Lydia's Top 10 (in her own words)

What my ten favorite things so far on this trip are:

1. Visiting my orphanage.

          I liked this one because it reminded me of what it was back when I was there.

2. Eating yummy food.

          Eating food fills me up and makes me feel good. My favorites are noodles, dumplings, doughnuts, waffles, and chocolate filled hot dog bun (for lack of a better name).

3. Seeing the Great Wall of China.

          It was very interesting. And it had a lot of history. The ride up and down was very fun.

4. Visiting the Temple of Heaven.

          It was interesting and had a lot of special artifacts.

5. Going to Tiananmen Square.

          It was very cool watching the soldiers march across the street and lower the flag.

6. Eating at restaurants.

          I liked trying all the new foods, especially the noodles.

7. Sleeping.

          I enjoyed my dreams.

8. Having a tour guide.

          They told us a lot of history of China.

9. Going to get Ruthie (MeiMei).

          It was fun to meet her, and play with her especially hide and seek.

10. Going to museums.

          I saw interesting things like dinosaur bones.

An Historical Day!

Our last full day in Huhhot was good. We started the day off early as we needed to go apply for MeiMei’s passport. We had to go to a government office where they fill out the paperwork for the passport. First, we had to stop at the notary’s office to pick up the official paperwork for the adoption. We have all those official papers in our backpack. We know from experience how luggage gets lost and it may be forever!

On the way to the office, there was a lot of stopping and starting in the car. It was close to rush hour and we were in the downtown area. Well, we found out that MeiMei gets carsick – the hard way. Puke all over the seat and the floor of the van. At least she kept it off herself and us and our bags. Fortunately, I had wipes in the backpack and we got everything mostly cleaned up. Now she has puked half as many times as Lydia has in her 6 years with us! Hopefully this is not a precursor to what is to come!!! She was fine the rest of the day, so I’m pretty sure it was carsickness. Tomorrow we’ll make sure she sits in the middle seats in the van and I also have some medicine to prevent carsickness.

When we got to the government building, Aggie led the way. She knows how to get things done. We had a bag full of candy as part of a gift we brought for the head of the passport office. She took the bag, opened it, and started handing out candy to the workers. We didn’t have to wait at all! Good things may come to those who wait in America, but good things come to those who give candy in China! They filled out the papers, took MeiMei’s fingerprints and picture and then we went up to another office. There were a bunch of people waiting, so I thought it might take a while, but Aggie just marched up to one of the workers, handed her some candy and she processed our paperwork without a wait. Aggie dropped off the lotion and the 31 bag we brought to the head of the passport department and we were off.

The next stop for us was the Inner Mongolia History Museum. The best exhibit was the dinosaur bones. They have found a bunch of fossils in Inner Mongolia. The second largest dinosaur skeleton in the world was found here and it was in the museum. I have seen dinosaur bones at the history museum in Chicago and New York, but the enormity of this skeleton was overwhelming. Our neighbors LOVE dinosaurs, so Lydia was excited to share pictures with them. We know that even if MeiMei doesn’t know much about dinosaurs yet, she will once she hangs out with Evelyn and Gabe for a while! She wasn’t so sure about the animatronic dinosaurs in the exhibit. But once she found out the were fake, she was ok with them.

There were also some exhibits about the history of the Mongol people, including Genghis Khan. Brian has been reading a book about Genghis Khan on this trip, so it was interesting to him to see some of the actual artifacts from his conquest. Inner Mongolia is also home to 34 ethnic minorities, so the museum had some information about them too. I think Aggie was surprised about how interested we were in the museum. Of course, we are history buffs and museum people, so we wanted to see everything. She told us that if we didn’t hurry, we wouldn’t have time to see it all. I’m pretty sure we didn’t see half of the museum. Oh well, we have to leave something undone for the next time we come!

We headed back to the hotel after the museum and decided to lay low this afternoon. Since we weren’t sure about the puking, we thought going all over town might not be the best thing. We ate goldfish, Lara bars, candy, cookies, and granola bars for lunch and then took a nap. Brian and I started cleaning up the room and got a lot of our stuff packed for tomorrow. Hopefully we can reduce the number of bags we have to take home, but after yesterday’s shopping trip, I’m afraid we might not be traveling as light as we had hoped!

