International Hotel in Beijing, China (40.044438,116.367188)
Click the LAT/LON coordinates (WGS84) for our current location
Haze, -3C, Winds NNW 11 km/h

Summary: Tour Day to the Summer Palace and the Silk Market.

Details: Mary, our translator and tour guide organized a trip to the Summer Palace for us this morning. For about 160 yuan ($23 CDN), we received bus transportation to the site and admission. It was about an hour bus ride through some very chaotic Beijing traffic. A very large palace grounds with wooden building and covered walkways whose focal point is a Buddhist temple a top a nearby hillside. The amount of detail and the expansiveness of the grounds was incredible. The palace is currently being painstakingly restored for the Beijing 2008 Olympics and would be a incredible place to visit in the summer. The shots below are a very small sample of the restored areas of the entire palace grounds. The entire structure is hand painted wood that does suffer through the affects of weather and sun.



The Silk Market is a multi-story indoor flea market with every conceivable consumer knockoff and counterfeit good imaginable. Each stall is a an 8x8 cube with some being 16x8 and there are hundreds of them in the market. Each filled with designer goods and staffed by usually Chinese girls. You actually get grabbed by the girls as you wander up and down the corridors and everyone of them will say something to you like, "Hey you needa jeans, besta price for you today". Come look at my stuff." This happens about 15 times in a span of about the 2 minutes that it takes you to walk a corridor. We actually paused and took a break every time we started down a corridor. I will take some video of this next time we are down there....incredible. 2 People in our group were brave enough to buy anything. As an example starting price for a Polo cashmere v-neck sweater was a very high 75 US$ and the final selling price after much haggling and walking away and was 15 US$. Today we are off to the old section of town to the north of the Forbidden City and then the Beijing Acrobats in the afternoon. Tomorrow we fly out to Nanchang for our "Gotcha Day"!!

International Hotel in Beijing, China (40.044438,116.367188)
Click the LAT/LON coordinates (WGS84) for our current location
Sunny, 4C, Winds W 5 km/h

Summary: Information on our first day of travel.

Details: We stayed at my parents place in Toronto (7 minutes from the airport) and got a airline limo to pick us up at 5:45am. The check-in went fairly well with our suitcases both being over weigh. Sandra's at 51.5 lbs and mine at 55 lbs. The lady at the check-in waived all extra fees when Sandra told her where we were traveling and what we were doing. Security check was ok and they paid close attention to the shoes I was wearing as they kept setting the detector off. They put them through the x-ray and at one point I almost thought they were not going to let me on the plane with them. We grabbed a coffee and a muffin each and took a few pictures while we waited. We met the 1 couple and a single traveling with us that would be starting the journey from Toronto with us.



The flights were long! The Vancouver flight was alright and it got us to the airport around 10:30 EST. We met the 4 other couples (the rest of our traveling group) and spend the extra few hours getting to know one another. Our connection to Beijing was late and we hit the runway at 1:45 PM EST. We got to Beijing at 4:20 AM EST. Sandra and I were able to cat-nap but were very tired on arrival. Getting through customs was no problem but we had some decisions about how to answer our customs declaration forms in relation to carrying foreign cash. We got a consensus from the group and made the appropriate changes to our forms.

We met our guide/translator Mary at the terminal in Beijing (she was the one with the CB flag). She gave us a good overview of some of the in country process and told us that we will meet the babies on Sunday at 5PM. She also organized some trips for those that came early so I should have a good set of photos for tomorrow. As for the weather, it is quite mild and there is no show in the forecast so we may have overdressed a little.

Technical details, my OpenVPN is working excellent and I can get to everything on the internet as my connection is made back to Canada first and then out from there, thus bypassing any restrictive firewalls. The latency is low so we should be good for phone calls over the internet too. The first call we got was made using a u711 codec that is a bandwidth pig (but sounds good). With the exception of a little delay the sound quality was excellent. The hotel connection is very fast but also expensive at about $15 US/day. Hotel also transparent proxies all web communication and blocks my ability to use a my own proxy server. So, I used PuTTY to create a local port of my proxy at home and redirected it to 127.0.0.1. Pointed FireFox/IE to that proxy and everything works without any eavesdropping. The biggest issue that we have is that we have to fit everything we are taking into 1 piece of checked baggage each which has external dimensions not exceeding 158 cm = length + width + height AND is no more than 44 lbs. We are working to be within the more stringent limits of China Airlines. Our 2 suitcases are at the max dimensions already and weight 51 and 53 lbs as of the last weigh-in. In addition we are entitled to 1 piece of carry-on which has dimensions not exceeding 115cm (56cm L + 23 cm W + 36 cm H) AND weighs no more than 7 kg (15.4 lbs).

