Guangzhou - Day 1

Before leaving Wuchang yesterday, Jen took an opportunity while Hope was napping to visit a 700 year old Buddhist Temple in the area.  She took some great pictures.  I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to see it in person.

Anyway, we stopped at the Civil Affairs office one last time to pick up Hope's passport, before departing for the airport.  I had pretty much had it with Wuhan - the heat, the stares, the crazy driving, the "Pizza Hut incident" as it will henceforth be known, and I was dreading the long drive back to the airport, and sitting in the cell block like terminal for a couple of hours, then a 1 1/2 hour flight with a baby whose tempermant on an airplane was unknown.

The drive was very uncomfortable.  I had Hope for most of the time, it rained for a good part of the way, and the driving was even crazier.  In China, the lines that divide the lanes are just suggestions.  No one sticks to one lane for very long, cars come very close to side-swiping one another, pedestrians come within inches of being run over.  If this was the U.S., middle fingers would be flying everywhere.  Here, no one really even glances when you honk at them.  At one point, our driver passed an ambulance which had it's lights on, and honked at and passed a police car.

But we made it safely to the airport terminal, which fortunately was the brand new terminal, not the old one that we arrived at.  So the wait wasn't as bad as it could have been.  Hope did pretty well on the flight, I must say, but it was stressful finding ways to keep her entertained, plus were were in coach, with a guy sitting next
to us, and I was crammed in the middle seat.  We made it to Gunagzhou, though, our very nice guide Becky greeted us, and we headed off to the hotel, the Shifu Holiday Inn.  I had read nice things about the hotel on line, and was not disappointed.  Beautiful lobby (with a/c!),  and big beautiful room.

In the morning, after a pretty good night's sleep, we toured the hotel with cleared heads.  I told Jen that I felt like I had been released from prison.  Such a nice hotel, nice staff, incredible views from the roof where the outdoor pool is located.  Plus, the hotel is located in the shopping district.  There is a long corridor of modern shops, crisscrossed with alley ways that lead into older parts of the city, and more traditional shops. It's completely fascinating.  They try to hide the old buildings behind false fascades, and I know a lot of the old parts of the city are being torn down, but it's ashame.  It's like stepping back in time when you step down one of the old alley ways.

After exploring for a bit, we had to head back to the hotel to meet our guide, who escorted us to the medical exam.  We got to the clinic early, and beat the crowd that arrived shortly after we did.  You go to several different rooms, see several different doctors and nurses, who weigh her, look in her ears, her mouth, etc.  All a little strange - I half expected them to see some bizarre, antique medical equipment - but fortunately, we were in and out pretty quickly, and there were no shots, so that was good.

After a lunch of KFC (yep, that's here, too), we headed back to the same area where the clinic was, this time on foot, for some sight seeing.  The area where the clinic is located is called Shaiman Island.  There's a lot of British Colonial influence there, so the architecture is different, and there are a bunch of gift shops catering to tourists, and adopting families.  To get there, we had to walk several blocks through an area that sold pets, and pet supplies, and what I guess you would call herbal shops.  There were dried assortments of plants, and other things that I didn't recognize, lizards on sticks, dried snake skins, sea horses, etc.  Really fascinating.  I'd love to know what some of the things are used for.  What do you do with a bag of dried sea horses?

Once we reached Shaiman Island, we just did some exploring, checked out several gift shops, took some pictures, let Hope walk around a bit.  Just a really nice area, really relaxing.  We ate dinner at a Thai restaurant, talked with a few other adopting families from the States, and headed back.  I can't say enough good things about Guangzhou, and the area that we are staying in.  I will post pictures tomorrow.  It's getting late here.

Bath time fun.

Entrance to the Buddhist Temple in Wuchang

Beautiful ceiling

View from hotel window in Guangzhou.  This is the main shopping corridor.  The older buildings are hidden at street level.

Waiting with other adopting families for the medical exam.

Filling out some paperwork

Dried snake skins

Sea horses

Can you find Hope?

I found a leaf

You'd better get used to these Hope...

Sign at entrance to park.  Darn, and I bought a pistol in that tunnel in Wuchang!

Hopscotch with friends in the park.

