Farewell China

Visit to the Shanghai Aquarium
Back to hotel to gather things
Bus to airport
Goodbye to Marui
Flight home

Above Shanghai

Visit and climb 367 steps to the top of the Lupu Bridge to look over Shangahi
Return to YuYuan for final shopping
Dinner in hotel with group
Packing

The Bund and More

Bund Sightseeing Tunnel
Cruise along the river in sunshine
Visit to YuYuan Gardens and Market in afternoon
Pizza in the "royal" suite
Acrobat Show in the evening

Flight to Shanghai

Arrive at our ritzy hotel
Dinner out at night in huge restaurant by the river
Walk along the bund in the evening

Touring the Anhui countryside

orphanage etc.

Happy in Hefei

The last time I was in Hefei 7 years ago is kind of a blur -- of course I remember March 10 - the day I adopted Julia and I remember the little milestones of becoming her mother those first few days, but my memories of the city are not clear.

These few days in Hefei were wonderful, marked first of all by glorious weather and then seeing it all again though Julia's eyes. We were both excited to be finally in her province, Anhui.

We arrived quite late Monday night at the Holiday Inn, not the Novotel that I stayed in last time. It wasn't until the morning on our way to the elementary school that I could see what changes had come to Hefei in the last 7 years. I don't remember that the population is close to 5 million -- I thought of it being only about the size of London, Ontario. And I was shocked to see all the rebuilding and refurbishing that was going on.

But there were somethings that still were so clear -- the river that wound through the city and Lord Bao's park.

Here is the view from our hotel room

The picture will be added when it is received...check back later!

We were off on Tuesday morning to visit an elementary school. They've just come back last week from a 45 day break over Chinese New Year and will be in school now until July 15 when they have a second 45 day break. We were to join the school for morning excercises and then observe a Gr. 5 class. We received a warm welcome from both staff and students.

Then it was time to hit the books -- we watched a language and comprehension class. The students were reading a story on Helen Keller. There was the opportunity to learn new Chinese characters and vocabulary.

I was impressed by the teacher's control of the kids and the discipline the kids have to at least look like they were paying attention.

We visited a preschool 7 years ago - that would have been the age of some of these kids back then, so it was wonderful to see them grown up to Gr. 5 now. Such happy fresh faces. Next time we come back -- and we all are saying in 5 years' time -- those kids will be in secondary school so we'll just have to visit them there.

There is such excitement and promise in their faces. All is possible when you are 10 and 11.

When we introduced ourselves I told the class that I was a teaher and that whenever I meet my new classes, I always check to see who is left handed. So I posed the questions to this class of 52 Gr. 5s -- and they laughed. There should have been between 3-5 lefties in this class statistically. But no one was coming forth, until a young man named Jack said he used his left hand to use chopsticks.

Here he is demonstrating

When I went to take his picture, Jack told me that he would like to give me a poem. You can see it on his desk in his notebook. Marui our guide told me it is a traditional poem all Chinese kids learn by heart to recite when they are young and later in school to help them writing with their Chinese characters. I've since found a translation of it and have been moved by its significance and beauty.

The poem is Jing Ye Si which translated is Quiet Night Thoughts by Li Bai, one of China's top three ancient poets. Here is the translation:

Before my bed

There is bright-lit moonlight

So that it seems

Like frost on the ground:

Lifting my head

I watch the bright moon

Lowering my head

I dream that I'm home.

In Chinese culture the moon, especially the full autumn moon, very often symbolises family reunion and celebration. Julia and I have always celebrated Autumn Moon with making moon cakes and reading the stories from Chinese mythology about the moon godess, Chang O.In the adoptive community, the moon is very important when we think of Julia's birth family far away. Jack will never know how precious his gift to me is. I feel like I have experienced more Chinese culture having met him.

I was impressed by the teacher's control of the kids and the discipline the kids have to at least look like they were paying attention.

Here I am with equivelent of a principal and VP. It was a great visit.

Handicrafts of all sorts...