We headed back to the restaurant we ate at yesterday afternoon. I thought of taking a picture of what we wanted so we could order that way. The people who had helped us yesterday were working today, so they helped us again. We really liked the food there and Lydia was especially happy to have her favorite noodle dish and rice dish. MeiMei liked the chicken meat a lot. We had fun eating together and MeiMei was serving us all more food from the dishes. Part way through the meal, an older guy came to our table and started talking to us in Chinese. He brought us cups and then went back and got us some tea. I’m not sure what kind of tea it was. It was a yellowish green color and it had some kind of grain floating in it. It looked kind of like millet.

After supper, Brian suggested that we go find some place for dessert. We decided if we went to McDonald’s we’d know what we were getting, so we headed there. McFlurries were enjoyed by the other three, and I had a hot fudge sundae. Yumm! It’s crazy that McDonald’s is one of the more expensive restaurants in China. We spent 75RMB on our dinner – 3 main dishes, meat skewers, 3 pops and a water, and for 3 McFlurries and a sundae, we spend 41 RMB.

We headed back to the hotel and MeiMei wanted to be carried. Brian carried her part of the way, and she figured out how to hold on. That got her a little further in his arms before he wore out. Lydia wanted to join in the fun too, so I put her on my back once we got close to the hotel.

The girls had a fun time in the bathtub again. The tub is in a separate room with the shower, so they could splash as much as they wanted and all the water would just go into the shower. Hopefully this won’t be a problem when we get home!

They are sleeping soundly now, but Brian and I need to finish packing everything up. We have an early start tomorrow as we head to the orphanage in Baotou. We go there, which is a few hour’s drive, and then head back to Huhhot where we’ll fly down to Guangzhou. We won’t arrive in Guangzhou until after 11pm, so we may not blog. On Friday, we have to be up early again for a medical appointment. Fortunately, Guangzhou has just a few things to do (even though the timing has to be spread out), so we should be able to take it easy for the next week. Hopefully we’ll catch up on the sleep we’ll miss tomorrow!

It will be MeiMei’s first flight. Hopefully she doesn’t get motion sickness in the airplane too! At least she likes Brian, so if we get split up, he’ll have to clean up the puke this time. 😊

Matching, matching again.

Tried the mobi lasted long enough for two photos

One of the best collections of dinosaurs in the world

Eating at our new favorite restaurant in China

McDonalds ice cream

Every city needs a random shrimp seat

One Less

I woke up early today (actually this is the best I’ve slept the whole trip.)  I got a solid 8 hours of sleep.  Minus the time I woke up and looked over at the girl’s bed and thought Ruthie was missing.  After waking up enough to see if she fell on the floor and rolled under the bed, I realized she was sleeping in Lydia’s spot and Lydia had moved to the end of the bed.  I was not scared, but I was wondering what happened. 

I thought I’d add my two cents to yesterday.  Yesterday I did not sleep as well as today.  I woke up about 2:30 in the morning (I have no idea what time it actually was, but that seems like a good guess) and started thinking about everything going on.  While I was doing that a song came to me that I thought summed up the day fairly well.  It is the song “One Less” by Matthew West.  (I attached the link if you do not know it).  I sometimes think songs about adoption maybe make orphanages seem worse than they are.  This may stem from the fact that both of my daughters spent significant time in one, and I want to think of that time as positively as possible.  We have not been to Ruthie’s yet, but from visiting Lydia’s it is a very nice building with very nice people that do their best to care for the children, but it is not a family.  God designed families as his plan for the world.  The way we are going to see our culture improve is to improve families.  We need strong marriages, with parents training their children to follow God’s word.  Before I get too close to preaching, I’ll get back to the point.  Yesterday officially and legally (in the eyes of the Chinese government, the only one that counts for now) Wang Xuan Yi is no longer an orphan and there is one less in the orphan world.  

