The End of the Line

Well, the end of the trip anyway. Our life with Ella is just beginning (as is her life with us). We took the bus from Guangzhou to Hong Kong yesterday. Our guide suggested that it might be more convenient to take the bus than the train because the bus went straight to the airport and we wouldn't have to deal with our luggage going through the subway or paying exhorbitant fees to a taxi. So it seemed like a great idea, except that tomorrow is China National Day, which is like July 4th x 1000, so traffic was horrid. We had to get ourselves and all our baggage off the bus to go through customs to get out of China. Ella's departure card was supposed to be filled out in Chinese, but since neither she nor I write Chinese, we got in line with a kind female customs officer who wrote out Ella's card for her (sometimes it pays to have a cute, drowsy baby strapped to your chest). Then we got back on the bus, drove for five minutes, and then had to unload everything again to go through customs to get into Hong Kong. All in all, we were on the bus for about five and a half hours with a tired, damp, hungry baby and two tired, hungry adults. It was a long and trying day. We did manage to make it through the day without killing each other or anyone else, so we've got that going for us.

We fly home tomorrow. We'll probably do some sightseeing today and a lot of just sleeping and relaxing. It'll be nice not to live out of a suitcase. I'll keep trying to put up pictures of Ella as she grows, since so many friends live out of town. Thanks for sharing in our journey.

Garbo Laughs

We got our first laugh out Ella yesterday. It was awesome. Now she practically won't stop laughing. She has a great laugh--it's just like these big, hearty bursts of loud joy. Exactly what a baby's laugh should be. Every day with her has been like watching a flower bud open a little bit more as she comes more and more out of her shell and discovers the world. She can sit unsupported for short periods and is starting to scoot backwards. We figure she'll actually be crawling in a week or two.

We picked up her passport today and fly to the US Consulate in Guangzhou tomorrow, where she'll get a US visa. She is flying under a Chinese passport and becomes a US citizen when her booties hit the ground in the US (Newark airport). I'm told that the internet connection at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou is not so great, so we might not be able to update this again before we get home. We'll be spending Friday and saturday night in Hong Kong. It'll be neat to have a day there with just our family. We fly back Sunday morning and will be home Sunday night (after a long freaking day of traveling).

Gotta go finish packing now. Hope all is well with you all.


P.S.
Mike says that Vonnegut was wrong about the status of the city of Midland. That distinction actually belongs to Nanchang.

Chaing Kai-Shek's Revenge

Mike and I have discovered a great way to lose weight--go to China. We've both had a bout of...something. Let's just say we're both feeling rather empty. Since we've both been feeling poorly, we've been pretty much hanging around the hotel the past few days, just playing and bonding with Ella. The only exception is yesterday Mike and Ted (the father of the twins in the next room and the kind owner of this laptop) went to Yujiang to the orphanage where Ella was and to the town where the twins came from (the name of which escapes me now).

Ella is making great progress. She is very small for a nine-and-half-month old--according to the finicky bathroom scale, somewhere around 6-6.5 kilos (about 13-14 pounds). She is clearly getting stronger every day. She's a very serious little baby. Mike and I were delighted on Saturday afternoon when we got our first smile out of her. I don't think she's had many reasons to smile before now, which breaks my heart. She comes out of her shell a bit more every day. and is getting stronger each day, exploring the world and objects and doing all the things a baby should be doing (or should have been allowed to a few months ago). She has clearly attached to me. It's strange to be the mommy--to be the source of comfort for another person. But it's cool--it feels good to be able to make her stop crying just by picking her up.

(Interesting unrelated side note--there's a school across from the hotel. We can see the soccer field and running track from our room. This morning, we saw the whole soccer field filled up for an all-school assembly. Now everybody is out doing their exercises. Quite a sight.)

Nanchang is kind of a weird city. It clearly doesn't see too many foreigners. You get looked at a LOT. There are a few other western families adopting babies in the hotel (including a group from Spain who left the other day, many of them chain-smoking around their babies). All of the clothes we have for Ella are too big. We've gone shopping twice--once to a Wal-Mart (I know, I know, there go my indie creds) and once to a department store. Peope seem to shop like they drive--it's busy and crowded and a free-for-all. The department store was weird. they have way too many people working in the shops, so if you show interest in something, a clerk will literally hover over you while you look at things. Personal space bubbles in China are much smaller than they are in the States (practcally non-existent).

Going out with the babies is kind of weird. Paula (the mommy of the twins next door) and I took the kids to the grocery store down the street yesterday. The twins attract a lot of attention. It's weird, because people look at you and the baby and you can see the look of surprise when the faces don't match.

I'd better get going. Mike wants to look at some news and we should get the computer back to the neighbors. Here are some more pictures.