My camera bag (my carry-on) weighs 18.5 lbs not including my laptop, so we not starting off that well. I am carrying a lot of gear. Canon 30D w/17-40mm f4L, Canon ELPH SD800 IS, Canon 430EZ, Garmin Map60csx, Gen 4 40G iPod, Sony PSP, Sony HDR-HC1, UTStarCom F1000G, Blackberry 8700r, IBM R51 Laptop and assorted chargers and cables. Pictures and a few more detail to follow tomorrow.

Home in Waterloo, Ontario (43.496705,-80.577164)
Click the LAT/LON coordinates (WGS84) for our current location
Mostly Cloudy , -6C, Winds W 7 km/h

Summary: Last minute packing details and issues encountered.

Details: The biggest issue that we have is that we have to fit everything we are taking into 1 piece of checked baggage each which has external dimensions not exceeding 158 cm = length + width + height AND is no more than 44 lbs. We are working to be within the more stringent limits of China Airlines. Our 2 suitcases are at the max dimensions already and weight 51 and 53 lbs as of the last weigh-in. In addition we are entitled to 1 piece of carry-on which has dimensions not exceeding 115cm (56cm L + 23 cm W + 36 cm H) AND weighs no more than 7 kg (15.4 lbs).

My camera bag (my carry-on) weighs 18.5 lbs not including my laptop, so we not starting off that well. I am carrying a lot of gear. Canon 30D w/17-40mm f4L, Canon ELPH SD800 IS, Canon 430EZ, Garmin Map60csx, Gen 4 40G iPod, Sony PSP, Sony HDR-HC1, UTStarCom F1000G, Blackberry 8700r, IBM R51 Laptop and assorted chargers and cables. Pictures and a few more detail to follow tomorrow.

Home in Waterloo, Ontario (43.496705,-80.577164)
Click the LAT/LON coordinates (WGS84) for our current location
Mostly Cloudy , -6C, Winds W 7 km/h

Many people have asked us about what the process is in China and where and when we are traveling. Below is the actual itinerary that we are going to be using while in-country. We are arriving 2 days earlier (on Feb 01) with 5 other families to adjust to the time and environment. Our return trip is with the entire 28 family group.

Jan 31: Families leave Toronto (Terminal 1) for Vancouver on Flight AC1163/08:00
Jan 31: Families arrive in Vancouver on Flight AC1163/10:05 (in flight 5h5m)
Jan 31: Families depart for Beijing on Flight AC0029/12:35
Feb 01: Families arrive in Beijing on Flight AC029/16:00 (in flight 11h25m), guide will meet them at airport and transfer to International Hotel, Beijing. They will join the group on Feb 03.
Feb 02: Families arrive in Beijing on Flight AC029/16:00, guide will meet them at airport and transfer to International Hotel, Beijing. They will join the group on Feb.03.
Feb 03: Families arrive in Beijing on Flight AC031/12:45, guide will meet them at airport and transfer to International Hotel, Beijing.
Feb 04: Beijing to Nanchang on Flight CA1511(11:30-14:00), transfer to Gloria Plaza Hotel, Nanchang. Families will meet their child at the hotel in the afternoon and sign the agreement.
Feb 05: Go to the Civil Affairs for the adoption registration and the passport.
Feb 06: Continue to do the process for notarization.
Feb 07: Go to department store to buy some daily necessities for their children.
Feb.08: Visit the people.s Park.
Feb 09: Pick up passport. Nanchang to Beijing on Flight HU7194 (17:00-19:00), transfer to International Hotel, Beijing.
Feb 10: Medical and take photo for the child.
Feb 11: Visit the Great Wall with Lunch, (cable car is not included).
Feb 12: Go to the Canadian Embassy to apply the child.s visa.
Feb 13: Visit Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City in the morning. And Beijing Duck Dinner in the evening.
Feb 14: Pick up visa in the afternoon.
Feb 15: Leaving Beijing for Toronto on Flight AC032/14:40, transfer to airport.
Feb 15: Families arrive in Toronto on Flight AC0032/15:10 - Terminal 1 (in flight 13h30m)

We are staying at the International Hotel, Beijing and the Gloria Plaza Hotel in Nanchang. Click on the links for pictures and descriptions of the hotels if you are curious. More information as we get it.

This week we were couriered our final package containing our passports, Chinese visa and our plane tickets. Most importantly we received the Notice of Coming. It is It is an approval notice from the CCAA ("Notice of Coming to China for Adoption"). This document will bear the red-inked seals of the CCAA (Chidren's Center for Adoption Affairs) With this sealed approval notice in hand, we may proceed directly to the city in China where the Civil Affairs Bureau with jurisdiction over the appropriate Children's Welfare Institute is located. The CCAA will have already forwarded a copy of the adoption approval notice to the locality where the child resides. Local Child Welfare Institutes, provincial Civil Affairs officials and Chinese notarial offices will not process adoptions unless they have seen this notice allowing the prospective adoptive parents take legal custody of the child. In China we will meet with a notary in the provincial capital for an informal interview before they notarize documents such as birth certificates or abandonment certificates. More on this process later as we actually go through it.