[Lissa]

Other than the face of your child, what are you (or did you) look forward to seeing most in China.

I was really looking forward to the Li River cruise...but it ended up being a bit of a bust. The best thing we did was the parks in China. They were awesome. Extremely beautiful, we saw a lot, and we met some extremely interesting and nice people.

[ttcasey]

To me I think just seeing the country and meeting people from a different country will be exciting. I work at a University and get to meet international students and researchers all the time. They tell us how much they love the US but they miss their homeland and their families. What I also am amazed at is that most foreigners speak multiple languages. I think everyone will be surprised when they do go to China how many people will speak English. Since the wait has been extended I may take a beginning Chinese class in the spring.

[specialk4b]

I'm looking forward to seeing the Great Wall and to seeing sites I've only seen in books, movies or on TV.

My husband loves parks (studied park administration in college), so I'll have to tell him about the parks in China.

[oleson1]

I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the Great Wall. It is massive, but nothing prepares you for how out of shape you feel after walking just a little bit of it .

There is something about experiencing history like the Great Wall. The view is amazing, too.

[Trace7]

Being that I have spent time in Hong Kong, I cannot wait to get back to HK - the sites, the food, my brother and his family. As far as mainland China, I am most excited to see the parks and eat the food - and of course the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square.

[lovemybulldog]

My DH wants to spend a week on the front end seeing half the country (it seems...he even mentioned a trip over to Mongolia...are you crazy, man? Let's just get our kiddo!), but that just burns into my 6 months of with our child, so I'm trying to get him to scale back.

We'll see The Great Wall and Tiananmen Square for sure. I would also love to see the Terracotta Soldiers, but that makes for a lot of in country travel (all before we even get to our little one!). Although I would love to see HK and Shanghai, that might need to wait for another trip.

[abracadebrah]

[quote][I would also love to see the Terracotta Soldiers, but that makes for a lot of in country travel (all before we even get to our little one!)./QUOTE]

We saw the Terracotta Soldiers in June. They were awesome. Xian is a beautiful city. We were so blessed that our son was from there.

The Great Wall was my favorite from the Beijing portion. Also we got to see where the 2008 Olympic were going to be held. So when Katie Coric is standing there, we can say "we've been there"

[Shelley]

I really wanted to see the Great wall, but our daughter was from GZ, and while my agency made me fly thru Beijing, for reasons I STILL don't understand, it was just a passing thru the airport trip. They said that any additional sight-seeing needed to be tacked on to the end of our trip. I didn't do that because 1 I was ready to go home, 2 with a new 4 yo daughter I wasn't about to take the risk by myself, and 3 the funds just weren't available.
There were lots of things I'd dreamed about seeing while in CHina while waiting for our daughter and none that I got to see. I had dreamed of staying at the White Swan as well, but of course my agency didn't use them and wouldn't let me stay there. I know it's silly but I really wanted to stay there and was a bit disapponted that we didn't get to. We stayed at the Garden Hotel and while it was very nice, it catered to business people, not adoptive families. I was on my own for the most part and it would have been nice to connect with some other families.
I did get to go to SIzhen's SWI, which was the main thing I wanted to see.
I was really afraid I'd miss America food while there, but while I was disappointed in the hotel, the food was wonderful. WE went to different CHinese restaurants in GZ and it was the best. I had heartburn twice and that was the 2 nights we had Pizza Hut. I really missed the Chinese food once we got home.
One day when our girls are older we will take them back to their home countries and then we will see what we want to see. Shelley