One day more

The dad here again. Tomorrow is the day, and it can't come soon
enough.

As with last time with Kiyomi, it has been great to have this period
of time to get to know Ren a little, and to spend some time seeing the
home country of our kids. However, we are both very tired of trying
to entertain a couple of high-energy kids in a 300 sqft space, of
pulling out every trick we know to keep those kids quiet and well-
behaved in restaurants, and of struggling to keep them from getting
run over by bikes, scooters, cars, buses and trucks every time we step
out the door. We long for the normalness of home, of familiar beds,
of predictability, of controllable environments, of greenspace, of
playgrounds, and of potable water.

Today was a difficult day, and especially for Tamara. Ren still needs
Tamara. Since we got him, there has been only a single meal (out of
34, but who's counting) where Tamara has been able to eat without a
messy, wriggling toddler on her lap. There have been precious few
instances where she has been able to shower or go to the bathroom
without a wimpering toddler coming to look for her. There has not
been a single hug that Tamara has been able to give to Kiyomi without
a panicked Ren coming running. Every struggle to get Ren to fall
asleep has been made by Tamara. We're grateful that Ren finds comfort
in Tamara. However, it is not overstating things to say that he is
sapping her.

For the most part, my role has been logistics, and Kiyomi-minder. As
a new big sister, Kiyomi has been fantastic. There have been little
tussles but by and large, Kiyomi has stood tall, helping when she can,
and handling the threat to her supremacy in this family with suprising
and impressive maturity. In truth, we wish we have been able to
handle the challenges as well as she has. There has been more than
one instance where we have snapped at her for some trivial and
understanding action on her part, or some misbehaviour which is
clearly an attention-seeking effort, because we are harried from doing
something for Ren, or because our patience had run unfairly thin.

I have only been able to ease the load on Tamara occasionally, usually
by engaging in some entertainment involving trucks and buses. You
never know what feature of a hotel is going to come in handy. With
this hotel, it has been the elevator bay on our floor that looks out
on to a major street. Ren can be entertained for very long periods of
time by watching out for buses, motorcycles, trucks, and bicycles, and
there is great excitement when a policecar with its flashing lights
passes, or a cement truck rumbles by. We survived yesterday's
unexpected 3-hr sit in traffic on the way home from the Wall by having
Ren spend 2 hours of it watching out for passing interesting
vehicles. The only book that entertains him is one that has all sorts
of different vehicles in it. However, this book may be the most
challenging one that I've ever read. It's not easy coming up with
different sounds for policecars, ambulances and fire engines, not to
mention trucks, buses, bulldozers and cement mixers. What's even more
challenging is trying to remember what sound you used for each the
next time you read the book.

Lest the above shed Ren in an unfair light, there is no doubt that Ren
is an overwhelmingly happy kid. He spends much of his time smiling,
and there is great excitement in everything he does. He is friendly,
is outgoing, and is quite affectionate. His silliness will one day
rival Kiyomi's, and there is no doubt that the fun these two have
together will only grow.

Today was a fairly uneventful day. A little shopping in the morning
to pick up some snacks and toys for the flight home, a swim in the
afternoon following Ren's nap, and then a dinner at the buffet
downstairs. We had an opportunity to go see the Summer Palace, but we
opted to keep things low key. Tomorrow, we kill time until our 2pm
departure from the hotel for our 6pm flight. 13 hours or so later, we
touch down in Toronto, go through immigration, go through customs,
hopefully say hi to Miyo, and then off for our final one-hour leg back
to Ottawa and home.

Thank you China, for having us, for welcoming back Kiyomi, and for
gracing us with a son. We leave you tired, and more than a little
homesick, but we will most certainly be back.

For the last time for now, goodnight from Beijing.

The Wall

Today dawned clear and sunny. In fact, it was the clearest day I'd
ever experienced in China. The sky was a sparkly blue, the air seemed
relatively clear and there were only a few fluffy white clouds.

