Xi'an Part 2

The rest of our time in Xi'an was divided between parades at the city, the city wall, and an orphanage called Starfish.  The reason we ended up at that orphanage is because Brynna and Neil are in the process of adopting a Chinese baby who's been living in their home since October.  Baby Chloe was born with spina bifida and ended up at an orphanage (not Starfish but a similar one).  Birth defects are quite common in Chinese babies because of poor nutrition in the mothers.  The most common defects are spina bifida and cleft palates - both of which are easily fixed with just one surgery and some physical therapy.  Unfortunately, many of the people can't afford to care for special needs babies, so babies with defects are often abandoned.

Baby Chloe was part of a charitable program called Baobei.  The charity pays for the surgeries and organizes "Healing Homes" for the babies to recooperate in.  Brynna and Neil agreed to be a "Healing Home" for Baby Chloe meaning they dressed her wounds, do her PT with her, and take her to doctor's appointments.  She is such a sweet baby!

The orphanage we visited in Xi'an, Starfish Foster Home is similar to Baobei in that they take in special needs babies, arrange for surgeries, but then they nurse the babies back to health until the baby is adopted.  The home is run by an LDS woman, Amanda.  So we stopped by to pay a visit.  We were able to hold some of the little babies, which was very hard actually.  It was difficult to see their deformities and know that they have a difficult road to recovery ahead.  Since Starfish has connections to the LDS church, they have plenty of clothes and blankets (the LDS church doesn't send money, just goods).  What they really need is money to buy food for so many babies.  If you're interested in donating, here is the link below:

https://npo.networkforgood.org/Donate/Donate.aspx?npoSubscriptionId=5165

The link is Baobei:

http://www.baobeifoundation.org/index-2.html

   

Xi'an - Part 1

My favorite part of our China trip was our trip to Xi'an.  Xi'an houses the tombs of many emperors of China since it used to be the capital city.  The thing Xi'an is most famous for is the Terra Cotta warriors - the 8th wonder of the world discovered in the 1970s.  Some farmers were out in their fields digging one day and started digging up a ton of terra cotta clay.  They started investigating and digging more that led to the discovery of this world wonder. 

The first emperor of China, Emperor Qin, starting planning his tomb from the second he became emperor.  He had thousands of people crafting a clay army that would be buried in mine shafts surrounding his tomb.  The belief was that this army would protect him in the after life.  In total there are over 8,500 figures in this army including chariots and horses as well.  Each warrior has distinct facial features and hairstyles; no two warriors look alike.  Anyone who knew of the existance/location of the warriors was buried alive when the emperor died which is why the warriors were kept secret for so long. 

Many of the warriors were severly damaged when they were discovered, but they have been carefully pieced back together.  Only one warrior was fully intact when found - they call him the Lucky Warrior.  All of the warriors were painted; however, the paint fades within hours of excavation.  They are currently digging in other locations around the tomb for other figures which are buried.  They've found figures in several other digging sites only these other figures aren't warriors but rather entertainers - it's like a processional that would have preceeded the Emperor as he made his way into the city. 

The whole thing was really amazing!  I absolutely loved this part of our trip!

The Lucky Warrior

Pictures, pictures, pictures!

One of the strangest things about China was how many people wanted our pictures.  Many people would come up to us and ask, "Can I take your picture?"  However, most people would just take pictures without asking or pose their friend near us for a picture and pretend to take a picture of them when they were obviously aiming their camera at us.  It was very strange to be singled out so much.  Unfortunately, Brynna's kids really hate it when the Chinese people take their picture.  I can see why too.  They don't just take their picture, but they pick them up or rub their hair.  They get right in the kids faces and are very aggressive about the whole thing.  Only one or two people asked permission to touch the kids. 

The worst day of this happened when we were out walking on "the bundt".  It has a great view of the city so we went.  But it was a holiday so there were a lot of people there.  We could barely make it through the crowds because people were flocking to us and taking our pictures and touching the kids.  Obviously, the kids were really scared and upset.  So Jeff decided to ease the tension he'd start taking pictures of the people taking pictures of us (we called it "Zapping" to make the kids like it more).  Kind of an eye for an eye approach.  It definitely helped get the kids through the situation.  Here's just a few of the folks who caused so much drama for us that day. 

This guy followed us for about 10 minutes!

 

Home in Shanghai

After Beijing we headed to Brynna and Neil's home in Shanghai. It was a nice American retreat at the end of each day.  We spent a lot of time and money shopping in Shanghai!  We saw the kids' school and saw the city as well.  We really enjoyed Shanghai - it's much more modern and somewhat cleaner than the rest of the country.  We took a day trip out to a water city as well.  We went to several parks including a theme park with really scary rides (and lines to get on the rides).  We also went to the circus.  Here's are some pictures from our time in Shanghai. 

At Wilson's school performance

Just 2 chicks at the park

The Circus Performers

Pearl TV Tower

Baby Chloe

Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

Sorry for the delay in posting the rest of our China trip...

This was a pretty funny day.  We spent quite a bit of time in the Forbidden City being pushed around by thousands of Asians there on holiday.  The buildings were spectacular, however, it was really just one big courtyard after another surrounded by buildings that all looked the same.  I must say, we didn't prepare ourselves as well as we should have with the history of the city to enjoy this stop as much as we could have.  

After hours at the square and Forbidden City we headed to the Temple of Heaven, which, had we not just come from the Forbidden City may have been more impressive.  We walked in, looked around for a few seconds, and little Wilson spoke up and said, "Mom, we were just here!"  It was pretty hilarious because we all felt the same way - it was a big courtyard with buildings that looked exactly like the ones at the Forbidden City.  Needless to say, we didn't stay there very long.  But there was a "geriatric park" right next door so we went and played there and it was just the break that we needed to get us back into sight-seeing mode.  

At the end of the day we enjoyed a nice (but extremely expensive) American meal at Hard Rock Cafe Beijing.  We sat next to the guys who had been one row behind us on our flight from San Fran - what are the chances they'd want to eat at Hard Rock too?



Mao at the Forbidden City



Those Chinese are so crafty!

Jeff, Braden, Wilson and turtle

View of Forbidden City from above

Temple of Heaven - which looked exactly like the Forbidden City

Man at the geriatrics park