Three reasons I put this into our blog.  First, I thought I should let everyone know I’m involved here. Erica is much better at the play by play.  If I typed it, it would be about half the length so I'll let her do that.  Secondly, I thought it was a nice way to sum up the importance of the day.  Sometimes a song is better than words.  Thirdly, I want to let everyone that has had a part in this process for us (there are a lot of you) know that what you have done is appreciated by us, and is bigger than us adding to our family.  We could have chosen to do that in several ways.  We could have added a dog, Lydia would have been happy, it would have been a lot less money and paperwork, and we could be done, but God chose this as the way to add to our family.  I believe after sin entered the world God knew adoption would be a big part of smoothing out some of the effects of sin.  If you look in the Bible adoption is all over it, not the least significant is that God chose Joseph to adopt Jesus (the Bible does not say how official the adoption was, but he was Jesus father here on earth.)  Sorry, getting close to preaching again, back to the point.  I want everyone reading to know we appreciate more than we can express all the way you have helped lower the number of orphans in the world by one today.

It's Official

Today it’s official…MeiMei is a Peterson. After our favorite breakfast buffet, which MeiMei liked just as much as Lydia, we went to a conference room in the hotel to meet with the dean of the orphanage, a notary, and a civil affairs worker. Together they made it official and we adopted Wang Xuan Yi. She is now Ruth Lois XuanYi Peterson.

We had to sign a bunch of papers and also stamp our fingerprint next to our signature. In China, everyone has a “chop” or stamp that they use for their signature. Since we don’t have our own chop, we have to sign and then use our fingerprint stamped in red ink. MeiMei also had to put her whole hand print on one of the papers. It was all kind of a whirlwind process with a “sign here” and “answer this” that made it all legal. We also had to be interviewed and tell what our jobs were, our income, and also tell the Chinese government that we will take care of her, give her a good education, and never abandon or abuse her.

That was done by about 9:30am and we had the rest of the day free. We came back to our room and tried to get things organized. We unpacked all the sleepers that my school collected and put them in giant gift bags. We also arranged all the rest of the gifts we have to bring to the people in Baotou. After all that we were down to one suitcase per person. Much more like us!

Lydia wanted to FaceTime a bunch of people. She is very proud of her little sister. She spent a good chunk of the morning showing her off to family. She wanted to try calling some of her friends too, but it was getting too late in the US for that.

While we were cleaning up, the girls started playing hide-and-go-seek. If you know Lydia at all, you know she loves that game. Well, we discovered MeiMei is really good at it too. She doesn’t mind small dark spaces and she has a LOT of patience. She hid inside a cupboard for a solid 5 minutes or more while Lydia searched all over for her. We’re in a hotel room, so there aren’t that many places, but Lydia didn’t think she could fit in there. They had tons of fun playing with each other. They also made a “fort” under the desk and put their blankets over it.

We headed out for lunch around noon. We decided to see what we could find a little ways from the hotel. We found another noodle restaurant, which also had rice and some other foods that looked appetizing. They had screens that had pictures that rotated, so we had to wait through a few rounds to point out all that we wanted. We ended up with some meat on skewers, fried rice, noodles that Lydia claimed tasted like her favorite meatball noodles, and some chicken and rice. I was glad for something besides noodles! Fortunately, one of the workers took pity on us and helped us figure out what we needed to do to claim our food and fortunately they had a sign that flashed the number of the receipt when our food was ready. We really enjoyed the food there and it wasn’t too far from the hotel.

When we came back, we knew that MeiMei should take a nap. She has been copying everything Lydia does and wants to be just like her. We have been using that to our advantage. We told Lydia to lay down until MeiMei fell asleep and what do you know, Lydia, who “wasn’t tired at all” fell asleep pretty quickly. We let the girls sleep for about an hour while Brian and I did a little laundry in the tub. We’re hoping that since towels seem to dry quickly and Inner Mongolia is known for it’s dryness (so dry that we have a humidifier in our hotel room), that our socks and underwear will be dry in the morning.

We woke the girls up and Lydia did not want to get up. Aggie, our guide, was coming to take us to a special shopping mall for Inner Mongolian items. Inner Mongolia is kind of like Wisconsin in that it is known for its milk production. Also, since they have so many cows, they also make a lot of leather products. There were a bunch of different items available at the mall to purchase.

