Girls, Pearls, Malls and Markets

 

Today was a pretty neat day. As you may have already read, we have been assured that our missing Visa 37 -- I still don't even know what that is, to be honest -- is now waiting for us at the Consulate here in Guangzhou.

Hooray! We can proceed on our journey back home to the U.S. as a family of four with big sister (jie jie) and little sister (mei mei)!!

And yep, the four babies in our travel group all did well at the medical examination that is required for their entrance into the U.S.

After coming "home" from the medical exam and taking a nap, we headed out to a huge shopping mall. Unlike malls in American, this one doesn't spread out, it goes up. I think somebody said it had eight floors. We visited a couple of stores there: pearls, CDs and luggage. The women in the group REALLY liked the pearl store. Natalie stood by at a counter full of sparkly beads where she got the workers to string her a little bracelet.

We then walked back to the hotel, probably about a mile's distance, and went through the heart of the Qing Ping market, which is famous as the place in China you can buy just about any kind of exotic natural product, be it animal or plant, alive or dead.

In the market you can buy dogs, cats, birds, fish, roots, herbs, spices and even a few pretty crazy things. Helen repeated several times that the animals for sale were for pets. The dogs were dolled up with bows and fancy collars.

Our last trip to China we were highly discouraged from visiting the Qing Ping market due to a couple of SARS cases still lingering in Guangzhou. According to an old saying, the Cantonese will eat anything that flies, except airplanes and anything with four legs, as long as it's not a table. Protein is hard to come by here.

We saw two different guys with what they claimed were tiger paws for sale. They didn't look fake. As a matter of fact, they looked pretty gross. Who knows.

Also for sale, live scorpions for scorpion soup (is supposed to be very good as a way to get "heat out of the body," according to our guide) as well as snake skins, rare worm roots (good for the lungs, says Helen) and just about anything else you can think of. Ginseng by the bale. Dried sea horses as far as the eye can see.

Abigail sat upright in her stroller taking it all in as we went through the bustling market. Natalie asked our guide Helen very specific questions about which of the foods for sale she liked to eat. She was really working hard at figuring it all out.

We got back to the hotel, cleaned up a bit and all went out to eat at a Thai place on the island called the Cow and Bridge with the other families in our group. Very good food, and young Abigail devoured an entire bowl of chicken congee even after slurping down a whole bottle. We chose to use chopsticks for the entire meal even when forks were sitting right there on the table.

Natalie and Abigail were both angels today. Even through all the shopping, walking and the waiting at the medical exam, they were real troopers -- no baby tears or whining. People continue to comment on how constantly happy and content young Abigail is. Allison and I just keep knocking on wood.

Tomorrow we take the infamous red couch pictures with all the babies in our group. Then in the afternoon it's off to the Six Banyan Temple and the government store for "authentic" souvenirs.

Thanks to everyone at home who offered to help us with our paperwork ordeal. All of our efforts paid off! We'll be coming home soon!!

The Eagle has landed!

Very good news!! Helen got a phone call about a half hour ago from the U.S. Consulate here in Guangzhou, and they report that they have possession of our "Visa 37" approval! (I still want to see it to believe it, but I feel relieved enough to have hugged Helen - doug)

This wonderful news came on our return trip from the medical clinic, where all the babies in our group passed their exams wth flying colors.
Getting there was a small adventure as we had to walk to the other side of the island, which is completely torn up with construction. At one point, we had to walk over a thin board that was covering a trench, and I honestly didn't think the board would hold us. I heard it crack when I walked over it.

Anyway, we are on lunch/nap break before more activities this afternoon.
Just wanted to share the wondeful news. Thank you everyone for your offers of assistance and prayers. We were truly worried that we weren't going to get to head home on time.

Now, Lord willing as my mother used to say, we are just days away from a big trip home.

Tomorrow we go the Consulate. If we don't post before then, we will let you all know how that goes.

Better in Guangzhou

Our paperwork problem has not been solved as it is still the weekend in the U.S. But we arrived in the paradise of Guangzhou this afternoon where our new coordinator who also goes by the name Helen reassures us that our problem has happened to families before and gotten fixed in time to go home as planned. She reassured us that our adoption agency will be able to fix it.

