Adoptee Marie Zander shares about her experience on Holt's annual heritage tour of China.

We Made It!

My family and I left the Alexis Hotel in Seattle at 5:00 pm and got to the airport around 6:00 pm. Luckily on the plane, there was a handy-dandy touch-screen television with complimentary movies and television shows that kept my sister, Lili, and me busy for pretty much the whole flight. The 11 and 1/2-hour flight didn't seem very long until the last couple of hours when my eyes were tired from being glued to the small TV screen, and my back began to hurt from sitting in the same upright position for so long. However, we soon landed in Beijing at 11 pm, and met one of our tour guides for the trip, Amber. Another Holt family was on our flight with us (Kathy and Marie) and we all traveled to the Grand Hotel Beijing together. Upon arrival, we learned that we had two separate rooms a couple of doors away from each other. Somehow, Lili and I were placed in one room while my parents were in the other. Of course, Lili and I were all for it, while my parents had some concerns. Ultimately though,  we had our own separate room away from the 'rents. It was pretty liberating! (Un)fortunately, when Lili and I got in the room and climbed into bed, we immediately conked out from exhaustion, so we didn't have time to sneakily watch TV or any other such sly things like that. Losing 13 hours really took it out of us!

The next day, we ate a yummy buffet breakfast in the hotel, and then, by chance, watched a beautiful wedding ceremony that took place in the hotel. Another one of our tour guides, Eric, told us that weddings in China usually happen at 10:58 or 11:08 in the mornings because the times end in the the lucky number 8. After watching the wedding, we headed out to do some sight-seeing and shopping. My family and I walked down a nearby shopping street, called Wang Fu Jing, and spent our morning and afternoon exploring the multiple shopping places and areas. In one of the food markets there were live, breathing scorpions on a stick resting next to dead seahorses on their own sticks! It was interesting, but I didn't try one. Another food market we visited had piles of brightly colored wrapped items, which we thought were candy so we took a lot. (Also, the shopkeeper made sure we left with plenty, since we paid by weight.) It was only later when we returned to the hotel that we realized that we bought over a pound of dried fruit/candy, some of which we enjoyed, and some of which were...interesting. Mom got a hat, and we all bought cloth coin purses with Chinese words and humorous English translations. For example: "Not ruthless people stand firm," "Chairman Mao praises me good at chat," and "The world must speak Chinese."