Our stay in Xi'an and the flight to Peking

We stayed in Xi'an one week waiting for the finalisation of the paper work by the notary.

Last Friday we received the final document attesting the adoption and the Chinese passport of Yang Yang.

During our first days in Xi'an we had the impression that it is nowadays a modern town with plenty of skyskrapers and a lot of buildings under construction. But we managed to also discover Xi'an's fabled past.

The city was once the terminus of the Silk Road, as well as home to emperors having been the capital of China 13 times. We visited the Army of Terracotta Warriors - UNESCO site and one of the most famous archaeological discovery in the world. The site was discovered by a peasant in 1974 by chance and since then around 2000 terracotta statues have been brought to light. It is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the army of Qin Shi Huang, first emperor of the unified China.

We also visited the Big Goose Pagoda and the city walls dating from the Ming dynasty. Built in 1370 the 12m-high walls form a rectangle with a perimeter of 14km. It is possible to walk or to bike the entirety of the walls.

On Saturday we left the hotel in Xi'an to fly to Peking where we will stay for the next two weeks waiting for the completion of the administrative procedure and the issuance of the visum for Yang Yang.

The flight is a short one (only 2 hours) but it looked like a long journey: we left the hotel in Xi'an at 8.30 a.m. and we arrived at our hotel in Peking around 3.30 p.m.

We are staying downtown not far from the Forbidden City in a residence apartment really nice and confortable composed of : kitchen/dining room, a bedroom for mum and dad, another bedroom for Justin and Yang Yang and a bathroom including a Jacuzzi.
Since we have a kitchen we plan to cook from time to time in order to test if Yang Yang enjoys mum's cooking.... otherwise mum will have to learn plenty of recipes with rice!

Yesterday was a very quiet day.... We went first to the supermarket, then to eat something typically Chinese in a restaurant nearby and finally to the swimming pool.
Yang Yang is still afraid of the water but yesterday he entered the swimming pool until the water was at his belly

We hope you are still travelling with us!

To be continued..............