In other words, it was almost a picture perfect day for the Great
Wall... once we got through all the traffic of course. Traffic in
Beijing is something to experience. Not only does it move at a snails
pace for no apparent reason, other than the obvious ridiculous number
of cars on the road, but there is no such thing as rules of the road.
Lights, lines, lanes - those are all merely suggestions. A honk
doesn't mean "excuse me, coming through" here. No, a honk means "I'm
coming through no matter what, so you best get out of the way".

Our bus crawled along for an hour and a half before it hit some
semblance of open road. Just when we really started to role, we hit
the jade factory. There are 6 sections of the wall open up to public
viewing. It doesn't matter how you choose to visit the Wall or what
section you choose to see, you will stop at a jade factory. It's part
of the experience, so no sense fighting it.

Of course, the jade factory with all these intricate carvings with big
signs saying DO NOT TOUCH is just one big land of temptation to a
toddler. Kohji and I took turns trying to prevent Ren from riding a
jade tiger or jumping on a massive carved frog. Although, there was
one unexpected benefit from all the carvings of tigers and crocodiles -
Ren learned the word teeth. For the better part of an hour, he was
running around the place staring into the faces of one snarling animal
or another, pointing to his own grinning mouth and saying 'teef'.

For my part, I tried to find something suitable to replace the jade
bangle I had bought on our last trip. There is a tradition in China
for mothers to wear jade bracelets which they hand down to their
daughters. I had bought a lovely one that I was admiring in our
kitchen shortly after arriving home back in 2006, with a wee little
Kiyomi in my arms. I handed her the bangle, despite Kohji's words of
caution, and just as I was smugly saying to Kohji that the bracelet
was indestructable, Kiyomi dropped it and I had three lovely pieces of
jade on the kitchen floor. I wisely decided against the bangle this
time in favour of something a little less shatterable.

The jade factories are interesting placed catering uniquely to
visitors to the Wall by providing shopping and a restaurant on site.
The factory effectively serves people until mid-afternoon after which
I guess it's too late for visitors to the Wall. When we were leaving
at a little before 2, they were shutting down the place.

Miraculously, the weather stayed bright and clear for our entire visit
to the Wall, as the pictures show. Our last visit was completely
socked in, and the only views we were able to get were into the fog.
This time, we were able to see the Wall snake along the ridge of the
hills and climb towards the heavens. With Ren in the carrier and
Kiyomi all primed for an adventure (as she put it), we set out to
climb a relatively short section at Juyyonguan. While the climb
itself was much shorter and less onerous than the section we climbed
last time, it did provide a magnificent view of the Wall across the
valley. And it was obviously the perfect length for Kiyomi who
chattered away the whole way up, with periodic stops to yell at the
others in our group behind - "You ok guys? It's ok that I'm the
fastest you know." Ren, on the other hand, was conscious for about
the first 5 minutes of the climb. Poor kid made it to the top of a
section of the Great Wall, and was out cold for the entire thing.

Once again, the temperature was much more forgiving than our last Wall
excursion and there were very few people. In fact, when we reached
the top of our little section, we were effectively alone for the full
10 minutes or so we were up there. I didn't think it was possible to
be alone anywhere in China.

While I stood on this momentus piece of history, what I marveled at
most was not the fact that the Qing emperor built this massive
architectural marvel across 5000 kilometers, not the number of lives
lost in order to construct it across the backs of mountains, not even
the fact that it all proved to be a useless endeavour as the Mongols
still managed to invade China and place two Mongolian emperors on the
throne. Nope, what amazed me was the commodification of the place. I
was almost tempted to buy my "I climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt while
I was sucking on my popsicle beside what was once a massive watch
tower, but thought better of it.

After some rejuvenating ice cream, we all climbed onto the bus for the
50 kms or so ride back to Beijing. Unfortunately, the ride turned
into a 3 hour crawl through Beijing traffic. The trip was a harbinger
of what the 13+ hour flight will be with Ren, and it ain't pretty.
Now, if we could only manage to have buses and trucks appear out the
airplane windows, we might be ok. Kiyomi, on the other hand, wanted
to sit at the front of the bus, so she plopped herself down beside one
of the other moms on the front row and proceeded to chatter for the
next hour. I didn't overhear the entire conversation, but I did catch
references to "Mika, who's my cousin and a little silly", "I'm doing
the front crawl now" and "Skiing's fun, but you have to go fast." I
can't even imagine what else she was nattering away to Heather about,
but I was happy she was well enteretained (many thanks to Heather).

