pics of American children and blonde people.  So, a few kids and I got the brunt of the camera clicking.  The same thing happened at the Forbidden City a couple of days ago with a group of teenage girls.  They came up and asked if they could take selfies with me and a teenage girl in our group.  They kept telling us we were beautiful.  When I told them THEY were beautiful they erupted into embarrassed giggles.  They were darling!

Tonight we said goodbye to the people we have been with in our group for the past few days.  Most of them took a sleeper train to Xian tonight.  We are flying to Chongqing in the morning.  Chongqing is a municipality sort of like Washington D.C. is to us.  It is situated in the Sichuan province but it doesn't really belong to any province.  It is the area Lydia is from.  She came to us in Chongqing City in Chongqing municipality via a 12 hour bus ride.  So, we will stop there and get to visit the Civil Affairs office where we met her for the first time.  Then, the next day we will take a train to Xiushan which is the county Lydia is from.  At the time we adopted her the train was not yet built for travel from Chongqing City to Xiushan but they built it several years ago.  I can't wait to visit Xiushan.  That will really be the highlight of our trip I think.  Our guide said that Xiushan has a large minority population and that we will be able to tell them apart from everyone else by their traditional dress and their very dark skin.  He believes Lydia is part of that minority population because of her very dark skin.  She was, by far, the darkest in our group.  Only one other girl even came close. 

I am anxious to get somewhere where the traffic isn't quite as bad.  It is still very crowded and the traffic is bad in Chongqing, but not like here in Beijing.  We were just commenting yesterday on our bus that it is amazing that we don't see any cars with damage from being in wrecks or any accidents on the street.  Then, one of the other buses in our group got hit by a car today.  Everyone was fine, but they were on an extra tight schedule all day.  The traffic is just nuts.  Another family in our group brought their 3 year old...they live in Okinawa so they didn't really have anyone to leave her with and the flight wasn't that long...but the little girl was walking just behind her mom out the front door of a hotel we stopped at and very nearly almost got hit by a car.  Everyone who saw it had a moment where their heart stopped.  I really thought he bumped her but he didn't.  He was completely unapologetic about it and acted like it was no big deal.  Last time we were here, our guide told us that cars have the right of way, not pedestrians.  I guess that's right. 

Ok, one last thing.  We saw a bunch of people eating corn on the cob on the street today that they purchased from a street vendor and they were all eating it vertically.  They would bite it like we do eating it horizontally, but they all ate it vertically.  How's that for a totally random observation?!  Goodnight!

~Carla

PS - We drove by the Olympic Village from the 2008 Olympics and got to see the Cube where Michael Phelps won his record breaking gold medals. We learned at the Jade factory that the medals from the 2008 Olympics had Jade inlays in them. They were beautiful. We got to see some up close picture of them yesterday. That's what one of the pics is.