GZ day and trip to Buddist Temple

Last night were the fire works from the last day of the Asian Games here in GZ. We were told to stay close to the hotel and not venture too far. Apparently there are 16 million people that live here and more are here for the games. Our guide said "it will get crazy tonight." There were plenty of police on the streets, all was well. We heard the fireworks but that was the time that Joylin- miss fussy pants- didn't want to go to sleep, so we didn't want to over excite her.
Today we went to a Buddhist temple. It was lovely and very serene. We were going to a museum but the lines were too long so we were able to head back and get Joylin her afternoon nap.
We are all still doing well.
This is a funny face that she does- we don't know why but it makes us laugh.

We received our "Adoption Barbie" today. I was pleased at how well they matched me in the mother doll. Of course that was when I kept my hair blonde.

One of the temple towers.

Daddy and Joylin taking a break.


Incense prayers and Offerings for the temple.

Joylin and I making a wish by one of the statue.

Lots of flowers around the grounds.


I quickly snapped this. Kind of funny b/c he was on his cell phone.

This guy was amazing. He was painting ink pictures with just his hands.

A View of GZ from our window.

Tianjin To Guang Zhou Day 5, 6, 7

Sorry to not post in 3 days...We have been out an about, which is good. sorry this is long. I need to document better for her memory book.
Day 5 was more paperwork and some shopping. Day 6 was thanksgiving and we went to a nice restaurant had Peking Duck. You are suppose to eat the skin by rolling it (with chopsticks of course!) in sugar. It tasted good- different- greasy sugar. The Duck was good too a bit more greasy than turkey but still very tasty. Marian showed us how to wrap the duck in wraps with Chinese chives, cucumber and soy sauce.
We also went to Cultural street. Really neat stuff. We sent Kurt with Joylin back in a taxi so Marian and I could keeping looking around. Kurt is allergic to shopping. I think Joylin was enjoying herself- she got a lot of attention, yet was missing her afternoon nap.
Later that day , Marian and I took a taxi to the outskirts of town to her founding place. It was pretty emotional for me to see this place. We did run into an older lady that remembered Joylin. She keep saying- "nothing wrong with her but mouth." We figured that out too. She is a smart little girl. She is healthy- like an OX- her Chinese year symbol.

We made the transition to GZ. The 3 hour flight was delayed. Joylin was over tired to begin with and fussed on the plane. There weren't any extra seats and she was in our lap. we arrived at The famous White Swan hotel (famous for adoption families) at 10 pm. Our guide, Jason gave us a ton of information that neither Kurt or I could concentrate on- we are really tired. Luckily he wrote it down too so we were able to look at it in the morning.
The breaksfast buffet is quite spectacular. The goal is to eat enough here then skip lunch. At Breakfast, we noticed that there were lots of adoptive families here. We fit in! In Tianjin, we were stared at everywhere we went. Here you smile at all the adoptive parents.
GZ is much more "westernized" - we had a starbucks coffee (yum). Jason warned us that there are more police and security points right now for the Asian games which are happening here in GZ. He said there are about 16 million people here. Wow. I cannot say it enough how crowded and that there are ALOT of people in China. You can really feel it walking around. I have been to NY city during many summers and it is still not as crowded as here.

We had to do our medical examine today and her photo for an American Visa. She was awesome. she didn't cry once through the exams. we didn't have to do the immunizations b/c she is under 2(she actually has most of her shots except MMR). It wasn't as bad as we thought. They took some of her latest measurements - weight is at 16 lbs and she is 26 inches long. Maybe she ahs gained some weight with us? She sure can eat! We put her on cereal on day 2 and that seems to fill her up. There is another couple here with a 16 month old and she weighs 3x as much as Joylin.

Below are pictures from the last 3 days.
View of Tianjin from our hotel window. Look at that traffic- all day.

At cultural street entrance.

Kurt and Joylin hanging out at Cultural Street.











Look at my new outfit.









Our thanksgiving dinner- Peking Duck!
















Marian showing us how to wrap it.













Look I can eat my feet too!







Kurt loving the chopsticks....not!





Cutie Pie!


Daddy makes me belly laugh.


KFC everywhere - we didn't eat there.













Some pictures around Tianjin.













Love the Budda!

Local Paperwork- Day 4

The first night was a bit rough for all of us. She would wake up every hour- look around and cry. You know she was trying to figure out where she was. We had to wake her up in the morning too (you know it just seems wrong to wake a sleeping baby) but it was b/c it was the local appointments we had. Day 4 was all about local paperwork. Today we went to the registration office, notary, and police station. I couldn't take many pictures- those places are part of the gov.
The registration offices - gave us the certificate that we are her parents now. We took a family picture for the document. So officially the Chinese gov has legally given us her. The notary has to seal it all. We waited in the car at time since some of the places were so crowded.
We then went to the police station to start the paper work to get her Chinese passport so we can travel with her. We will pick it up on Friday. It is in her Chinese name. All these papers we received today are going to be very important next week and when we are coming through immigration in the US.
Our guide, again has been fabulous! She really has it down and we would not have any idea what we needed to do. The night before she goes through the papers we need to bring.

It took all morning- we arrived back at the hotel at 1 pm - just enough time to get her a bottle and all of us a nap. Joylin sleep until 4. We went to a great boiled dumpling place. Did you know dumplings can be steamed, boiled and fried?