We got MeiMei a life lock, which is a Mongolian tradition. Because many babies died in the past, the Mongolian people wear long life locks because they think it will keep their children from dying young. There was one that had an owl on it, and since I love owls, I thought I would get that one. Aggie was not really in favor of that. Owls are auspicious, she said. It is bad luck to wear owls. She couldn’t believe that I would like owls so much, but I explained that in America we think of them as a symbol for wisdom. She said it would be ok for me, since it’s a positive symbol to me, but I could tell she wasn’t feeling it. We ended up with a lock that had flowers and the “fu” symbol for happiness. I think Aggie approved of that one!

They also had a bunch of leather work to buy. They had some really pretty and unique paintings on leather. We purchased some of those – one of which we can put in the girls’ room. We also got a traditional Mongolian dress, hat, and boots for MeiMei. We bought one that is big so that we can give it to her later for her to wear. We also got a vest for her that fits her now. She’ll have something special to wear for Chinese New Year. We bought a few other items that are special to Inner Mongolia.

It’s really neat to learn about the history and culture that is special to this specific region here in China. There are so many things that are special about the culture here. I’m glad that we will be able to have some special things to give to MeiMei to help her appreciate not only being Chinese, but also being Inner Mongolian.

When we first arrived at the shopping mall, they treated us to a tradition of a special scarf. The girls weren’t so into shopping, but they had fun playing with each other and finding different ways to wear their scarves. 😊

On our way home, it was rush hour, so the driver took us a “back way” home. Aggie was annoyed with the traffic, but I thought it was so fun to see the way of the people. So many people were coming home – riding their bikes or motorcycles and walking. There were carts along the street with foods that people were buying on their way home from school or work. The sheer number of people continues to amaze me. And Huhhot is a “small” city in China. There are only about 2 million people here – Just to put that into perspective – that’s the same size as Chicago, and it’s the third largest city in the US. It’s just crazy to think of how many people there are in China.

When we got home, we could tell that the girls were getting really tired, so we headed out for supper right away. We had passed a restaurant on our way this afternoon that had chicken sandwiches and stuff like that. We decided to try it out tonight. They had a menu we could point to, so it was much easier than some places. They had a family pack that had 2 chicken sandwiches, a wrap, popcorn chicken, chicken nuggets, fries, and 3 drinks for less than $10. We decided to go with that and we had our fill of chicken. Just when we were almost done, they brought out a steaming rotisserie chicken that was apparently part of our meal. Since it’s rude/gross to the Chinese to eat things with your fingers, they brought us plastic gloves to pull apart and eat the chicken. Lydia wasn’t so sure about any of the chicken, since it wasn’t McDonald’s or Chik-fil-A all-white meat chicken, but MeiMei ate it all up. She’s definitely a meat girl like Lydia was when she first came home. Brian and I both enjoyed something that wasn’t noodles again!

We headed back home and since it was so busy and dark, we were walking 2 by 2 – me and MeiMei and Brian and Lydia. I could tell that MeiMei was getting tired, so I tried to carry her, but she would have none of that. Only Baba was good enough to carry her. It brought back memories of Lydia wanting to be “bobo-ed” all the time. I don’t think MeiMei will want it very often, but after being on her feet all day and trying to keep up with our big strides, I think she was happy to be carried. One thing about Chinese children that seems strange is that they don’t hold on when you carry them. It seems like it would be a natural thing to cling, but they just sit there like a sack of potatoes! Well, Lydia wanted to join in the bobo-ing fun, so I carried her piggyback for a while. She’s getting to be quite the load! She also tried giving MeiMei a piggyback ride in the hotel.

Lydia wanted to blog tonight, but she is sleeping. We told her to lay down so MeiMei could fall asleep. Brian asked if I wanted to bet on who would be asleep faster…Lydia won, by the way! Another long day in the books for the Peterson four.
Last night it took me almost two hours to get the blog written and posted, because the wifi and VPN kept going out. I decided to write on Word tonight, so I don’t end up getting the blog partway done and not getting it to save. Here’s hoping we’ll have fast internet connection! I can’t believe that tomorrow is the day before Thanksgiving. If we were home, I’d be stressing out about making pies and thawing the turkey. I hope everyone is enjoying the day!

Matching Matching

More Matching Matching

MeiMei enjoying the breakfast buffet

Our huge stack of money!

Stamping our signature

Sisters

...But I'm not tired!

Looks like Wisconsin!

