And now, it's my pleasure to introduce to you our much delayed blog about our China trip. I'll start from the beginning.
On Saturday, July 28th, after a 4:30AM train ride to Seoul, a five hour airport delay (too much traffic at the Incheon/Seoul airprot) we were finally on our way to Tianjin, China (there weren't any tickets left for Beijing- I'm still working on the logic of an entire country of 55 million people taking a vacation during the same 5 days). Once in Tianjin we were planning on taking a bus to the Beijing airport. However, upon arrival, we learned that this bus is only imaginary and only real in the world of the internet. So, eventually we decided just to take a long-distance taxi to Beijing about 2 hours away. The ride was wild and our taxi was even equipped with a siren that sounded like a police car so that people would move out of his way faster.
Once at the Beijing airport we met up with Jeremy, the volunteer coordinator for ChinaCare, a children's home (kind of similar to an orphanage, but kind of not) in Beijing. ChinaCare has a good relationship with a few Chinese orphanages and has it arranged that the children who are in need off medical attention, ChinaCare will assume responsibility, arranges for the necessary medical attention, arranges for foster care etc. It truly is an amazing organization and Jeremy was incredibly kind and helpful during our time there.
Ok, back to our trip. We headed to our hotel for the week, the Hong Kong Yuan Hotel about a 30 minute walk to the children's home. Nice. The cost you ask? Umm, about 200 kaui a night, equivalent to $30 USD. Wow. It wasn't fancy and the dust was thick, but otherwise the room was clean, the air conditioning worked, and a water dispenser. Then, it was time for the day to end. Woke up at 3:45AM, 20 minute walk to train station, 3 1/2 hour train ride, 1 hour bus ride to Incheon airport, 5 hours of waiting, 1 1/2 hours of flying, 2 hours in a taxi, 9PM- sleep came quickly.
Sunday
Jeremy invited us to church with him, a body of expatriate believers living in Beijing. There were about 100 people there and it was so wonderful to worship in our native tongue. After worship a number of the attendees went out for lunch at a restaurant overlooking a beautiful lake. It also gave us a chance to get to know some of the other church members and hear about their experiences. It was an interesting collection of people, Americans, Englishmen, diplomats, people who work with orphans, etc. We hadn't eaten with so many Westerners since arriving in Korea, so it was fun to relax a bit and not worry about cultural dining etiquette (and unlike Korea, there are very few rules in Chinese dining). After lunch we headed back to the Children's Home and Jeremy oriented us to the ChinaCare organization.
The children in the Beijing home, mostly, have some type of mental or physical illness or disability. There were quite a few kids there with cleft palates, spindabifida, hydroencephalitis, heart problems, or were born without an anus. The babies ended up in the orphanage for a variety of reasons, maybe they were the second child- China has a one child policy, physical deformity- parents don't want a deformed child, or maybe the parents were too poor to pay for the surgery needed for their child's life threatening condition. Can you imagine, giving up your baby because you couldn't pay for their surgery? Wow.
Jeremy showed us around the children's home. There were 4 units, each with about 8-10 infants/toddlers in them and about 4-5 nannies caring for their needs. We decided to spend our days in BCH 3, the toddler room. Our hearts grew so attached to them during our 6 short days there. Our main job was to simply play with the babies. Interact with them, hold them, play with them. It was wonderful. We spent a lot of time with all 8 of the babies in our unit, but we each seemed to gravitate toward one child in particular. My "little guy" had a heart condition which surgery has since corrected. Now, from all I can tell, he's a perfectly normal baby who loved to be held. Seth's "little guy"... we still haven't figured what's medical condition he has. He was just learning to walk and Seth was wonderful about guiding him along and steadying him when he stumbled. It was fun to watch them discover new things, to watch them laugh when they say their faces in the mirror, go on walks, etc. My heart aches to be back with them.
Interlude for tangent-Beijing experience will continue after this brief tangent
I am struck by the fact that these babies have no mothers. These babies have no fathers. Think about this. The babies called all of the nannies their mothers because they're the only mothers they'd ever known. It simply tears at my heart, there's people who can give them good homes. I think of Korean culture that so highly values blood lines, that adoption is looked down upon, and dictates that the child will just be ostracized because he/shes adopted. I don't care what your culture says. It's a human being. End of tangent. Thank you.
For suppers during the week we usually at a restaurant near the children's home. Their menus had pictures and the prices were clearly labeled (definite help). Here we enjoyed lamb kebabs, and other crazy greasy Chinese dishes. Usually we ate our fill for around $3 total. So, we spent 2-9PM every day in the children's home. And, I bet you're asking, well, what did you do in the mornings. Well, let me tell you...
Monday morning: rested, went grocery shopping, and bought A LOT of food for approximately $7. Wonderful. By the way, ice cream is incredibly cheap in China. Seth and I bought popsicles for about 30cents.
