From Japan

We have made it to Japan.  The boys are doing great, they are very good travelers.  I am sure they were delighted to see the movies and games in the back of each seat. I expect them to be thoroughly entertained for the duration.  Meanwhile, I will be alone, further forward in the plane , zombied out on xanax.  We left this morning (Thursday) at 430a.m. and will travel for 24 hours and  still arrive in Atlanta  Thursday evening because we cross the international dateline and gain a day coming back.

We are so grateful for the support we have received emotionally, financially, and practically from many, many people. We have felt so loved during this time. We hope , in the future, that some of you will be prompted to make this kind of journey and we would love to help in any way that we can.  There are many more special treasures, like our boys waiting for a mom and dad.    

Our Last Day in China

I have said this 4 times before, and every time I said it I totally believed it.  We are sorry to be leaving the dear families who have joined us on this part of our journey, especially Blake and Brittany Richey who have been with us for the last two weeks and have watched and helped William change from terrified to excited what is ahead.  They are the ages of our children and have such a heart for orphans. God has blessed their faithfulness with a precious treasure, two year old Emaline.

Today we visited Shamian Island which is now the ghost town of adoptions past.  The US consulate and medical clinic have moved so most of the businesses that catered to adoption families are gone also.  I did manage to find six pairs of squeaky shoes for future granddaughters.

We did not eat at this restaurant although they offered live versions of things like fish and turtles and snakes. I guess people who eat these sorts of things like them to be fresh.

Instead we ate at a more mundane Chinese restaurant with incense and statues of Buddha where the boys and I could get variations of Fried Rice/Noodles and Jerry could get ice cream.  Today his came with a real orchid as a garnish.  Things are very different here.

US Consulate Day

Today we went to the US Consulate to hand over our final bit of paperwork. We swore an oath saying it was all truthful and the boys were asked if they knew they were going to America and if they wanted to go. There were lots of smiles from everyone.  What you cannot see in the picture is the hundreds of Chinese people outside the consulate, some waiting in line, others sitting on sidewalks and benches, waiting.  Waiting and hoping that they might be one of the lucky ones to get the golden ticket to come to America. Waiting, while we, not because of anything we have done, but by our birthright alone, are ushered past all of them and into the building and to the front of the line.  And they look at our children and they know what is happening. We hear their comments.  They know that our children , too, are now the blessed ones, because they have been adopted into the family, which entitles them to the same rights and privileges as those who are naturally born.   And so is our standing with God. We are the blessed ones. Adopted in.

This is my view from my bedroom this afternoon - a rousing game of UNO.

Tonight we ate dinner on a boat that took us on a cruise down the Pearl River. It is a beautiful ride. William's carsickness seems to have disapated although I am still giving him Dramamine, I don't think he really needs it.  He ate fine and never complained at all on the boat.  There was a juggling show by a clown at the end of the ride which Peter enjoyed thoroughly but I don't think William's eyesight is good enough for him to even have seen it.  I think he will be amazed at all he has missed when he gets some glasses.

Sweet Boys

God has blessed our family with two more very sweet children. Both boys are generally happy and eager to please. 

The Garden Hotel, where we are staying is one of the nicest hotels we have ever stayed.  I have sometimes complained that the breakfasts are a bit too Western here ( never any fried rice, although they do have noodles and greens), but they totally won Jerry's heart today by offering sushi and lamb on the breakfast buffet. 

This morning we enjoyed a trip to the city Zoo, the boys first chance to ever see these animals live. They were most excited to see the Pandas, of course, but they were inside and hard to see. (The Atlanta Zoo has an Amazing panda area where the pandas are often sitting only a few inches away through the glass.)  Some animals in this zoo are in cement cages, so we got a really good look at the lions and tigers.  Work was going on everywhere so I imagine someday all the animals will live in natural habitats

This afternoon, after waiting to hear if any of the children in our group had tested positive for TB (none had), the boys were excited to  hear that we were going out on our own again, by taxi, to the toy and gift market. As you can see we found some more wild animals there in the gift area.  When we offered to let the boys buy some small (fake) lego sets, they each chose one. I gestured that they could each choose two. William said he only wanted one, while Peter began to search for a second.  Then it was apparent that William was admonishing Peter to be happy with one and not spend any more money. Peter looked to me and I told them Both to choose two.  We had two very happy boys.

Here is another picture in the hotel lobby with the boys holding the noodle bowls we bought for dinner.  Jerry continues his ice cream diet here. While they boys and I had fried rice at a Chinese restaurant for lunch, Jerry found fruit with a scoop of purple ice cream on the menu and ordered it for his lunch. We all had a ice cream cone at the toy market and Jerry had two more while buying the noodle bowls. Now he is at the fitness center and the boys have showered. Or at least they ran the water - Twice I have taken them into the bathroom and demonstrated turning on the shower, putting shampoo on my head and putting soap all over my body.Soap and shampoo are luxuries not necessarily available in orphanages.  I saw a government sponsored tv commercial today showing how to wash hands with soap as a health precaution.  Yesterday I demonstrated the difference between the way boys use a western toilet and the way girls use it. I was tired of sitting down on a wet set.  Just some things you might not have considered about older child adoption, but today,for us, it is all very good.

Books !

Today we went on a bus with our travel group to the pearl and jade wholesale market. It is a 5 story building filled with little shops selling jewelry- mostly pearl and jade.  Since we have btdt and don't need and pearls or jade we left the group, and went shopping in the neighborhood.  I think, at least at first the boys were happy to get out of the jewelry store.