Yellow Crane Tower Tour

I wasn't able to post last night.  We were having trouble getting Hope to sleep.  No problems the first few nights, but then she was simply exhausted, and not feeling well.  Her fever had subsided by last night, but she's been digging her finger into her ears, so maybe they're bothering her.  I held her and tried to lay her down in her crib after she closed her eyes, but she would wake up and cry, so I held her in the bed, etc.  Finally, after an hour or so of repeated attempts, I laid her down and she went to sleep.

Anyway, the day started with a trip to the Yellow Crane Tower.  It's a tower that has been built and re-built many times since 223 A.D.  Most recently, it was destroyed by fire in 1884, and not rebuilt again until 1981.  It's a beautiful spot only 10 minutes or so from the hotel, and has great views of the three cities that make up Wuhan.  It's a very popular tourist destination.

Unfortunately, it was so darn hot and humid that we just could not enjoy ourselves.  I was literally dripping even before we climbed the first step.  We couldn't use the elevator, because it's reserved for "...only the visitors older than 70, or those with lower limbs disabled", according to the sign.  They sold wash cloths at one of the gift shop counters, which I bought.  I needed a full-size towel, though.  Hope was a trooper, and Jen and I took turns carrying her.  Not a single fuss, even though she was sweating just as much as I was. 

At one point, we caught someone taking a picture of us.  Jen caught his eye and smiled, and he snapped another of her.  We're celebrities here!  

We managed to take a few good pictures ourselves, but we were relieved to head back to the van, and the hotel.  

We spent the rest of the day in the room.  We gave Hope her second bath.  This time, she really enjoyed it, and was splashing and having fun (the first bath, the day before, she wouldn't even sit down).  She continues to prefer me, and will only let me comfort her.  She let's Jen carry her when we are outside of the room, but once inside, it's a different story.  I'm afraid to walk into the bathroom, where Hope can't see me, because if she notices that I'm gone, she will cry.  This is very hard on Jennifer, as you can imagine.

I probably will not post tonight.  Our flight doesn't leave until close to 7:00 PM, so by time we get to our hotel, get us situated, and Hope to sleep, it will be late.  So until next time...

The tower from a distance

A view from one of the levels of the tower

Beautiful ceiling

Family photo.  Daddy's a dripping mess.

She knows when her picture is being taken.

View of the Yangtze river, and one of the three cities beyond.

Rooftops of homes adjacent to the tower.

Sick Day

We had intended on venturing out today, and were dressed and ready to go after breakfast, but Hope was falling asleep after being up for only a couple of hours, if that, and we noticed that she was very warm.  So we gave her some Motrin and decided to spend the day inside the hotel room.  Not very exciting for either of us, but good for bonding, I think.  After an early nap Hope was feeling a little better, and Jen got her laughing harder than we've seen before.  Hope would throw something on the ground, and Jen would go "Boom!".  For whatever reason, Hope found this hilarious, and I caught some of it on video.

For lunch, I headed out to the McDonald's across the street.  The menu board is numbered, so it's easy to order.  I just hold up the appropriate number of fingers, and they get the point.  I referred to my handy Chinese Survival Guide for the word for french fries, which isn't numbered, and for ice cream, after which I then pointed to a picture of a McFlurry.

I should mention that not only is Wuchang hot, but it's also hot inside most of the businesses here, and McDonald's is no exception.  Some businesses will have portable a/c units, and the more modern buildings have central air, but some feel like they have nothing.  Even our hotel is hot inside, and it hits you as soon as you step out of your room into the hallway.  They must be used to it here, though.  I was the only one in line at McDonald's sweating, or so it appeared.

There's a tunnel that runs under the street, allowing you to cross without worrying about dodging traffic.  There are a variety of "vendors" that line the tunnel, usually with their goods spread out over a blanket or something similar.  Several were selling knives, and what appeared to be handguns, although I don't know if they were real (they looked real, though).  There was also a beggar, and a man playing a Chinese musical instrument, quite beautifully, actually.  On my way back across, I gave them both 1 yuan.

So after lunch we sat in the hotel room, played, and napped for most of the day.  We did go to the restaurant in the hotel for dinner, and took a very short walk outside after that, but that was about it.  Hope appears to be a lot more comfortable with us, and the belly laughs were a joy to see, but we still know that we have a long way to go.

Tomorrow our guide will take us to the Yellow Crane Tower, a very old and famous landmark here in the area.  Hopefully, Hope will be feeling a little bit better.  Then we spend our last night here, before heading to Guangzhou the following day.  Until tomorrow...