Any one who knows me, knows I love a good craft show. And there was a time -- before Julia -- that I was a bit of a crafter myself. I guess blogging is crafting in a way -- the words with the pictures -- I've said before it's been a quick fix for scrapbooking that I also used to do once upon a time.

Yesterday was about handicrafts -- the morning at the Shu embroidery centre and the afternoon spent at the Jin Li "new" ancient market. This pedestrian shopping promenade is about 5 years old and is modelled after the old shopping alleys and streets of China.

There were crafts to eat...here are the sugar sculptures that we were amazed at -- all from dripps and curls of hot sugar syrup. Kate and Julia enjoyed the taste more than the handiwork.

There were crafts to wear -- here is the patient rice writer etching the on one grain of rice Julia's name in Chinese characters. This also became a chance for me to practice my very limited Mandarin (really limited to hello, I love you, thank you, good bye and counting -- I used mostly the counting to make sure the necklaces for Kate and Julia were done right, and later on for Sophie and Florence. I think Lianne might have a funny picture or two about that.

But the highlight of my day -- my true HIGH -- was not a handicraft in the true sense, but something I could hold in my hand once I crafted it to my liking -- my lonnnnnggggg awaited coffee. And it wasn't even a coffee that I would even drink at home -- Starbuck's -- far too strong for my Country-Style taste -- but let me tell you, after over a week without a good cup of coffee -- I was doing all I could to enjoy the moment my way. I had two cafe lattes yesterday -- that's why I was able to blog until 2 in the morning about the pandas last night.....it was a wonderful experience to walk in the shop and smell the coffee and hear the Starbuck's jazzy tunes playing.

Julia also had her first Starbuck's experience with a rich hot chocolate -- she had almost half of it and then announced that she liked mine better (is that one of my handicrafts as a mom -- being a good hot chocolate maker?) She surprized me at how she was able to appreciate how much I was enjoying my coffee experience... some empathy developing there I think.

And we weren't the only ones savouring the moment..

I also should add here that using the Starbuck's WESTERN bathroom was also a treat in itself - it took me right back home. I was almost expecting to come out into the Newmarket Chapter's store...

I felt rejuvenated - I'm sure the caffeine chased the cold I thought was coming on the last few days OUT of my body. So I was in good spirits for the delay that was going to come our way at the Chengdu airport for our flight to Hefei.

To pass the time -- more handicrafts were employed by kids, thanks to the French braid trend Laura Presley started.

And it really is a handicraft as she uses this spongy blue gauzy tensor bandage stuff for which I forget the proper name ... Julia sports her braid with a headband accent.

We received our meals at the gate as the flight was delayed two hours -- here are some of the locals settling in to enjoy their dinner.

And here is Julia having her dinner...

Not quite a handicraft, but it sure does come in handy when you need to eat your dinner on the airport floor. Anyone who knows Julia knows that this is a very comfortable position for her -- she's been known to fall asleep in this position as well. I've often wondered where she's learned to do it because it is certainly NOT a position that I use. She's certainly made it her own though, crafted it you might say, to meet her needs. Clever -- and flexible--girl.

And so ended the day of many crafts. We said goodbye to Sichan province and Chengdu city and arrived in Hefei in the province of Anhui - Julia's home province. Another journey begins...

Sew -- a needle pulling thread

Let's start at the very beginning... a very good place to start... okay -- I know it's not Sound of Music time, it was Shu embroidery shoppe -- one of the largest centres in China. One of the four great Chinese embroidery styles, Shu embroidery was developed in and around the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province. Shu embroidery is typically done on the soft satin fabric produced in Sichuan province.

But it all begins with a little ball of white woven threads, thinner than a single human hair.

We had visited a silk shop in Beijing near the Olympic village and Julia, Kate, Tia and Jenna all got silk pillows that fold out into magical blankets -- that is what Julia maintains as she falls asleep as soon as she gets under it. So the girls knew about the life cycle of a silk worm so this was just reinforcement.

Here is the stretching of the threads so they can be spun into thread.

A rainbow of threads - love the colours. These colored threads, when evenly stitched produce a delicate picture or pattern.