She should know she deals with the Consulate all the time. She even went to one of the Consulate member's houses in the middle of the night to get a family out of the country for a family emergency. We are starting to feel better.

We still plan to make lots of phone calls tomorrow night (Mon. a.m. in U.S.) to make sure this gets settled. We'll call the Louisville CIS, National Visa Center, USCIS Customer Service line and even Mitch McConnell and Ed Whitfield if we need to do so.

Shamian Island is Guangzhou really does feel like paradise compared to where we've been. It's like Florida with its weather and palm trees. The island was built when the European Consulate was located there. All the buildings have an European influence. The island is calm and peaceful even though there is some construction going on to prepare for the Asian Games in November. Best thing yet, motorcycles and motorbikes have been forbidden to prepare for the games. There are very few cars on the island. We can walk around the island's park, stores and restaurants safely.

Also comforting is the large number of families here at our hotel adopting from China also. Everyone wants to stop and look at each other's babies and compare stories.

We even ate an the American restaurant tonight called Lucy's. As soon as Natalie sat down, she said, "I'm eating some meat!" She ordered a hamburger which was rather large and ate every single bite.

Natalie seems very at home here. She wants to know what we did here when we adopted here. It is good for her to be in the province where she was born.

So we're happy to be back here, but still on pins and needles about this visa revision that needs to be sent from Louisville. We're hoping for the best.

We'll send more photos tomorrow.

Stuck in China?

We got a call from our adoption agency's China office tonight (Saturday) at 8 p.m. that the U.S. Consulate does not have our revised visa approval from the Louisville Citizenship and Immigration Services office that was approved 3-30-10.

This means that if Louisville does not send this paperwork by May 5th in China that we will not get to go to our consulate appointment or leave China as planned on May 8th.

Seeing how it is Saturday morning back home that leaves very few days to get this worked out. The other problem is that the Louisville CIS is one of those offices where they can contact you, but you are not supposed to contact them.

FTIA did get the name of a contact person with the Louisville CIS. Her name is Jennifer Hendrix. The agency and I have already left voice mails and e-mails for her, but she won't be in until Monday probably.

I have used whitepages.com to try to get a home phone number. Only one Jennifer Hendrix appears, but when I call her number it says it is disconnected.

So if anyone out there, especially our journalism friends and Louisville friends, know of a Jennifer Hendrix or anyone else who works for the Louisville CIS, contact numbers, etc. Any help would greatly be appreciated. She appears to be the only way we are leaving China on time.

We will continue e-mailing and calling all appropriate parties, but thought that there might be someone out there reading this who could help.

Pray that we get this resolved and get to come home on time.

14 Things That Remind You That You are Definitely in China

Doug says, "How many posed pictures are people going to want to see?" -- which has made me venture off in a new direction.

14 Things That Remind Us That We are Definitely In China

1. Toddlers in split pants squatting on the sidewalks. Shoes off at the door has a whole new meaning.

2. When inquiring about a restroom you make sure to ask, "Western toilet or squatty potty?" See photo above. (Natalie and I performed a balancing act one afternoon as I helped her master the squat over the hole in the ground. The theatre had only squatty potties. The line of 20 women using multiple stalls had disappeared in the time it took us to master this one use.)

3. In the restroom the guide checks, "Did you bring your own paper?" (Yes, we remembered to do this. Thank goodness, she only offered one tiny square to those who forgot.)

4. Every time you order a drink, you make sure to ask for no ice. (The water in China is not safe for us to drink.)

5. You throw away multiple toothbrushes that you accidentally stick under the faucet because it's a habit, and you momentarily forgot that the water in China is not safe. (Luckily, the hotels supply new toothbrushes, and bottled water, daily.)

6. You long for a seatbelt, a car seat, some sort of safety device as you whizz around through traffic in the semi-rundown van in which the driver constantly swerves and hits the horn. If there is a blockage in the traffic, it is OK. He will quickly pull into oncoming traffic to get around it.

7. Cars never stop as they pull out into traffic. They only blast their horn as some sort of warning of "Watch out, here I come". We saw an old man riding a bike with no horn. He had a metal pot in a basket and he was beating on it with a stick.)