We arrived back with just enough time to get out of our sweaty clothes
and splash water on our faces before heading out for a Peking duck
dinner. Thankfully, the restaurant was just around the corner. The
food was good and certainly plentiful, but the kids were wrangy and
wiggly. Thankfully, the staff took a particular interest in our
rather wrangy kids and seemed happy to play with them for a bit in the
lobby while we each shoveled food into our faces. One gentlemen in
particular - the maitre'd I think - had all sorts of questions about
them. Unfortunately, said questions were all in Chinese. I'm not
sure what he really wanted to know, but I answered in English and he
looked at me blankly. To be honest, he may have been asking me to get
my kids the heck out of his restaurant, while I'm smiling and nodding
and telling him their ages. Ah well, they all had big smiles and
goodbyes for the kids when we were leaving and the maitre d' kept
whistling some sort of bird song to Ren, so really it couldn't have
been all bad.

Tomorrow is our last full day in China. There is a wee bit of sadness
that comes on at this stage in the trip knowing that we'll be taking
the kids away from the country of their birth, and as a result,
denying them the opportunity to get to know this country and their
heritage. We have also settled into a routine as a family, and while
temporary, all routines bring comfort and the prospect of starting
anew is always daunting.

There is a half day excursion planned for the summer palace, but we'll
likely skip it in favour of loading up on sweet milk (Ren's favourite
drink) and airplane distractions. If anyone out there knows of any
good airplane games or toys, please let us know, cause we're gonna
need'em.

Good night from Beijing.

Hitting the highlights

Miracles do happen. I, all by myself, have managed to bath, pajama
and put to bed both kids (Kohji was out looking for diapers). Ok,
sure, it helps that we dragged them all over Beijing in the hot sun,
but hey, don't knock my accomplishment. At this stage, I'm taking my
kudos where I can.

Today was effectively your consolidated tour of the Beijing
highlights - the Forbidden City, Tianenmen Square and the Temple of
Heaven all in one day. We'd been to Tianenmen and the Forbidden City
before, but it felt positively frigid compared to the 35 degree heat
of last time. Not to mention the fact that there were mere thousands
there this time, instead of tens of thousands. All this was a good
thing, given that this time, we also had to chase an exuberate toddler
and try to prevent him from gumming up the Empress Dowagers writings
by introducing cookie dust to the parchments.

The day started at the North Gate of the Forbidden City, which meant
we were effectively moving backwards. The North Gate was the entrance
reserved for the concubines. A bit of a contrast from the last trip,
where we entered at the South Gate under the protrait of Chairman
Mao. Sort of a juxtaposition of Chinese history and traditions. It
was interesting to see the scenes that'd we'd seen last time, but also
have the opportunity to notice more and different angles and areas.
It would take a lifetime of visits to truely take in, and appreciate,
the entire place. However, on the second visit, it was easier to
imagine the would-be concubines lined up along the north wall, waiting
to be chosen to enter the palace, carrying the honour of their family
with them.

We chased Ren through concubine palaces and around stone dragons, up
ancient steps and through glorious archways. At one point, I did find
myself looking longingly at the families with the wee little non-
mobile ones, but then Ren took off down a ramp and there wasn't any
more time to long for immobility. For Ren, the entire place was like
a giant climbing structure and he wasn't wasting any time. If nothing
else, it gave me some new perspectives, such as the fact that stone
dragon scuppers are great for hanging on!