One more thing: Ellla wants me to add: Happy Birthday, Grandma!


Here's Ella being cute. She has some delays but seems to be overcoming them by leaps and bounds.

























Here's Mike celebrating his first ever diaper change. Ella says he did a good job.



























Ella often sleeps spread-eagle. She looks like a little star. We think it's because she can--she's not all bundled up and it's warm. (It's a damn cute sight.)












There are only about half a dozen people who can truly appreciate this photo. But yes, those are The Orange Shorts. I was not present when this photo was taken.

Introducing Eleanor Fang Gui Daugherty...

...but if you ever call her anything but Ella, Mike says he will "kick you in the slats."

She is tiny and lovely, with huge eyes that watch and see everything. Ella is... wow, she's our daughter. We met her yesterday around 4:15 p.m. at the Nanchang Provincial Civil Affairs Office. Mike is harrassing me to put these up, so they are in no particular order--some are from the office, some from the hotel, and some from today. She has some developmental delays--not a lot of muscle tone but she has a good grip and is clearly very interested in everything going on. We're just going to do our best to pour calories and nutrients into her (although we haven't eaten a proper meal ourselves since we left Beijing). It's kind of like a science experiment, as the extra vitamins have resulted in a couple of atomic poopies, the second of which occurred in the Civil Affairs Office. Fortunately, we had a change of clothes for her but not extra socks. We left the Civil Affairs Office and went to the Notary's Office. Our sockless, jacketless baby attracted the attention of a woman on the street, who clearly was unhappy with how little clothing the foreigners had on their baby. It was our first encounter with the Clothing Police--apparently complete strangers will come up to you and pull your kid's socks up or pull her sleeves down. Our Chinese vocabulary being limited to about 20 words, we were unable to tell the woman that Ella's socks were collateral damage from the atomic poopie.

Herewith, some pictures. We borrowed the laptop from the family we're traveling with (who've adopted adorable twins who are exactly one year older than Ella--they coincidentally have the same birthday).

Love to you all.

P.S. Mike is looking at a bag of soy-flavored Cheetos and dying for a hamburger.

Off to Nanchang...

Well, I have about half an hour before the guide shows up to take us to the airport. We fly to Nanchang, check into our hotel, and go to the provincial civil affairs office to meet our daughter. It's a bit overwhelming, although I feel oddly calm about everything. It's a good day. Actually the first day that we're seeing some blue sky in Beijing.

Have I mentioned that Beijing is really, really smoggy? Our guide keeps saying, "Oh, it's fog. It's not pollution." We're pretty sure it's smog. People in blue uniforms and straw hats sweep the streets (yes, with brooms that look kind of like what the Wicked Witch of the West used). Many of them wear paper or cloth masks over their mouths and noses. It's pollution all right.

Yesterday we had a tour of a jade factory, climbed the Badaling section of the Great Wall of China, had a brief tour of a cloissone factory and lunch, and then visited the Summer Palace. The jade factory was amazing. It was cool to watch the people working with the jade. We bought what's called a family harmony ball--it's made from one piece of jade, but has three moveable layers inside it, representing different generations. The center layer of the ball cannot be removed, symbolizing that the family's core can't be broken. We also bought a gorgeous purple jade rooster for the baby (since she was born in the year of the rooster) and a bracelet for her for when she's older.

The Badaling section of the Great Wall is about an hour outside of Beijing. It's built into the mountains and was actually used to protect city--built around the same time as the rest of the Great Wall, but rings the city of Beijing. It goes up, up, up with steps that range in height from two to about 15 inches. No joke. Steep climbs from one guard toward to the next, but the incredible views are worth it. Once you get past a certain point, the crowds thin out. I climbed up to the fifth or sixth guard tower. I think Mike stopped one below me. It was exhilerating.

I'd better get going--this two yuan per minute computer use is for the birds. Next time I write to you, we'll officially be parents.

Yippee!

This city is forbidden, baby...

Mike and I did the tourist thing today. Our guide, Jill, took us to the Temple of Heaven, the Lama Temple, Tiannamen Square, and the Forbidden City. Wow. Each place was amazing in its own way. Unfortunately, the hotel internet room doesn't allow us to upload pictures (they're also charging me two yuan a minute for the privileg of writing this, so I'll make it quick).

