Call us lucky

When we received our referral for Amelia we though we were lucky in that we would travel straight to Guangzhou from Beijing instead of heading to the interior of the country before going to Guangzhou. All families must travel through this city in order to complete the necessary paper for the adoption with the US consulate. As we have spoken to other families that we met in Beijing or elsewhere in our travels we have started to realize that we are extraordinarily lucky to be here for the majority of our trip. We have heard of 10 hour bus rides, 5 hour delays at airports, unsafe conditions of the hotels, endless wait times waiting on government appointments and food poisoning. We were told a story today about a family that met their 21 month old special needs child who was staying in foster care. When the time came the foster mother refused to give her up, the child had to be physically removed from the foster mothers arms…I could not imagine having to go through that. We on the other hand, have a personal guide who gets us in and out of every appointment, a great hotel, decent food and we never fear for our safety. Our time is spent shopping, going to the zoo, playing at the pool, nursing sunburns and getting nails done (yes, Sue got her nails done).

Amelia’s transition is going quite well, she is starting to attach to us and puts up a fuss when one of the 3 of us walks away from her. She laughs and giggles with us, she plays with Madi and protects her toys if she thinks Madilyn might take them. This evening I put my hands out to pick her up, a gesture I have done a thousand times with Madi, never expecting a reaction fro her but she lifted her arms as to say ‘yes, please pick me up’. A simple thing, yes, but to me it meant that she is starting to understand and embrace us as a family which is an amazing thing for such a short period of time and for such a young child who has undoubtedly been though some trauma. She has yet to hug me and still does not quite understand a kiss but we will get all that worked out in time.

Amelia has a long road to travel before she will be what we would consider a normal 11 month old child. She eats nothing but formula and rice cereal from a bottle, she winces when she is presented with food on a spoon. She never puts anything in her mouth so she cannot self feed and she is quite a ways from having the strength in her legs to stand. Intellectually though she seems to be quite in tune with her environment, she watches us intently and is very curious, she will play with anything we give her and is a happy baby.

We are very fortunate to have all things on this trip go as well as they have. Very fortunate.

Day at the zoo

Hello,

Our time here is beginning to feel more like a vacation with less stress and hecticness centered on the adoption. For instance, today we went to the zoo. It was really fun and we got to see animals that we have never seen at home such as a rhinoceros and a huge elephant. We also got to go in the monkey exhibit and actually feed the monkeys. Madilyn and I went in. I was surprised when a monkey actually climbed up my body to get the food. It was quite an experience!

I also need to mention that there was a dog at the zoo. It was a small fluffy little thing. I guess they do not have them as pets here. My least favorite animals were the rats. I swore they could climb over their very short wall and come out and nibble on my toes. I only stuck around long enough to take a picture.

Our guide, Connie, also took us shopping. We went to the fabric market and Chris had a few shirts tailor made for him. It was much less expensive then it would be at home. The city is divided up into many different market districts. We went to the electronic market where they sell cameras, DVD players, TV’s, etc. There are many small stores one after another selling the same items. This creates much competition amongst stores thus the buyer is able to barter for the best price. It is a completely different way of shopping than we have at home.

The city is such a massive industrial city that is so congested with traffic. As I sit writing this at 10:30 at night and look out the window at the highway. It is still bumper-to-bumper traffic. It never seems to subside.

We all are doing well and enjoyed our adventurous day in Guangzhou.

Much love- Sue

Various Oddities

Here are a few random pictures of things we have come across.


The crazy pig is on a ride that is not unlike wht you would find outside the grocery store.

There are not many American producs here but for some reason Pringles are everywhere. They are in the mini bar, in the stores and in some restaurants.

The sign about spitting struck me as odd, but the cities are actually pretty clean. There are always people cleaning up and they all use natural straw brooms, the real oddity here is that every synthetic broom used in the states is made in China, but the Chinese use straw.

Papa John seems to have a foot hold on the Pizza business here, apparently papa has 50 stores in China. The pizza was good and they delivered it for about $9. Things in general are pretty cheap if you shop around a bit.

The silk robes they put out on our bed at night are comical.

We are definately not in Kansas

So the White Swan Hotel is an oasis in an otherwise hugely complex and confusing Chinese city. We are on the 24th floor and as far as you can see through the smog are buildings, cranes and traffic. This hotel is on what is called an island, but there are so many bridges to it that it hardly qualifies, but the island itself is part of the history of Guangzhou. This area was the French port back in the 1600’s and you can tell by the architecture: The buildings, the roads and the parks are all very European except that some of the store fronts are selling live grubs, eels and turtles.