The shopping mall is shaped like a Mongolian hat.

Mongolian dancer statues

Ruthie

This morning we got up and went to a breakfast buffet that topped the one in Beijing according to Lydia. She was pretty overwhelmed with all the different choices. Where else can you find noodles, dumplings, pancakes and doughnuts at one time? I'm pretty sure if she could live in hotels, Lydia would never leave China!
We had to exchange money for the orphanage donation, so a banker came to the hotel to change it for us so we didn't have to go to the bank. I'm not sure if this was under the table, but he gave us the right exchange rate, so whatever! We had to exchange quite a bit of cash and the biggest bill they have in China is 100 RMB, which is like $14.50. So we have a stack of 450 bills! It is crazy. He gave us a bag to take the money in.
A few minutes later, in walked MeiMei. She and the dean of the orphanage came on the train from Baotou to Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia (her province). They had some papers for us to fill out and they had a bunch of stuff that they had brought for MeiMei - a Barbie, some crayons and pencils, a set of Paw Patrol toys, a video game player, etc. They also brought back the bear we sent to her with another Baotou mom, and the picture album we sent to her. They gave us a book that has a picture of her each month (I think) and information in Chinese about her growth. We got a stack of pictures of her through the years and a CD with more pictures on it. I'm so excited that we have that for her. We also got a stack of her school books too. She has been working on writing a lot.
We had to get our picture taken together for the paper. It also goes into the official paperwork that finalizes our paperwork. She wasn't quite sure she wanted to get that close to us!
The dean left and she was ok. Since it was the dean that brought her and not her nanny, she wasn't too concerned. She was also trying to play the video game and that distracted her. When our guide got ready to leave and told MeiMei that she was going with us, she wasn't too sure she wanted to do that. She went with us and we headed up to our hotel room. She came in and sat in the chair. We tried to get her to take her coat off, but she wanted nothing to do with that. She sat in the chair for the next few hours. We tried to get her to play, but she really didn't want to do anything. She was trying to be brave, we could tell, but she was crying alligator tears. She kept getting up to get Kleenex and then throw the Kleenex in the trash can.
Our guide ordered us noodles so that we could just stay in the room to eat. We tried to get her to eat something, but she just sat there. She did find some Minnie Mouse stickers and she was sticking those to a bunch of things and gave quite a few to Brian and Lydia and one to me. After lunch we all laid down to try to get her to take a nap, which she does regularly. Brian tried putting her in bed, but she definitely didn't want that. She got back into the chair, with her coat still on and snuggled under her blanket. She finally fell asleep. We let her sleep for an hour and then started moving around so she would wake up.
After her nap, she was a little more interested in us. I had downloaded an app to try to translate some questions. We knew there was a park nearby, so we asked if she wanted to go outside and go to the park. That was a definite yes! I was hoping the app didn't ask her if she wanted to go to Disneyland or something, because she seemed pretty excited! We found the park, thanks to Google Maps and walked around for a while. It did have an amusement park there, but since it's November and cold, the rides were covered and closed. We were hoping to find some toys to play on, but not such luck. We did find an exercise park, which Lydia thought was almost as good. In China, there are these exercise parks on every block it seems like. The people (especially the old ones, it seems) come out to the park to stretch and work out. It was the end of the work day and some people were there exercising. This is how the Chinese stay young and active. There was a set of parallel bars and we saw a 70+ man push himself up and hold himself. Another man was doing pull-ups on a high bar. Lydia used the bars to play on and the sit-up benches as slides. I was afraid we were going to get chewed out for letter her do it, but they kind of just ignored the crazy Americans!
On the way back to the hotel, we passed another exercise park. They one had an actual slide. Lydia went down and tried to MeiMei to come with her, but she didn't want to go down the slide. After a few tries, Lydia got MeiMei to hold her hand while she went down the slide. Lydia would run back to the ladder and MeiMei would run after her. There was no convincing her to try it. Maybe we can go back tomorrow and see if her courage is up!
