Quick update. Because of the technical issues we've had getting to this blog we've opened a Tumblr site. Tumblr doesn't seem to be blocked and we were able to post pictures to that much easier. From here on please see this site for updates. We will also try to post links in Facebook to this new blog but it is very challenging to access in China.
The new web address is as follows:
a2smits.tumblr.com
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Guiyang
We made it to Guiyang! This morning we had breakfast one last time at our hotel in Beijing before our driver and Candy to us to the airport. We said our goodbyes and then went back to our gate to wait for our flight. It was about a 3 hour flight southwest of Beijing. It is much warmer here than it was in Beijing. There is was in the low 30's and here is in the 60's. Guiyang is a vey beautiful city surrounded by mountains and a river through the city.
We met our new guide Jacky who took us to our hotel which is in downtown. It is a very modem hotel room! We are on the 22nd floor so we have a good view of the city! The room decor is interesting! The shower is all glass with a remote shade and a rainfall shower head! So it should be interesting trying to get Myla clean without a bathtub!!😬
Jacky also gave us some background information about this city. He said that this city has a population of 1 million! After we got situated we walked around a bit. He took us to Starbucks (they just opened the first one in this city last year), a shopping mall with several chinese and American stores, and finally a supermarket. The supermarket was pretty interesting! We saw some similar things like snickers, dove chocolates, and Coke but also saw some VERY interesting things like chicken feet, pig heads, and spikey fruits.
Once we arrived back at the hotel Jacky left us for the evening and we were on our own for dinner! Luckily he gave us some good meal suggestions and there is a KFC, McDonald's, and Pizza Hut close by! So we caved and got some American food at McDonald for dinner:) Tomorrow morning we will probably tour the city a little more before going to pick up Myla!!
Tomorrow is the big day!!! Hopefully we Will be able to sleep tonight!! We are so excited to get to meet her tomorrow!!! Jacky is meeting us around 1:30p to take us to the civil affairs office to pick her up!! Once we get her tomorrow she will be with us for the rest of the trip. Woohoo!!! Our next blog will be to introduce you to our sweet daughter Myla!!!:)
Ps. In China several websites are blocked like Facebook and google, and our blog (so we have to write these by phone) So we cannot access them on our computer. Only by Aaron's phone. So that is why we can't post pictures. We will try to figure out a way to post a picture though!! We may be able to upload one to Facebook from his phone. But the internet here is much better on the connection side.
We met our new guide Jacky who took us to our hotel which is in downtown. It is a very modem hotel room! We are on the 22nd floor so we have a good view of the city! The room decor is interesting! The shower is all glass with a remote shade and a rainfall shower head! So it should be interesting trying to get Myla clean without a bathtub!!😬
Jacky also gave us some background information about this city. He said that this city has a population of 1 million! After we got situated we walked around a bit. He took us to Starbucks (they just opened the first one in this city last year), a shopping mall with several chinese and American stores, and finally a supermarket. The supermarket was pretty interesting! We saw some similar things like snickers, dove chocolates, and Coke but also saw some VERY interesting things like chicken feet, pig heads, and spikey fruits.
Once we arrived back at the hotel Jacky left us for the evening and we were on our own for dinner! Luckily he gave us some good meal suggestions and there is a KFC, McDonald's, and Pizza Hut close by! So we caved and got some American food at McDonald for dinner:) Tomorrow morning we will probably tour the city a little more before going to pick up Myla!!
Tomorrow is the big day!!! Hopefully we Will be able to sleep tonight!! We are so excited to get to meet her tomorrow!!! Jacky is meeting us around 1:30p to take us to the civil affairs office to pick her up!! Once we get her tomorrow she will be with us for the rest of the trip. Woohoo!!! Our next blog will be to introduce you to our sweet daughter Myla!!!:)
Ps. In China several websites are blocked like Facebook and google, and our blog (so we have to write these by phone) So we cannot access them on our computer. Only by Aaron's phone. So that is why we can't post pictures. We will try to figure out a way to post a picture though!! We may be able to upload one to Facebook from his phone. But the internet here is much better on the connection side.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Day 2: Birds and Dogs...
So Anita gave me the opportunity to write to you tonight. You may see the title and wonder how this is connected to china, but bare with me and I'll try to explain.
Today was our last day of site seeing in Beijing. We had another delicious breakfast in the hotel and then we reconnected with Candy and Mr. Hao (our driver). The first stop was to the Olympic village from 2008. We got to look around at the different buildings like the Birds nest and water cube. Very interesting buildings. Candy explained the buildings are still used today for various sporting events and concerts. From here we jumped back in the car.
Our next stop was the Great Wall. On our drive Candy shared with us some interesting facts about the Great Wall. I wish I could remember them all, but that's what Wikipedia is for right :-D. There are presently only three sections of the Great Wall open to tourists. The section we went to had a very nice visitors center at the base of the mountain, a tobagan run and a cable car to the top. From the visitors center we took a shuttle to a path that would lead us to the Great Wall. As a side note, up until now the only pets we'd seen were the birds we saw in the restaraunt yesterday. Well that all changed today. There were so many dogs here. And they knew how to beg for food really well. The interesting thing is that they are all strays and belong to no one. Anywho...the Great Wall...it was beautiful. The views are impressive and the thought of how this was all constructed is mind boggling.
Once we finished at the Great Wall and got some food we made one quick stop at the pearl market before heading to a show. The show was called Golden Mask Dynasty. The show is a love story about a queen and king from warring nations, how they fall in love, and how their live joins the nations. The story obviously has some sad parts in it as every love story does, but had a happy ending. The stage performance was amazing, the set was incredible, and at one point about 20 some ladies came out and danced with real white peacocks on their heads. It was one of the most interesting things I've seen. I wish each one of you could have seen it. Overall Anita and I both loved the performance with all the music, dance, and aerial portions of the show.