Jerry was willing to try on shoes (and buy the slip on canvas ones that I liked - under $10) because he determined that any time spent that way gave me less time to acquire other bargains on the street.

This is what our group looks like, getting off the bus and putting all their adorable 2ish year olds in strollers.  There are plenty more 2 year olds here in China if anyone is interested. Our friend Brittany's daughter was in a room with 45 children in beds under age 2 with 3 nannies. Whenever Peter sees me taking pictures , he co-operates by turning and smiling.  Will usually has to be teased into smiling.

Our second stop was to the Chen Family Temple.  The boys are obviously tired of looking at old Chinese stuff, but they don't complain.  After we got back to the hotel and found a new place to go out to lunch, we went by taxi to what used to be a 4 story bookstore. When we discovered it was closed we tried to figure out the Chinese directions to it's new location which took us through a crowded underground shopping area and past a big sports arena to find that the books are now all in huge tents. We are always so proud of ourselves when we have this kind of success.  

 William was surprised and, I think, delighted that we were buying more than one book for them.   Although we already have many books in Chinese and pinyin at home, we chose about 10 without pinyin, ranging from an usborne type book on cars that Will wanted, some books on the middle ages and renaissance (again usborne type, lots of pictures) to translations of Robinson Crusoe and Tom Sawyer. William has the best chance of all the kids of being able to continue to read in Chinese and his first months home he will be studying some things in Chinese and some in English. 

Since we have been back at the hotel, the boys have spent a couple of hours looking at the new books, but now it is time to continue their Lego education on Netflix. And I will begin a new book, the sixth since we left home.

Medicals and Eating and Eating and Eating

(In the hotel elevator).  Today was the medical exam day. It has moved into a new building and was MUCH more thorough than the ones in the past. At Andy's 4 doctors took him in a room with glass windows, felt his head, shrugged their shoulders and never commented on the Obvious problem that was not described in his medical file from the orphanage. A couple of the kids in the past were told what the letters were on the eye chart so they could pass (Andy and Rosie).  William was treated very differently. After he couldn't pass the eye test on the first round they sent him on to a real eye doctor with real eye equipment.  The end result is that he has no vision at all in one eye. None. And very very poor distance vision in the other. So some of his scowling is actually squinting. (as a child who hated to wear my glasses , I have btdt). I already have an eye appointment for him the week after we get home. I will make a huge difference in his life.

Our room on the 12th floor is equipped with two of these. :/

Much of what we do here revolves around eating. All our breakfasts are at the hotel and they are amazing with chefs to cook your eggs or noodles just the way you want them, and a multitude of hot and cold dishes to please the American , Chinese, or European palate. So twice a day, for lunch and dinner we have to either find a place to eat in the nearby neighborhood or go to a convenience store to buy noodle bowls and snacks for the room.  Everyone who knows me knows that God's plan for us to eat 3 times a day is sometimes wearying to me. And usually when we travel Jerry and I are happy to cut this down to twice, but kids pretty much expect to eat 3 times every day. If I had to stay here much longer, i woould have to buy two seats on the plane to fit (as the guy I was sitting next to on my flight to Shanghai should have done.)  This is what lunch and dinner looked like today.

Lunch at the Hong Kong Bistro behind the Garden was delicious. As usual Peter chose rice and Will chose noodles, although I have no idea what was floating in William's bowl. (Aside - Will just came in the room and offered me an oreo from the snack we bought earlier. sweet.)

Our guide told us our group dinner would be at a Mexican restaurant (Not my choice and way too expensive - of course, we didn't have to go but wanted to spend time with the others in our group and their adorable babies).  I suggested smoothies to the boys ( banana for Will strawberry for Peter). They were a hit !

I taught them to play  the making boxes on the dot grid game and it was a success for passing time while waiting for food - an improvement over kindle games.

This is part of our group at dinner.

Nestorian Stele and on to Guangzhou

After a wild goose chase to the wrong museum yesterday, where we tried getting a taxi back to the hotel for almost an hour and finally got in a unlicensed car hoping she wouldn't take us around the corner and cut us to pieces for our passports and credit cards, no, she didn't and,yes I do occasionally have an overactive imagination) we found out that what we were looking for was in walking distance of our hotel.  Here it is - a stele (which means a rock with writing engraved on it) and The Forest of Stele Museum  has many of them.  The one we were looking for was engraved in 600 something AD and tells of the coming and life of the first missionaries to China.  They are a branch of Christians called Nestorians who brought the gospel from Persia.  If you want to know more or about Christianity in general in China read David Aikman's book Jesus in Beijing.  Which I have heard caused a bit of a sensation when he wrote it because he revealed so much about the house church movement.

It was a fun day with the boys even though being dragged around to museums is not their very favorite thing to do.  We balanced it with watching Lego movies on Netflix.  Yay for vpns, which give us access to American freedoms.

William has not totally embraced the smile for the camera thing.  Instead of saying 'say cheese' Chinese say 'say eggplant'...in Chinese, of course.

The flight to Guangzhou was uneventful, or at least that is how it felt on Xanax.  My friend Brittany thought it was a bit turbulent, But she was further back in the plane with a 2 year old in her lap without the benefit of X.  Sometimes, I think I would be willing to fly some where just for the fun of it.  But then I get home and no place really seems more fun. I have a great life.