We came back and the girls colored and played for a bit. It was getting late and we decided we should go get some supper. I looked on Google Maps again and found a bakery across the street and some other restaurants, but after looking out the window of our 14th floor room, we realized that crossing the street at this point may not be the easiest thing to do. We would have to go down to a stoplight and it is a ways down the street. We headed to another bakery and a convenience store that was listed on the map. We ended up with bananas, Cup Noodles (which Lydia has been begging for), some chips, and Oreo cookies. It was something easy we could bring back to the room and eat together. On the way there and back, Lydia and MeiMei were holding hands and being silly. Lydia loves her so much already and MeiMei at least likes Lydia. :)
While we made the noodles, the girls were coloring some more and MeiMei started singing the ABC song! After el-em-min-oh-pea, she got a little lost, but oh well. At least she has been trying. They were pointing out letters on the computer keyboard too. When the noodles were done we ate on the floor picnic style. While we were eating, MeiMei was jabbering away in Chinese. She was telling Lydia what to do, I'm pretty sure. We tried to get her to say the words into a translation app so we could tell what she was saying. That proved to be the entertainment for the night! We were literally rolling on the floor laughing. The best one was the translation - "What about the controversial images of me and my sister?" Who knows what she was saying. Probably something about Lydia - JieJie - because we could understand that. It was so funny. She kept saying the same thing and it kept translating it differently!
After supper we used the app to say that they were going to take a bath. We convinced Lydia to get into the bathtub with her. MeiMei didn't think that she wanted to do that because she'd already been washed today (we got that from a decent app translation). I had Lydia get in the bath and start playing and it was just a matter of seconds before she went in to see what Lydia was doing and started taking her clothes off. The two of them played in the bathtub for 30-45 minutes - spraying each other and having loads of fun! They got out, put on their matching/matching jammies from Auntie Shana and hopped into bed. They were both so tired. It was literally a matter of seconds before they were both snoring! Hopefully they both stay asleep for a long time tonight. Lydia has been told to get up and sleep on the floor if she wakes up since her incessant wiggling is sure to wake up MeiMei.
Please pray for good sleeping and for the bonding process. I'm sure that we aren't over the grieving that will take place, and seeing people she knows tomorrow and especially on Thursday might be hard for her. My heart just breaks thinking of how hard this must be for her. I know it is for her ultimate good, but it's so hard to see her sad.
Just a quick explanation of her name before I head for bed...Her full name is Ruth Lois XuanYi Peterson. She will receive paperwork with that name from the American consulate. We had to send the name in ahead of time, so we have had this picked out for a while.
We wanted something that would fit with Lydia. I had a few names picked out, but finally settled on Ruth, no thanks to Brian. He figured that I was going to pick the name out anyway, so why waste his mental energy thinking about it. It was kind of frustrating, and I kept second guessing myself, but now that we've met, I think she's Ruthie through and through.
As a teacher, it's hard to choose a name, because some of them have totally been ruined for you by former or current students. I did have a student named Ruthie back in the early days at CCS, but she was such a sweet and hardworking girl that I had no problem using the name Ruthie. I love the strength and grace that Ruth(ie) portrays. Ruth means "Friend" or "Compassionate Friend" and from the pictures and videos that we received, I just thought this fit her. We chose the middle name Lois after Brian's Aunt Lois who passed away last year. She was a wonderful, godly woman, and I thought it would be a special thing to be able to tell Ruthie about her Great-Aunt Lois. My grandmother's name is also Lois, although she always went by Bunny. I also like the tie to my side of the family. XuanYi is part of her Chinese name, Wang XuanYi. We found out today that at the orphanage, they call her Xuan Xuan or Xuan Yi, so I'm glad that we kept that part. I also found out that Yi is pronounced "EE", which is kind of cool because that was my nickname growing up - "E" or "Miss E".
I'm off to bed. Hopefully everyone will stay asleep all night long!