Tuesday morning: Great Wall of China! Wahoo! We woke up at 5:30AM, hopped in our taxi that Jeremy had arranged for us and set off to check out the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, about an hour away from where we were in Beijing. Truly, it was a fantastic sight. We arrived at about 7AM and were one of the first people on the wall that morning. We took a ski lift to the top of the mountains where the wall was located. It was breathtaking. I lack the words and the intelligence to adequately describe the awesomeness of looking at the winding expanse of the Great Wall. We were on one of the restored sections but we were able to get close enough to the non-restored sections to marvel at how well, even the original sections had withstood the test of time. We took A LOT of pictures (check out photobucket)! The day was beautiful. About 10AM the wall began to get crowded and it started to get hot!! When we had drunk in all the beautiful scenery we hopped on a toboggan down to the bottom where our wonderful taxi driver was waiting for us. I'm not joking about the toboggan ride. It was a little sled that we each rode down. I screamed the whole time. Just for the record Seth did too. Ok, now, he denies it. He says he only screamed twice. Decide for yourself. For those thinking about taking a trip to the Great Wall, it is totally worth it to hire a taxi for the day. They pick you up, take you to where you need to go, and wait for you until you're ready to leave.
Wednesday morning:
Summer place, Beijing. This place is officially on my list of "Top Ten Most Beautiful Places in the World of Emily." It's where the king and queen spent their summer vacations. Their summer home is located on a huge beautiful lake, lined with trees, lotus flowers, and beautiful ornate buildings. Please look at our pictures. I'm not even going to try to describe it. Of note- Seth and I were enjoying uber cheap popsicles here when a part of mine fell on the ground. I picked it right back up, dusted it off, and ate it. For lunch we enjoyed some cold noodles. The waitress said they were "Chinese noodles" though the English translation clearly said "Korean cold noodle." I was so distracted and distraught by the fact that she called them Chinese noodles that I could hardly eat. My students would be so mad to find out what she'd called the noodles Chinese.
Thursday morning:
Temple of Heaven. Simply beautiful. It's surrounded by a huge park where many Chinese people spend their mornings (and afternoons probably too) doing yoga exercises, learning to sword fight, and simply chatting. It was delightful. The Temple of Heaven is where the emperor, once a year, would come to pray for a good harvest and thank God for a bountiful harvest. We bought some street food for way cheap and ate next to a river in downtown Beijing. WonderfulA lesson learned: don't trust the rickshaw drivers around the tourist stops, they will rip you off. We arranged to take one for 20kuai b/c we thought it'd be fun. When we arrived at the summer place, he wanted 20kuai for each person. A ridiculous price. My advice- just take a taxi. We rode the rickshaws around our neighborhood near the children's home and had no problem, but exercise extreme caution in the touristy areas.
Friday morning:
Tiennamen Square, Forbidden City and Silk Street. We wanted to go to Mao's Mausoleum and see either Mao's embalmed body or just the wax version (they switch it every so often so you don't actually know which one you're looking at) but it was undergoing reconstruction in preparation for the Olympics in 2008. Bummer. Tiannamen Square was huge and impressive. The Forbidden City too did not disappoint. Seriously, plan to spend the whole day there and still not see everything. We had to walk through it pretty quickly but the buildings, the architecture, and the history were incredible. One that stands out to me was looking into the queen's quarters, seeing her suite, and also where she would eventually hang herself when problems with the military arose. Then we hopped on the subway and went down to the Silk Street Market and looked around at all the different vendors for a while. It was kind of fun to bargain with them and look at all the products for sale.
Saturday morning:
Trip back to Korea. We rode on our hotel shuttle to the Beijing airport (actually we rode with some guy in his car b/c the hotel shuttle was too full) and found the "bus" to the Tianjin airport. I use "bus" because it was actually just a van with us and two kids in the backseat. And it really didn't take us to the airport but got us pretty close and dropped us off nearby. A taxi took us the rest of the way to the airport. Our flight was only delayed 30 minutes this time. Nice. I was starting to feel a little sick and hot and by the time we arrived back in Gumi (about 9PM Saturday night) I was definitely sick. I had a temperature that ranged from about 100F-102.8F, sore throat, stuffy nose, plugged ears. I was pretty miserable. We still haven't figured out what was wrong. I'm still not 100% but I'm definitely better. I'm wondering if our hotel, rather than buying water to put in our water dispenser just refilled it with tap water because it was cheaper. Or it could have been allergies as I have a small allergy to dust and mold and our hotel room was definitely high on the dusty side.
But it also reminded me what an awesome husband I have. All day Sunday he tended to my every need as I laid in bed moaning and whining. He had a lot of things he probably really wanted to get done, but instead, he was there by my side. Truly, I treasure his love and patience.