So in summary we had many bird and dog sightings today. Anywho, that's about all that went on today. We're pretty pooped after all the walking at the Great Wall. Tomorrow we leave for Myla's province. As soon as we can get some good internet we'll make sure to upload some pictures. Have a marvelous day everyone!
Today was our last day of site seeing in Beijing. We had another delicious breakfast in the hotel and then we reconnected with Candy and Mr. Hao (our driver). The first stop was to the Olympic village from 2008. We got to look around at the different buildings like the Birds nest and water cube. Very interesting buildings. Candy explained the buildings are still used today for various sporting events and concerts. From here we jumped back in the car.
Our next stop was the Great Wall. On our drive Candy shared with us some interesting facts about the Great Wall. I wish I could remember them all, but that's what Wikipedia is for right :-D. There are presently only three sections of the Great Wall open to tourists. The section we went to had a very nice visitors center at the base of the mountain, a tobagan run and a cable car to the top. From the visitors center we took a shuttle to a path that would lead us to the Great Wall. As a side note, up until now the only pets we'd seen were the birds we saw in the restaraunt yesterday. Well that all changed today. There were so many dogs here. And they knew how to beg for food really well. The interesting thing is that they are all strays and belong to no one. Anywho...the Great Wall...it was beautiful. The views are impressive and the thought of how this was all constructed is mind boggling.
Once we finished at the Great Wall and got some food we made one quick stop at the pearl market before heading to a show. The show was called Golden Mask Dynasty. The show is a love story about a queen and king from warring nations, how they fall in love, and how their live joins the nations. The story obviously has some sad parts in it as every love story does, but had a happy ending. The stage performance was amazing, the set was incredible, and at one point about 20 some ladies came out and danced with real white peacocks on their heads. It was one of the most interesting things I've seen. I wish each one of you could have seen it. Overall Anita and I both loved the performance with all the music, dance, and aerial portions of the show.
So in summary we had many bird and dog sightings today. Anywho, that's about all that went on today. We're pretty pooped after all the walking at the Great Wall. Tomorrow we leave for Myla's province. As soon as we can get some good internet we'll make sure to upload some pictures. Have a marvelous day everyone!
Friday, January 1, 2016
Day one
Today was our first day of sight seeing in Beijing. After a good nights rest, we got dressed and headed downstairs to have breakfast. Our hotel had a very big breakfast buffet full of both American and Chinese foods. We were pretty impressed by their selection. We met our guide again, her name is Candy and she will be with us while we are here. She took us first to Tiananmen Square where she gave us a lot of background information about the history of it.
After touring that we walked down to the forbidden city which is very close by.. Here she explained the dynasty of the emperors of China as well as several other interesting facts about the Chinese culture and symbols. The buildings are just beautiful! There is so much intricate wood carving details and the buildings are just incredible!
Once we finished that Candy took us to a restaurant called old Beijing noodles king which is well known for their noodles in a type of soy sauce. They were DELICIOUS!! I could have eaten the whole bowl!:) one funny thing Candy mentioned was that in Beijing people like to take their birds out on a walk down the street!!! The restaurant had several birds in cages and we just found that very different:) after lunch we did the hutong tour where we had a different tour guide show us around the "old Beijing" on a rickshaw. She gave us a lot of information about the symbolism about the entrances to people's homes, the thresholds, statues, and no number of knobs above the door. Another funny moment was when talking to Tina, we were learning about how she got her name. In China they like to pick themselves an American name. So as she was telling us about her family we asked her if her little daughter had a name. She said no but wondered if we had any suggestions. So we just kind of randomly said Sarah. She said she liked that name but wanted to know the meaning. Once we found out that Sarah meant princess she said that was a perfect name!!:) so we helped name her child!!;)
once we finished there we rode the subway to the pearl market where we did a little shopping. That was our last stop. We made it back to our hotel and called home quick to talk to the kids. They were very excited to at hi to us! For day one we have done pretty good with the jet lag, but now it is catching up! We are off to bed so we can be well rested for our second day of sight seeing tomorrow!:)
Our internet here is awful! We are hoping to get that fixed soon! Hopefully we can upload some pictures soon!
After touring that we walked down to the forbidden city which is very close by.. Here she explained the dynasty of the emperors of China as well as several other interesting facts about the Chinese culture and symbols. The buildings are just beautiful! There is so much intricate wood carving details and the buildings are just incredible!
Once we finished that Candy took us to a restaurant called old Beijing noodles king which is well known for their noodles in a type of soy sauce. They were DELICIOUS!! I could have eaten the whole bowl!:) one funny thing Candy mentioned was that in Beijing people like to take their birds out on a walk down the street!!! The restaurant had several birds in cages and we just found that very different:) after lunch we did the hutong tour where we had a different tour guide show us around the "old Beijing" on a rickshaw. She gave us a lot of information about the symbolism about the entrances to people's homes, the thresholds, statues, and no number of knobs above the door. Another funny moment was when talking to Tina, we were learning about how she got her name. In China they like to pick themselves an American name. So as she was telling us about her family we asked her if her little daughter had a name. She said no but wondered if we had any suggestions. So we just kind of randomly said Sarah. She said she liked that name but wanted to know the meaning. Once we found out that Sarah meant princess she said that was a perfect name!!:) so we helped name her child!!;)
once we finished there we rode the subway to the pearl market where we did a little shopping. That was our last stop. We made it back to our hotel and called home quick to talk to the kids. They were very excited to at hi to us! For day one we have done pretty good with the jet lag, but now it is catching up! We are off to bed so we can be well rested for our second day of sight seeing tomorrow!:)
Our internet here is awful! We are hoping to get that fixed soon! Hopefully we can upload some pictures soon!
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