Lydia's breakfast of champions!

She wanted nothing to do with any of us

The 4 Petersons with Miss Xue, the orphanage dean

You can never have too many noodles, can you?

Sleeping, in the chair, with a coat, 2 layers of clothing, and a blanket. She was so sweaty when she woke up!

Sisters!

Some of the hilarious translations

More noodles

Matching-Matching!!!

Inner Mongolia Bound

Today we didn't have anything scheduled until our flight out of town at 4:20pm. We had the whole morning to ourselves. We got up a little later - I think we're starting to get more used to the time - about 7:00am. We hung around the room and took our time getting ready and headed for our last breakfast in Beijing. Lydia had at least 7 or 8 dumplings plus some wanton soup, rice, and other of her favorite Chinese breakfast dishes. We met another American family in the breakfast buffet. They were on vacation there in Beijing because the dad was stationed in Korea with the army. They ate breakfast with us and we talked about what we had seen and what they were going to be seeing. They had just arrived the night before and they were really excited to go see the Great Wall. It was fun talking to some other people who can converse easily with you. :)
Since we didn't have anything planned for the morning, we decided to pack everything up, so we would know exactly how much time we had. We finished packing around 9:00am and decided to head to the Temple of Heaven. It was about 1.5 km away from our hotel. It took us about 30 minutes to walk there. Lydia did not enjoy the walk there. She wanted to just be there. Once we got there, we enjoyed walking all around the park and going into some of the buildings that are a part of the Temple of Heaven.
The Temple of Heaven was built around the same time as the Forbidden City - in the early 1400's. It is so amazing to think that the places we went today were around before Columbus! Anyway, the Temple of Heaven is a huge garden that is walled in along with many buildings for different prayers and sacrifices that the emperor would have made on a yearly basis. One of the times the emperor would come to this location was in the spring to ask the ancestors/gods to bless their crops. There were other parts where the emperor would give thanks for the good things that happened throughout the year. There were different buildings for each prayer and for each sacrifice. There was also a palace where the emperor would stay for at least three days before the ceremonies. The entire place was HUGE. We went to a few of the places, but there were many more things would could have seen. I remembered something of this place from when I was in China in college.
Since we needed to be ready for our pickup for the airport, we only were able to spend about 2 hours there. At the end we were on the northeast side of the gardens, but we needed to be on either the south or the east. We high tailed it to the East exit and practically ran home. We had to be ready for our 1/1:30pm pick up. We were back, brought our suitcases down, and ate our lunch of specialty breads from the bakery next door, with time to spare.
Our guide took us to the airport and got us checked in. Since we had a child with us, they let us go in a special shorter line! We were able to check 4 of our suitcases which made for an easier time getting to our gate. We got to our gate and sat there for about an hour and a half before it was time for our flight to board. Lydia and I were in a different place than Brian. We knew the flight was super short, so we didn't bother asking someone to move. Lydia was excited because we were in zone 1 for boarding. Little did we know that the zones in China are really not important. As soon as they announced that they were going to start boarding for Hohhot, everyone on the plane ran to form a line. We were toward the last people to get on. I guess now that we know what will happen, we will have to try it out again in China!
The flight to Hohhot (which by the way is spelled differently each time I see it) was uneventful and short. It seemed like we were on the runway waiting for our turn for as long as it took us to fly there. I was surprised that we weren't taking the bullet train, but we found out there aren't any bullet trains to from Beijing to Hohhot. And with our over abundance of luggage, I was glad not to have to lug that on and off the train.
We arrived in Hohhot and were greeted at the airport by our guide Aggie. She's the same guide my cousins had and she remembered them when I showed her their picture. She's been great so far in getting us set up. She pointed out some restaurants on the way to the hotel so we would know where to eat and made sure we were settled before leaving.
We were all tired and hungry, so we decided to go to the closest restaurant to the hotel. We had, you guessed it, noodles. I told Brian tonight that I have had way too many carbs. I'm dying for a salad, but since we can't eat raw veggies here in China, noodles it is.
Tomorrow is the day we get MeiMei. We're still waiting to hear the time. They are taking the train here, so we have to find out tomorrow when the train will arrive. We know it won't be too early in the morning. I'm hoping we will all be able to sleep in and rest up because I know that tomorrow will be exciting, but probably tiring too.
Lydia really wanted to blog tonight, but she fell asleep again. Hopefully tomorrow. since we don't have anything set for the morning, she can write a blog post. She's been taking pictures and she want to show those to you all too. By the way, Gracie...she thinks she might be getting almost as good as you at taking pictures!!! :)

Everything is so ornate and beautiful. 

Lydia trying to kiss the dragon!

This juniper tree is over 500 years old. When the pilgrims were landing, this tree was already old. It's so crazy to think about that!

The attention to detail is amazing.