Spilling into Tianenmen Square was eerily similar to last time. Yet
again, we were a bit of a tourist attraction for the Chinese tourists
in Beijing and we had our picture taken by a number of people as we
strolled along. Some were subtle, others were more willing to stand
dead in front of you and snap away. One group asked if they could
have their picture taken with us! I can't help but wonder what it is
they exactly say to their family and friends if they show off their
vacation pictures - "Oh ya, and these were the crazy foreigners we saw
in Tianenmen. They adopted Chinese babies and look at all the stuff
they're dragging around with them!"

We then headed to a 100 year old noodle shop for lunch. The place
itself was interesting, the noodles were good, but the real highlight
for Kiyomi was that she developed her first crush. One of the waiters
took a shine to her and gave her a couple of smiles, and that was it,
she was smitten. She kept coyly looking at him and forced her dad to
walk her down his way. The kicker was when I said to her, "oh, he's
cute" and her response was "no mom, he's handsome"!

After lunch, we visited the Temple of Heaven, which was where the
Emperor would come to pray for good rain and crops. The Temple itself
was appropriately grandiose, but more interesting was the festival
atmosphere in the outer gardens. There were your usual vendors, but
there were also people playing music (including Beijing Opera karaoke-
style), a bunch of older people playing hacky-sac with a feathered
version of the ball, a gentleman signing opera (sounded Italian to me)
and a general feel of merriment and community activity.

Given all that, the kids did surprisingly well. We have a stroller
with a little platform on the back, which was ostensibly supposed to
be for Kiyomi. However, seems our kids like to do things a little
differently - Ren prefers the board and Kiyomi the seat. Whatever
works.

Ren is getting more and more comfortable with Kohji everyday, as well
as will Obaachan and Ojiichan. He still likes me to be in sight and
will come to me for comfort, but I suspect it won't be long before
mommy and daddy are interchangeable. We capped off the evening with a
bath - which is the favourite activity. In fact, when I turned on the
bathtub tab earlier today for another purpose, Ren came tearing into
the bathroom, cars in hand. It took some coaxing to convince him that
bathtime would be later.

Tomorrow - the Great Wall (for real this time, as Kiyomi would say).
Not sure how that will work out, but we'll give it a go. Wish us luck.

Good night, from Beijing.

All Clear

Another imposter entry here as Tamara has fallen asleep with the
kids. The routine has been for me to read with Kiyomi while Tamara
lies with Ren until Ren falls asleep, and then Tamara gets up and
blogs. Tonight, Ren wasn't quite ready for sleep, which meant that he
was making all sorts of silly noises, which had Kiyomi laughing in
fits, which encouraged Ren to make more silly noises, which caused us
to tell Kiyomi to try not to laugh, which had poor Kiyomi trying (and
failing) to keep her guffaws in, which had her making even funnier
noises, which caused Ren to... well you get the idea. Bottom line,
the kids vanquished Tamara, and I think she's out for the count.

Well, the super exciting excursion today was 3 hours at the SOS
International medical clinic to get the immigration physicals done.
Ren came out A-OK with no real issues. He endured the blue-sweater
removal and shoe removal with aplomb, and didn't seem to mind the
poking and prodding too much. The most important news for us is that
the hole in his heart seems to be shrinking - Dr. Chen, the Canadian
doc at the clinic who examined Ren told us that if she had not been
told by us in advance, she may not even have noticed the murmur
through her stethoscope. Obviously we won't know the full extent of
the issue until we get the full battery of tests done when we're back
home, but for now anyhow, it all looks good. Certainly any heart
issue isn't slowing him down any!

Given the drudgery of the SOS clinic experience, we were relieved to
have had Kiyomi spending the day with Obaachan and Ojiichan, who took
her to a local park, and then to a Japanese fast-food place for lunch
where she duly impressed her grandparents with her gorging abilities.

After Ren's nap, we decided to see how a family swim might go. Tamara
and I had been alternately taking Kiyomi swimming during Ren's naps
(with Kiyomi suprising us with how quickly she's advancing - front
crawling for short distances now with no floatation devices!). With
Ren's reluctance to remove his clothes, we thought that he would be
not so happy with the swimming experience. However, emboldened by the
bathtime success of last night, we took Ren down to the pool. At
first he just looked stunned, and refused to take off his shoes. So
he stood next to the water in his bathing suit and his shoes, watching
Kiyomi and I swimming about. After Tamara jumped in and coaxed him
in, he took to it like a pro. It seemed clear that he had swum
before, with tons of giggles, and even dipping his face in the water
voluntarily. All in all, it was a good family event.

