Sunday August 14 about 5:30 am

It's really early in the morning right now on Sunday - I haven't been able to sleep for a while and so I thought I would get up and update the blog. Not sure if I'm still feeling the effects of jet lag or what. The good part is, though, that the internet connection seems to be working well right now - I've had some problems in the past.

I'm writing this without having the benefit of what Sue wrote on Friday. That's because, despite several tries, I can't access the toering family blog site. I don't seem to have a problem accessing other sites that aren't blogs, so it makes me wonder whether blogs are restricted in China - I don't want to say anything more about that issue, though, for perhaps obvious reasons.

Before I begin, I want to attach a few pictures. Unfortunately, I don't have the latest because our camera is in Sue's room and right now she's obviously asleep. (By the way, we need two rooms because the hotels we are staying at don't allow 5 people in a room, even for a suite, and so we have to always get two rooms). Anyway, attached are 3 pictures from a few days ago. There's a picture of our family on the streets of Beijing (including one of the shopping areas), then a picture of Sue negotiating with one of the sales people in Silk Market for a purse, and then finally a picture of some of us at the grocery store right across the street from the hotel. We go there every day to buy bottled water, pop, etc. and the selection is pretty good and of course the prices are quite reasonable.

If I have time, I'll try to attach some more pictures before we begin our day today. I'm not sure I'll make it in time though because today is a busy day - we're heading to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. It's the biggest touring day for us of all the days. It's supposed to be another hot one today - temps in the 90s plus high humidity. The humidity is the biggest issue here right now - since we've been here I think that the humidity has been 100% every day. Hopefully all of us will be able to bear the heat today because we're doing a lot of walking (including up the Great Wall).

Speaking of heat, we really didn't do a lot during the day yesterday because of the heat. The kids (understandably) wanted to stay and swim at the pool and so we did that. We thought about going to the Beijing Zoo but decided against it - and we're glad we did because we talked with another family who did go to the zoo yesterday and they said it was very run down (and of course hot).

More significantly, we also walked around the local area by the hotel yesterday. There's constant activity around there - cars beeping their horns, bike taxis, regular bikes, etc. The most striking thing to me was the number of shops on the streets run by sole proprietors that are very small in size - they might have 5 to 8 feet of street frontage and they aren't very deep either. The proprietors, though, are sitting there in the heat hoping for customers - and I didn't see very many of those at all. I suspect that these business owners work 7 days a week and probably earn very little money. I don't know exactly how best to respond to this - but I wish there were a way out for them and a hope for a different future. If I had more time right now I'd want to say more about this . . .

Last night we went to a local Chinese restaurant for the first time. We had fried corn, beans and beef, and chicken. It was pretty good food and the kids thought it was okay too - except that it took Sarah a little while to figure out how to use the chopsticks!

Since my time is limited this morning, I thought I would end by giving my overall impressions so far. China is a country of contrasts - it does have some modern buildings with lots of lights, etc. (which reminds me of Tokyo), but it seems to me based on our limited time here that this is the exception rather than the rule. More often we see people living in conditions that are not good, and I think that many of them work a lot of hours to do that.

For me personally, this trip is kind of different as well. On the one hand, it's an exciting family vacation for the family and me and we can do all the vacation-type of stuff (i.e., shop, see the Great Wall, etc.). But then I see the poverty and that makes me wonder whether I can simply ignore that, and I can't. So that affects me.

And then, of course, it's more than a vacation - it's a trip to pick up our new daughter. That is supposed to happen tomorrow (Monday) and that hasn't hit me yet. This process has been long and now we're really going to meet Stacie tomorrow (we still haven't decided how to spell her name yet, by the way). I don't know what kind of emotions will come over me, and I'm not sure I'm totally prepared . . . but I guess that's just like any other child birth, right? Right now, I'm almost a little nervous thinking about it - I'm sure it will be an incredible experience tomorrow but it just hasn't hit me yet. Perhaps it will hit me today when we meet the other 10 families that we will be traveling with to the Hunan province tomorrow.

Speaking of meeting the other families, I've got to run. There's a bunch of stuff that needs to be done before we leave, and so I better end this now. If I don't have time to post new pictures, then I'll do that in our next update. Take care and God bless.

Gord