Where to begin? Beijing is bloody huge. Really big. The word "sprawling" comes to mind. It is smoggy. It is busy and crowded and people drive like they're in the bumper car ride at Cedar Point. It's awesome. The Temple of Heaven is a 273-hectacre park that is now used as open meeting space. People come there to exercise, sing, dance, do tai chi, play cards, play dominoes, play music, knit, or just talk. It's mind-boggling. Imagine literally hundreds--thousands--of people in groups big and small all engaging in some sort of playful activity, and all right on top of each other. We walked in the front gates, and there were women doing a ribbon dance--dancing while holding a wooden dowel that has a 20-foot colored ribbon attached to it. It's a beautiful, graceful thing. Directly behind them, two women were playing paddle ball. Across from and almost in their midst, probably 40 or 50 people are doing tai chi with a paddle and ball. At first, I thought the ball was somehow stuck to the paddle, but it's just the slow, graceful movement of the body and the turning of the paddle that keeps the ball on it--unless their tossing the ball in the air with the paddle and catching it behind their back.

Across from them were about 20 couples dancing. And a large group of people doing tai chi. And then a group of people dancing and clapping along to the music (I noticed some generic version of The Locomotion as part of the soundtrack). And then there is an informal choir singing. You walk on, and there is a man telling jokes (I think that's what he was doing--he had a crowd and they were laughing). The Long Corridor is what the name implies-- it's about the length of a football field, and it's open on the sides. You walk inside it or outside next to it and hear a choir followed by a guitar and harmonica playing a traditional Chinese song followed by a man singing along with a boom box followed by a very old man with only half his teeth who is mouthing the words to the song the previous man is singing and dancing along to it.

I haven't even told you about the Temple for the Prayer of Good Harvests--which is part of the Temple of Heaven. I haven't told you about the Lama Temple, which consists of a series of open buildings with statues of different buddhas who are prayed to for specific needs and the fires of burning incense in front of each one (I'd consider each of these its own temple, but what do I know? This is Beijing, we build it big and sprawling). I haven't told you about Tiannamen Square, which is most impressive for its sheer size--supposedly one million people can stand on the squar at the same time. And I haven't told you about the sheer vastness and unending quality of the Forbidden City, which at one time was closed only to the emperor and his concubines and servants. I'm told that if a baby growing up in the Forbidden City (okay, an emperor) slept in a different room each night, he'd be 27 years old before he had slept in every room).

I can't wait to post pictures. It's just incredible.

More later.

Holy crap we're here

Hi.we're here. A kind young man named Andrew let me use his laptop for a few moments just so I could say hello and that we are in Beijing. Not much to say right now--we\re tired from having traveled for 23 hours or so. Beijing is an amazing, busy, multi-layered city. After we got here, I went swimming and Mike went for a walk. I went out walking in the alley behind the hotel, seeing little boys sitting with their fathers and watching the world go boy and a group of men playing cards and reminding me of Guys and Dolls, and a few guys who walked by me and smiled a bit too broadly. We do stick out. But Mike got propositioned by two young ladies who said they wanted to practice their English. When they asked him if he wanted to go up to their room to see their calligraphy, he realizec that possibly they were um... let's say professionals in training. We're off to get some dinner and then some sleep. Tomorrow we hit the Forbidden CIty, which I've always wanted to see, and Tiannamen Square and a few other spots. Wednesday is the Great Wall, and Thursday we go to Nanchang and pick up Baby Girl. If I could figure out how to make an exclamation point on this tiny funky keyboard, I would

Love to you all. Susan out.

Mike and Susan become parents--oh my!

Well, I always said I would never make a blog or post pics of my kid online and yet here I am. Enough people have asked us to document our adoption journey online (i.e., post copious pics of the baby the instant she's in our arms) that it seemed like a good idea to Mike and me to do just that. I can't make any guarantees as to how much we'll be able to update this while we're traveling--we don't have a laptop, but I'm told there are Internet cafes in most of the big cities. We'll do our best.

It's currently 4:26 a.m. EST, and I'm making this blog. So if you're wondering, "Gee, how are you guys doing?," excited and nervous and maybe slightly spazzing would be accurate descriptors. Here's the low-down on our itinerary for those care to know.

Leave Sunday, September 17 bright and early at 7:40 a.m. We change planes in Newark and then fly straight to Beijing, arriving the afternoon of the 18th.

September 18-20 sightseeing and cooling our jets in Beijing

September 21 Fly to Nanchang (capital of Jiangxi province) and meet Fang Gui (YAY!!!). No, we have not yet decided on what her first name will be. We will keep Fang Gui as her middle name (pronounced like "Fahng Gway.")

September 21-27 Sightseeing and playing with the baby in Nanchang and Jiangxi province

September 28 & 29 meetings and paperwork at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou

September 30 hanging with the baby in Hong Kong

October 1 fly back home, arriving 8: 00 p.m. EST

And for those of you who haven't seen it, here is Fang Gui's referral picture. She was born December 10, 2005. I'm not sure when this picture was taken--the medical info we received was from her four-month checkup and we got the referral at the end uf July (when she was six and a half months old). I'm guessing she's five months here. She is the cutest baby ever (and I'm not just saying that because I'm her mom).