As another indication of last night's bathtime success, at one point
this afternoon Ren grabbed a bunch of his cars, ran to the bathroom,
threw the cars into the empty tub and then proceeded to climb in,
shoes and all, and play with the cars.

Tonight, we indulged in a little western comfort food and had Pizza
Hut delivered. It was a bit of an ordeal to get the help of the folks
at reception to order the food for us, but once it arrived, we were
happy.

All in all, Kiyomi and Ren are learning their respective boundaries a
little better, and Tamara and I are learning how to define those
boundaries for them better. There are much fewer tussles, and a
little bit more interactive play between them. Kiyomi is still Ren's
favourite toy, and Kiyomi is starting to take on her big-sister role
with pride.

Tomorrow we're off to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden Palace and one
more place whose name slips my mind. The last time we went to
Tiananmen Square, it was blazingly hot, none of us had enough water,
the kids were wilting before our eyes, and the bus was about 45
minutes late picking us up. Hopefully things are a little more
pleasant this time around.

Goodnight from Beijing.

Slow but steady day

We learned a truism tonight. Sometimes, it's your kids who teach you
how to parent.

While Ren is getting better with dressing and undressing, we have been
hesitant to subject him to a full-scale bath. It was time, however,
and so I reluctantly drew the bath, dreading the inevitable drama that
would ensue. While Kohji and I were strategizing on how best to
approach the dunking, we heard a loud kerplunk from the bathroom. We
walked in to see that Kiyomi had dropped a bunch of Ren's toy cars in
the tub, and she announced to us very matter of factly - "now he'll
get in." And she was right. He was chomping at the bit to get in the
tub, and getting naked to do so barely phased him. He and Kiyomi had
a blast splasing and zooming cars around while Kohji and I stood there
dumbfounded and properly chasened by our 4 year old.

A pretty average day overall, so no real pictures. This is probably a
good thing, since we already have over 600 and we still haven't hit
the high touristy spots. The morning was immigration paperwork and
the afternoon was low-key with a nap for Ren. A slight twist was
heading down this back alley to get the visa photos done. Anywhere
else, you would have thought you'd crossed a threshold to old China,
but here, you walk into a photo studio.

Some forward steps - Ren didn't feel a need for his sweater or his
shoes for most of the day. He was pretty content most of the time in
the stroller and he's getting a lot less aggressive when Kiyomi is on
my lap.

Some backwards steps too - getting him to sleep is proving harder and
the only thing that comforts him is clutching food in his hand.
Specifically a piece of white bread and a bottle of sweet milk (what
they call whole milk here as far as I can tell). He may or may not
eat it and it takes him about 15 to 20 minutes of screaming to decide
this is indeed what he wants. He also was more reluctant to go to
Kohji today, though very happy to play with him and crawl all over him
with cars.

Unfortunately, much of the last couple days has been about
establishing a routine, so we've gone to the same places for food and
pretty much stuck close to the hotel. Yet again, I feel like I'm
wasting an opportunity to get to know this country, but the
complexities of helping Ren settle undermines the thrill of discovery
which would be a typical part of travel for us. I crave simplicity
and trying to communicate with hand gestures, smiles and a phrase book
is more than I can handle.

Less than a kilometer from here stands the Malls of Oriental Plaza -
an imported piece of western culture smack dab in the heart of
communist China. Walking through the doors makes you feel like you
instantly travelled back to the familiar, even if the food court has a
pig's feet dish. We've gotten a lot of our meals and goceries from
this place, in no small part because the restaurants have English
menus and the grocery store has an entire section of Japanese food.

Tomorrow, the immigration medical. Not expecting it will be
particularly in depth, but with 5 families, I am expecting it to take
awhile.

Good night from Beijing.