Dressed and ready to go out, but she wanted to sleep

Feeling a little better

Enjoying Chicken McNuggets with Mommy

Civil Affairs Office Day

Well, today I think we experienced discrimination.  First time for me, that's for sure, but more on that later.

This morning we returned to the Civil Affairs Office to pay the orphanage donation and other fees, and basically reaffirm with a red fingerprint that we still wanted to adopt Hope.  They also took a red footprint from Hope, while she was asleep in Jen's arms.

Hope's nannies were there again today, and our guide said that they thought Jen and I were both very pretty, and wanted to take lots of pictures of us, which they did.  You can tell that these women really care for Hope, and it's evident from looking at the pictures in the photo album that they gave to us yesterday that they took wonderful care of her during her time in the orphanage.  One of the nannies gave us another gift before we left - a photo copy of the newspaper article announcing Hope's finding, complete with her picture.  It's another precious gift that we will share with Hope later on, along with the photo album.

Things were pretty good today.  Hope cried some when she woke up, but overall seemed very happy for most of the day.  She had some good moments with Jen - She fell asleep in Jen's arms  at the Civil Affairs Office, Jen carried her around on part of our walk, and they had some laughs more than once playing peek-a-boo.  She will still cry when I disappear from sight in the hotel room, but seems to be OK outside of it when I walk away, so maybe we're making some progress.

Now back to the discrimination "event".  After a long afternoon nap (this kid can sleep!), we headed out for a walk, and a bite to eat.  We decided on Pizza Hut.  We had a great experience there the first time, but this time we had Hope with us.  They seated us right away, no problem, gave us menus, but no one waited on us. We sat there for about a 1/2 hour, they took dishes from tables next to us, and the wait staff stood just 10 feet away when they weren't busy, glanced over at us occasionally and whispered to each other, but never took a drink order, nothing.  I can't imagine that it was anything else than the fact that we were a non-Asian couple, with an Asian baby.  At one point while we were waiting, a woman came around the corner and gave Jennifer an obvious, dirty look.  Pretty upsetting stuff.  So finally, we just gathered our stuff and walked out.  No sense arguing with anyone over it.  But it makes us want to hole ourselves up in our hotel room until we have to leave Wuchang.  I know that our next stop, Guangzhou, will be better.  All adopting families go through there, so we will not be the novelty that we are here.

Tomorrow is a free day.   I almost hope that it rains so that we're forced to stay inside., but the plan is to venture out again, and visit a local park, and a Buddhist temple.  Until tomorrow...

Article announcing Hope's finding

The photo album gift from the nannies

The nannies are on the ends

In the play room at the Civil affairs Office

This is a happy face

Momma and Hope

Forever Family Day

What a day!  Today we met Hope at the Civil Affairs office at 3:00 PM.  We arrived first, filled out some paperwork, and set up the camcorder.  Hope arrived maybe 15 minutes after we did, accompanied by two of the nannies who took care of her at the orphanage.  We assumed that it was her coming through the door, but she had even less hair than her photos (our guide later explained that it's a tradition to shave a babies head on the sixth day after every six months).  Hope started crying soon after arriving.  She had just been driven six hours from her foster families home, and had been up for nine hours straight at that point.  Here she was in a new place, with several strangers, dead tired, and probably aware that something was up.  The nannies eventually handed her over to Jen, and poor Hope just cried and cried.  A toy was handed to her, but to no avail.  So I brought out the universal bonding food, Cheerios (well, Honeynut Cheerios).  Hope stopped crying, and at one point, actually tried to feed one to me.  It was soon my turn to hold her, and Hope fell asleep in my arms, and stayed asleep until we arrived back at the hotel.

Before we left, the nannies presented us with a wonderful gift.  It was a photo album with many pictures of Hope, from the day that she was found, to pictures of her in the orphanage, to pictures with her foster family.  This is something that we can share with her when she's older.  Not every adopting family gets something like this, so we will cherish it.

After returning to the hotel, Jen and Hope stayed behind, as I ventured off to the grocery store for some additional necessities, and McDonald's.  I returned about 45 minutes later.  Poor Hope apparently cried for a half hour straight prior to my returning.  I picked her up, and she stopped crying.  The nannies told us that Hope was very attached to her foster father, and he to her, and this may be why, at least at this point, she is preferring me.  This hurts Jen, as you can imagine, but Hope eventually warmed up, and Jen got her smiles.  Yes, smiles!  We were so worried prior to meeting her about what the experience would be like, how she would react...Would she be a crying, inconsolable mess?  The worst case scenarios rolled around in my head leading up to the meeting, and now, we were getting smiles.  It's a good start.