8. Elevators/small spaces seem to encourage some kind of game -- "How many people can fit?"

9. You think it is foggy, but then notice that the sky is not hazy after a rain. The rainfall clears the pollution for awhile. The sun finally appears to be shining.

10. You remind yourself that you are playing life or death Frogger every time you cross the street.

11. Firecrackers. The folks here love their firecrackers. The other day at a nice restaurant the wedding party set off a brick of firecrackers outside the restaurant to scare away evil spirits and bad luck. Today is May Day, or Chinese Labour Day, and it sounds like a war zone even from the 15th floor. Not popping ... roaring explosions. Lots of them.

12. You go to check Facebook, or Google, or some other favorite Web site ... and you get nothing. "This site not available."

13. Double dipping is OK, even encouraged. We still aren't used to this,and we try to avoid it. But when you eat in China, everybody serves themselves out of the same dishes and pots , using the chopsticks that they are eating with. And you have to do it a lot, cause the plates they give you to eat on are tiny. Even when you know the people you are eating with, it just isn't something that comes naturally to germ-phobe Americans.

14. Next time you order chicken or any meat, you learn to ask if the head and feet are included.

Near Normal in Nanchang

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think we are getting used to Nanchang just as it is almost time to leave. We have had a good two days touring Longevity Temple, the Tang We Pavilion, Elephant Lake Park and eating at a couple of nice Chinese restaurants.

Things don't seem as shocking to us -- the traffic, the stares, the food... Natalie takes pleasure in being the big sister who pushes the stroller. The baby takes everything in stride.

Abigail really is a good baby. She is generally happy -- smiling at us often. She's eating better now. She goes to sleep easily which was always a stumbling point with Natalie. Well, as I say this, tonight is the first night Abigail's having trouble. But we just returned late from watching a water fountain light and music show which may have her out of sync.

She is finally taking whole bottles in addition to all of her congee and steamed eggs. After I got her to take a whole one, I rechecked her report to find that it said they added sugar to her bottle. I am proud to report I never added the sugar packets that I did bring. I had read that it was a possibility that I might need them. And she has downed several full bottles sans sugar.

Our guide Helen is worried about us because she hears us sneezing or coughing occasionally. The pollution is very bad here -- always a thick haze in the sky. Everyone in our group has been taking sinus or allergy medicine. Helen thinks the problem is that we need to wear more clothing, even when we're dripping with sweat from the humidity. She tell us we need to cover our arms. We get very warm while out and about yet everyone seems to be dressed in winter clothes -- kids in sweaters, thick tights and adults in coats. I don't quite get it.

Here's another irony. When both of our families and our guide and the sometimes the bus driver eat dinner together, it costs a little less than 200 yuan, which is about 30 American dollars for 8 people and 2 babies to have more than enough food. But the Hagen-Daaz chocolate ice cream in the freezer downstairs that I want so badly costs 56 yuan which is about 8 dollars!! Chinese food has always made me crave chocolate, but no Hagen-Daaz for me!

Besides touring, we have also been catching up on our sleep. All the activity seems to have caught up with us.

Tomorrow is a holiday here -- May Day, something like Labor Day from what I understand. Helen offered to take us to People's Park. She said everyone would be off from work and school. But something triggered our memory of our Summer Palace experience. I asked Helen if the park would be crowded, and she said something like Disneyland. Oh no, things already seem very crowded to us. Can't imagine how the Chinese might think a Disneyland crowd would be.

So we passed on People's Park on a holiday. We are choosing the quiet, relaxing hotel pool and packing and repacking until each bag weighs under 44 lbs. The problem being that we have accumulated more keepsakes along the way.

And maybe we'll fit in a trip to McDonalds, of course. I think their milkshakes may be the only calcium we're getting. A milkshake has never tasted so good!

The day after tomorrow (Sunday morning) we leave for Guangzhou, the city where we became a family with Natalie and where we spent the entire 17 days on our last trip to China. I'm thinking it should bring back many happy memories and feel a little more like home. It's also our last stop before returning home. And as Doug just said, "There's no place like home."

Lions and Tigers and Dogs, Oh My!