On my run this morning I was thinking about the complexity of this city and it occurred to me that this city is 5 times as old as Boston. 2000 years this city has thrived as a commercial and industrial port on the Pearl River. There is no way I could even imagine understanding this city. On one of our trips off the island we traveled a good 10-12 city blocks and saw nothing but small storefronts selling hardware. Another section of city blocks had nothing but sewing machines. We asked our guide about it and she said that the entire city is that way, sections selling all of the same thing in hundreds of similar stores. Unlike cities in the states where each neighborhood has its own hardware store, here you have to travel to the hardware section of the city if you need a bolt to fix something. Although that simplifies it a bit, the reality is that a lot of these stores are wholesale operations where you buy 50,000 bolts at a time for you factory. The wholesale markets here are interesting, we went by the clothing wholesale market and people were hauling away huge bails of fabric and clothing undoubtedly heading for the US as Nike wear. A shocking amount of the transport of goods here seems to be done by bicycle.

We have yet to venture far from the hotel without our guide but we have a few down days coming up so I hope to get to a few of these markets to see what they are all about.

One more thought about being a goofy bald American here. When we are in the hotel there are 100 people just like me and 100 families just like us, but when we do drift away we are clearly in the minority. On my run this AM I went about 15 minutes up the banks of the Pearl River then turned around and I saw one person like me. Now, sometimes when you are a stranger in a strange land you are treated a bit as an outcast but not here, although there was not a sole around who looked like me or who was doing what I was doing, I was pretty much accepted as part of the landscape. We have found the people here in everything we have done to be quite nice and are either polite, ogle over Madi or just treat us like they would treat anybody else – with complete ambivalence. Beijing was not quite the same because I think they are used to tourists and have developed a system of hounding people to buy stuff, not here though, we have not met an aggressive sole since we have been in Guangzhou trying to sell me a Mao Tse-Tung watch (why would I want a Mao Tse-Tung watch?).

Hello from China.

It is wonderful that we are able to communicate with our friends and family so easily from half a world away, in China. We love the fact that we can give all of you a snapshot of our days.

We are doing well and enjoying a rest day today. That means we do not have to do any paper work for the adoption today. Thus, we have decided to explore the city, do a little shopping and go to the pool. This morning we went to Starbucks that we just found is close to our hotel. It is a little slice of home so far away. Chris can not get over the fact that the coffee tastes identical what we he gets at home. Also, the store itself looks pretty much the same, too. I think we will be frequent flyers there.

In the mornings we have been enjoying walks before it gets too hot. There are so many people out exercising in the AM. There are many groups doing tai chi and each group is listening to different music. We have heard everything from traditional Chinese instrumental music to Madonna. What a range. The girls and I enjoy watching the woman. The people watching here is just great!

We are fortunate that we are the only family from our agency currently in Guangzhou. This allows us to have our guide all to ourselves and be more independent. We can really tailor our days to what we want to do, besides the appointments for adoption paperwork. Yesterday I went to get my toenails painted with our guide, Connie. It was a fun and relaxing adventure. Except for the fact that I could not read the magazines, but I did like looking at the pictures. Tomorrow she is going to take us to the fabric market for Chris to get some shirts tailor made.

Amelia is growing stronger each day. We have already noticed a big difference in her from when we first met her. Today she crawled across the floor to get one of Madilyn’s toys that she wanted to explore. We were all thrilled to see her do this, as we did not think she had the strength in her arms and legs to do this. She also has begun to smile, especially at her sister. Madilyn is so good with her! Another thing she really enjoys doing is looking in the mirror. We are happy to see her growing stronger each day and hope that this continues and by the time we go home we hope she is quite different from our first days together.

We will continue to write and are glad that all of you are enjoying the blog.

Much love- Sue

Couple of pictures

Day 3 in Guangzhou

Amelia is doing better everyday. She is more interactive and is starting to show some real personality. I thing she is getting over the shock of being pulled from the orphanage then dropped into the arms of a big bald guy. She is infinitely curious, everything we show her grabs her interest and she watches what we do intently. Today we got some giggles and she crawled to get a hold of Madi’s Leapfrog. She took a bath last night and liked it, we were hoping to get her to the pool early but she fell asleep in my arms before I got out the door and took a nap instead. Today we had one appointment then more time at the pool. The challenge of finding dinner that does not resemble its natural state too closely (whole birds fried in oil seem to be a popular menu item) was not as bad tonight, we found a place that served simple noodle and rice dishes that we ate outside with a couple of Tsingtau's.

I cannot get the blogger to post any pictures tonight, so I will try again in the AM.

-Chris