Jen had tried to feed her baby food while I was gone, but Hope wasn't having it.  She did like the formula that we had brought from home, quickly downing it.  She also liked the french fries that I brought back.  She ate a little bit of the double cheeseburger, and had a  few bites of my Chicken McNuggets.  Not the healthiest of meals, but it seemed to satisfy her.

We played on the floor with the stacking blocks that we had purchased the previous day.  She really seemed to enjoy taking them apart, banging them together, etc.  We also showed her a video of our dogs that I had taken and uploaded to the laptop.  She gave a few grunts of what I hope was approval...She did not have pets in her foster home.  After an hour or so of play, we dressed her in her pajamas, plopped her in her crib, and watched as she very quickly fell asleep.

Hope appears to be in good health.  Oh, and she's walking!  We also heard her say a few words, but aside from what we think was ba ba (daddy), we didn't understand.  She makes some grunting sounds, especially when she sees something that she wants.  She also imitated some of the things that we were doing, so hopefully, she'll pick up our language quickly, as well.

This has been a very trying day,  fiilled with emotions going from one extreme to the next.  We made it through, though, as we knew we would.  We'll see what tomorrow holds, but for now, time for some sleep for all of us.

Sign at the Civil Affairs office

Hope with one of her nannies, getting ready to meet Ma Ma

So scared and sad.  Heart breaking.

About to hold Hope for the first time

Daddy's turn

She was soon fast asleep

Playing with my stacking cups

Interested in a McNugget

Shopping Day

Today our guide Wei met us at 9 AM in the hotel lobby, and took us out shopping for a few necessities for Hope.  A few blocks down the street and around the corner is a very large department store, and grocery.  We hit the grocery store first.  We bought some Chinese diapers, which we discovered later may be a little big for Hope, in fact, they may just fit me (Just kidding, but they are a little bigger than we expected.  We're going to try them, though).  We also bought some wipes, snack items for Hope, a couple of jars of the baby food that we are used to, and a couple of boxes of the type that Hope is used to, which is a powdered baby food that you add water to.  We bought "ice cream" flavored Oreos, which are just a little bit off, but not too bad.

I wanted to explore the store a little bit more, but was sensitive not to take up too much of our guide's time.  I did, however, wander over to the seafood area....Big tanks filled with all assortments of fish.  One tank had turtles (not intended to be pets), and another had some sort of eels.  Yummy.

We then headed to the department store...Very modern, at least 7 floors (that's as far as we got).  It had all the designer names.  Things were actually more expensive, at least as far as clothing was concerned, than here in the U.S.  A pair of Levi's was about 75 US dollars.  Toys, though, were less expensive, and we picked up a few for Hope.  A Sea Horse plush thingy that lights up and plays music, some stacking cups, a little toy car thing with bells in the wheels, and toy cell phone.  You pay for things a little differently here.  You tell the sales clerk what you want to purchase, they give you a ticket.  When you're done shopping, you take your hand full of tickets to a counter and pay.  You then go back to each department, show the clerk your receipt, and they give you the item(s).

We saw a couple of kids in split pants.  If you don't know what these are, Google them.  I wanted to take a photo, but couldn't take one on the sly, so I didn't get one.  It's definitely a little strange to see, as is the rack of split pant outfits that we saw in the children's section.  No adult sizes, though, which is a good thing.

Back at the hotel, our guide gave us a run down of how much money we needed to exchange for the orphanage donation, and other fees.  It's not a small chunk of change, and hence was the reason that each of us wore money belts on the trip over (also to keep the money crisp and new looking - they are very particular about their American dollars here).  Our guide said farewell, we gathered the cash together, and nervously walked to the bank a couple of blocks down the street.  I said something like "exchange money" to the girl that greeted us, and fortunately, she seemed to understand, and we were escorted upstairs.  The exchange took about an hour.  Now, a stack of U.S. dollars translates into an even bigger stack of Chinese Yuan, so we loaded up the back pack with our stack, and again, nervously, retraced our route back to the hotel.  Whew, what a process.

