Day Two In Beijing

On Saturday we had our Holt Orientation in the morning. We gather with 9 other couples to walk through the process and what to expect in the days to come. It was fun connecting and meeting new couples and hearing some of their stories of their journey to their children. We were told that at the end we would get new information about out child. Some would get a lot of information and new pictures and some would get very little, possibly only measurements.

We were all handed a red folder with our child’s name on it. I was writing down the e-mail of the gal next to me when I heard from Eric’s mouth “oh my goodness!” As I looked at him there were tears in his eyes and I looked down to see new pictures of Max. I then got teary and said “oh my goodness” too. Later as I asked Eric what he was thinking when he saw his pictures. He said, “It was just that feeling of he is ours. He is meant to be a McDonald. He looks like a McDonald as crazy as that sounds.” It is amazing the way God has already knit our heart with Max’s before we have even met him. I shouldn’t be amazed at what God can do in the hearts of his children. So that anticipation of having our little boy in our arms just got greater. We can hardly wait to hop on a plane and get to the city of Jinan.

After Orientation we had a family style Chinese lunch with the rest of our families. We then bundled up for an afternoon at the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.

The Forbidden City was amazing but it was also absolutely freezing. It was wonderful to take in more of China and it’s culture but the cold and just seeing little Max’s pictures made it hard to concentrate on the guide as she shared the history of the Forbidden City.

We were all rather relieved to see the bus as we walked across Tiananmen Square. We then headed to the silk factory.

The silk factory was amazing. We learned about the lifecycle of the silk worm. We could see and feel the difference in the silk with the cocoons that had one or two worms in them. The silk from the cocoons with one worm was used for embroidery. The silk form one cocoon was typically about 6 miles long. The silk from the cocoon with 2 worms was very soft and was stretched to make the stuffing in comforters and pillows. You can see above that I got a hand at seeing how well I could stretch the silk. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have been offered a job at the silk factory.

After we got back Eric and I headed out for dinner. We found a the Royal Table Resturant right next to our hotel. We were brought into a private room and had some wonderful food. Each of our dishes had a carrot carving on it. Our sweet little waitress was so shy and didn’t speak any English. After our meal the owner asked us if we would to get a picture on the royal thrown in royal clothing.

We then ventured out to Snack Street. We were warned not to try anything on the street especially on Snack Street. They informed us this was not a time to be adventursome but instead to play it safe and try to stay healthy. You could find anytime of snack you wanted on Snack Street. There was fruit, chicken heart, snake, beef, chicken, dumplings, soup, lizard, squid, sea horses ... you name it, it was there to snack on.

We finished the evening with a stop at Starbucks before we called it a night.