Once you've got thread you can do brocade --we were told that Chengdu which is the starting city for ancient silk road is also known as Brocade City. We saw this elaborate weaving machine that would have been used in ancient times.

It's a two-person operation - Weaver 1 above passes the threaded spools between the guide threads, but Weaver 2 is responsible for the pattern.

She is pulling a series of threads tied to pulleys and weights that determine the pattern of the fabric...and the result is this

Work is now done in high volume with computerized weaving machines, but it was interesting to see that this would have been the way the silk for the jackets, and dress we got in Beijing would have been made. In. ancient times, the only one who could wear silk was the emperor -- there's a reason -- very expensive cloth for all that work. Here are our outfits ...

The embroidery is very delicate work as well...

and the end result -- spectacular. A Shu embroidered piece may include hundreds of thousands of stitches in a single figure or animal, and may take many days or even weeks to complete. One of the most popular subjects for Shu embroiderers is the panda bear, but scenes of nature of any kind are common. Julia got a little square of two pandas playing that we'll get framed when we get home. Here's something more elaborate...

I made a purchase on a considerable smaller scale - Janet and I each bought some some medallion style embroidered pieces. There are some walls at home calling for a bit of colour and texture.

The girls also got a lesson on how to pull the silk from the coccons into a layer to be used for a silk-filled duvet...again we tried this in Beijing and were hoping another lesson would do the trick...

So the girls dove in to pull and stretch

Perhaps the third time would be the charm -- for the time being, Julia is content to sleep on, under, near her mini silk duvet.

A dream come true

When Lianne came three years ago for the first homeland tour, they visited the Beijing Zoo and pandas were on the list to be seen.  Shauna and I were stalking the blog for days looking for panda pictures. Days after there was ONE panda shot -- kinda blurry, through glass, but a panda shot nevertheless.

 
Three years later Julia and I took nearly 250 pictures of pandas. Thank you Lianne and Marui for making this day possible.
 
This day was one of the top three things Julia wanted to do -- and most often it was number two after visiting her orphanage.  I still can't believe that we saw them.
 
We were excited from the get go -- although you might not be able to tell as I took advantage of the loooonnnngggg bus ride and did some marking.
 

 

Julia wore her panda shirt in honour of the occasion. Our spirits were high, not dampened (excuse the pun) by the damp and dreary weather. 
 
The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province where we are. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. On our way to the Bifenzxia Panda Reserve we learned that this facility had about 180 pandas, many of whom came from the famous Wulong reserve after the 2008 earthquake. There are an estimated 2000 pandas now in the wild and in reserves such as this one in ALL of China. Hard to believe when there were once so many.
 
I wasn't sure what to expect -- I knew it would be a natural habitat setting, similar to what we enjoy at the Toronto Zoo, but I was not prepared for how close we'd be to the pandas while looking at them.
 
The were many squeals of delight when we saw this first panda -- and look how far we were away -- but that didn't squelch our excitement.
 

 

The anticpation was building as we saw signs along the panda path
 

Here was the second shot of a panda -- we were getting closer, but still using telephoto lense on the camera.
 

 

Julia was crawling out of her skin to get to her furry friends.  It was all I could do to hold her for shot of us in the tranquil setting of the reserve.
 

 

She immediately broke free of me to run ahead and all I could hear as she was ahead on the path was "Oh, Mama!" And she was right...Here was one up close...
 

 

I had to take one of her with the panda
 

 

I had to force her to pose because she was so excited to photograph their every move - she took 140 pictures herself.  Here are some of the highlights...
 

 
The anticipation was building to Julia's time with the panda -- so we had to calm her down with some panda ice cream and some panda retail therapy.
 

 
And then finally it was our turn. We were told MUCH to our disappointment that the kids weren't going to be able to play with baby pandas - but with 1 year olds. The girls didn't care as they got suited up.
 

 

And then it was time -- the pictures aren't the best b/c I was juggling the video camera at the same time. But here they are...
 

 
It was an incredible few moments - the girls showed no fear - Julia was delighted to feed her panda a carrot and some panda cake.
 
Everyone agreed it was worth the wait - a day we'll never forget, etched on the collective memory of our families in the mountain.