We rested then rested a little bit, and headed back out to pick up a passport photo that I had taken earlier.  We then found the local Pizza Hut, and decided to eat there.  It seemed to be a popular spot for the younger crowd, and we didn't get as many stares.  There was a lot more on the menu than just pizza, with plenty of pictures for us to point to, so we'll probably revisit.  On the wall, in English, in big letters it read "Let's share and have".  Not sure what they were actually trying to say there, but we ordered a Cheese Lovers pizza.  There was barely any sauce, but I washed it down with my Ice Milk (sort of like a watered down milkshake), and it was fine.  We both realized after a few sips of our respective beverages that they contained ice.  Foreigners are cautioned against drinking anything with ice, because the water can have unpleasant side effects on our sensitive tummies.  We'll see how we fare tomorrow, I guess.

Tomorrow is the big day.  At 3:00 PM, we will we meet Hope.  4 1/2 years in the making.  Not sure how to put it all into words.  Both of us are very nervous, but very excited at the same time.  I hope that we sleep tonight, but I doubt that we will get much, which has been the trend lately.  Anyway, stay tuned.  Tomorrow I'll be posting pictures of Hope!

Chinese flag at half mast.  It's a national day of mourning due to a mudslide that occurred about a week ago.

Statue near the entrance of the department store

Getting ready to have my passport photo taken.  That's my stand-in on the box.

Shopping with our guide Wei

Eels for sale

Woman selling lotus seeds 

We are in Wuchang

We made it to Wuchang.  I had previously referred to this city as Wuhan, but Wuhan is actually made up of 3 citites, Wuchang being one.  The flight on China Southern from Hong Kong was uncomfortable, the food suspect, but the flight was fairly short: about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Our guide Wei met us after we picked up our bags.  She lives in Wuchang, and seems very nice.  She will be with us for the next 6 days or so.  We hopped in the van for the 1 1/2 hour drive from the Wuhan airport to Wuchang.

The drive took us through very heavily trafficked areas.  A lot of cars, and pedestrians.  Wuhan is home to 8 million people.  Cars dart in and out of their lanes, and from side streets, and pedestrians cross in front of vehicles regularly.  The areas we passed through were a mixture of semi-modern buildings, run down buildings, buildings and housing either demolished or in the process of being demolished, and new construction.  There was not another Westerner in site.  When we finally arrived at the Best Western Wuhan, our guide checked us in and escorted us to our room, then bid us adieu until tomorrow morning at 9 am.

So we were on our own, and in need of a bite to eat.  We were a little intimidated: unlike Hong Kong, where everyone spoke English (or so it seemed), no one seems to speak it here.  We chose one of the hotel restaurants.  Fortunately, the menu had pictures, but there was very little that appealed to either of us.  Strange sea creatures, chicken feet, black chicken (literally, a black, featherless chicken, head and all, in a soup bowl), etc.  I ordered scallops and shrimp, which were edible.  Jen ordered a pork spare rib, which she actually liked, but also ordered beef brisket in chili sauce.  It was the hottest thing I've ever tasted, and she ate only a few bites, just to be polite.  She ordered a Coke, but got Coke Light with Lemon.  Not too bad, though.

After dinner, we decided to venture out.  We were hesistant at first.  Our fear stemmed from the fact that a) we didn't speak the language, and no one spoke ours, and b) we stood out like sore thumbs.  We finally decided to overcome our fear, however, and walked a few blocks from the hotel.  To our pleasant surprise, we really didn't see anything that I would consider to be "strange" - just people going about there daily business - and the experience was actually quite nice.  At the end of our stroll, we crossed under the street via a pedestrian tunnel, which led straight to the Wuchang McDonald's!  Jen pointed to "Ice Cream" in our Chinese phrase book, and the girl behind the counter brought out a picture with a sundae on it.  Perfect!  They only had pineapple and strawberry topping, and so we went with just the plain 'ol vanilla ice cream.  It was delicious!

Tomorrow is a free day.  Our guide is going to take us shopping in the area.  Should be interesting.  Hopefully we'll get some sleep tonight: neither of us has had much lately.  Talk to you soon!

Our plane at the Hong Kong airport

Sign at the airport with our flight into Wuhan, CZ3076

Sign outside of the Wuhan airport

Typical street scene

The old, and the new behind it

More rubble

Busy traffic

View from our hotel room