With the babies in strollers, it was off to the zoo today. We thought we were going to a tomb because that's what it sounded like everytime our guide Helen told us. But today in the van on the way to our destination, we asked, "Whose tomb?" We found out we weren't going to a tomb at all, but to the zoo. She explained that she often puts the 'm' sound at the end of words. That's good to know.

The zoo was filled with lines and lines of schoolchildren. Everyone in one class all holding hands while following each other in line. (If only we did field trips that way back home.) The children would practice their English as they passed by saying "Hello", "Nice to meet you", "See you later" and "Goodbye".

Many families would stop to admire our babies, Abigail and the other baby in our group Josie whose birthday is just a few days away from Abigail's. They would talk to the babies, show their children the babies, etc. Helen said they were interested in Abigail's bow, which was handmade by the mother of one of the boys in my class.

Natalie enjoyed the animals especially feeding the coy which would literally swim on top of each other in one big mound to get the food. Natalie saw children taking smaller fish home. She really wished she could take one home to add to her pets Fin and Gill.

We saw the usual zoo animals -- an elephant with humongous tusks, a lion, lots of cranes, etc. Abigail was awake the whole time. But we were taken back when we got to the dog exhibit -- larger dogs like Golden Retrievers. Evidently the Chinese are only allowed to have smaller dogs as pets, so these dogs were rare to them.

Natalie said her favorite part of the zoo was the animal show which I will call Animal Acrobats. They had a goat walking a tightrope with a monkey balancing on one hand on its back. Next a bear did flips in rings suspended in the air, but when they started pushing the bear around in circles so it looked like it was flying, I'd had enough.

Many of the school children had the same cartoon character on their hats and clothes. We recognized that it was the character that was on Abigail's pajamas the day we got her. So I asked Helen who said he was Happy Goat from a very popular cartoon in China.

Jiangxi Province is known for the porcelain they make so we stopped at a porcelain store and got a little teaset for one of Abigail's keepsakes, and Natalie chose a trinket box. We got Natalie a teaset on our first trip to China.

Since we've started offering to pay for our guide's meals, she took us to lunch before returning us to the hotel. This time to a nice Chinese restaurant -- not a shock to the system in regards to cleanliness like the last one.

She asks us what foods we like then she orders the dishes which we eat the traditional Chinese way -- what I'd call family dining where large dishes are put out and everyone gets their servings from these.

She ordered us chicken among many other dishes. The whole chicken came out in a deep pot. Helen served us from the pot -- chicken legs for the girls, white meat for us, etc. Then she plopped a chicken foot on her plate, which she later ate, I hear. I didn't look. Doug joked, "Hey Helen, I wanted that foot." The chicken was very tender and tasty. Later when standing up to get Abigail some steamed egg, I looked in the pot and noticed not only another foot, but the chicken head. I knew the Chinese kept the head on the fish for good luck. But I am glad that I didn't look in there earlier and see that head.

We asked for vegetables and here's our first one. They brought green stems and we asked Helen what is it. She said it's grass from the local manmade river. We all tried it, but couldn't eat it because of the hot peppers which had given it flavor.

We tried the Peking Duck but this must not have been the place to get it. Because instead of getting duck meat, we got duck skin with a little fat on it to roll up with sauce in our wrappers. I passed.

We have discovered that Abigail and Josie have a love for steamed eggs, a pudding-like egg dish. Abigail downed 3 bowls, which is great since I still cannot get a bottle that she will consistently eat. Some days she likes rice cereal in her bottle. Other days not so much.
Looking at her, I wouldn't think she'd be a picky eater, but she is about her bottle. I still can not make a bottle that suits her every time. I'll figure it out. Until then rice congee and steamed egg will have to hold her over.

Abigail is laughing and giggling more now, especially if you hold her in the air or if she is in the pool.

So it was a good day. We ventured out on our own to McDonalds again for dinner and enjoyed shakes and ice cream with our meal, and never had to cross a busy street. We're getting the hang of things.

We still have a few days here. We leave Nanchang on Sunday. Evidently we are here so long because it takes awhile for our visa paperwork to process.

Tomorrow we're off to Tang We Pavillion, a temple here, and Helen said, another Chinese restaurant if we'd like!