Ok- I know what you really want to see...Here are a few pictures:

We had to wake her up.

It is official- We are her parents.

Playing while we wait in the car.




Daddy giving her some cereal. She really needs to fill up on more solid food.

This is our favorite. she is able to cross her fingers. We decided to make it our sign. Our forever family.


From gotcha day- her FF tied her shoes on. Can you see why?

Gotcha day- Day 3

Ok the post we all have been waiting for, but first some before stuff. We woke early again about 4 am. Luckily we were able to chat with the kids and my mom.

We were so nervous, it was amazing we could even eat breakfast. Marian met us to get $ exchanged and arranged for a driver to take us to the SWI.

We arrived at the social welfare institution of Tianjin at 10 am. We were able to take some pictures but we really wanted to meet Joylin. We were led to a nice room just for adoptions, signed some papers and before the camera was out two ladies came in with the most beautiful baby girl- our Joylin. It was love at first site for us. She just gave us "the Look". The look of who are you? She didn't cry but very cautious. She let us hold her, both Kurt and I. We were given a few gifts from the SWI and Marian is going to translate the nannies notes and a letter from the Foster family.

The picture we have as our update is actually pretty recent. She is a peanut. I would say about the size of a 9 month old. She weighs about 16 lbs and is 28"long. She is super playful and pretty easy going for the moment. She has a scar from surgery and we think her lips are lovely- a little like the Angelina Jolie look. We are so in love. I will provide more info on the next post. I want to get back to playing with her.
Here she is-our precious- Joylin!


She fell asleep in the 15 min car ride back.


Here is the Look.


And here she is laughing- love that drool...

More pictures...

Day 2 -leaving Beijing heading to Tianjin

Today started off as a nice restful day. First the rest of the families left in the am with our guide- George to head to their provinces to pick up their children.
Our Beijing guide- George.


We headed to breakfast where we tried some different things for breakfast. I had the Milk steamed buns.
Kurt tried some steamed green veggie- Chinese cabbage. I refused due to being warned about veggies. Some different looking eggs.

We had until 2 pm to repack and wait for our next guide, Marian, to take us to the train station to Tianjin. She will be with us the whole week. When we met her, we knew she is going to be a fabulous help. She also works as a translator for our agency in Beijing and is the main guide for the area. She is about our age too.
Right away she was telling us information about Joylin that she had after calling the orphanage. We were again excited for more details on our mysterious wonder.

A few notes about Joylin:
1) she has been in Foster care for the last 4 months. We are not going to meet the FF b/c it is forbidden by the gov. We brought extra gifts which we will send along to the FF with a Thank you.
2) we know her lip had been repaired but not her palate and so she is eating still only soft foods. Marian bought us a few local foods to bring with us. See photo. I was surprised about the BBQ chips and shrimp flakes but thought the one cracker box looked like our US "Gold fish" brand. I think the teddy bears cookies will be a hit.

3) She likes to play in bath tub, VERY extroverted (hmmmm), and up at 6 am beditme 10:30 pm with only a 1 hour nap - (uh oh) and she LOVES to shop (ok - I just added that in- to be determined!)

We took the Bullet train- Kurt said the train was traveling at 180 mph! It was a smooth ride. Getting all our luggage on and off was another "unique" experience. I would relate it to the subway but we had so much luggage and it was hard to maneuver around all the people. It was extremely crowded. Our largest suitcase wouldn't even fit down the aisle. Poor Kurt was swarmed and the middle of a traffic jam- no one seemed to get it to move out of his way so he could open the aisle. A view from the train trip.


We arrived in Tianjin and it remind us more of a large city (10 Mil people!)Tons of traffic on a Sunday late afternoon. We had dinner in a "fast food" authentic restaurant- Kurt tried Spicy Sour noodles. I talked him out of something rated 4 chili peppers hot. I didn't want him getting sick before our big day! We had to eat with Chopsticks- Kurt was a real trooper- noodles and chopsticks are difficult for the first timer. I will get a picture of this tomorrow:)
Tianjin view from our room- 15th floor.

Our room is a fantastic large corner room. We will have a nice amount of room to play in here. We unpacked for the next 5 days. So now we are suppose to get some rest. The beds are extremely hard. We have 3 blankets on the mattress (ie board).

So tomorrow I will take pictures of the hotel and JOYLIN!

Day one in Beijing

We arrived late on 11-19. Got to our hotel at 1 am. We had no problems sleeping at night. Neither of us slept on the plane.

We had a good breakfast buffet. I'll take some pictures later to show you some of the unusual options.

We met our travel friends today and toured with them. Many of our tour spots are assigned by the government. You saw the buses dropping all the "foreigners" off at these sights. First stop the Jade factory.
Here is someone carving the jade.

3 things we learned about jade:
1) There is hard and soft jade. The hard jade is rarer called "jadeite" and used to make jewelry. The soft jade is used to make sculptures.
2) Jade is like diamonds in the US. There are 3 grades of Jade- A, B, C. A being the most pure.
3) Jade is suppose to "share" its mineral component with the wearer.

THE GREAT WALL of CHINA



Then we were off to the Great Wall. We went to the non machine side, meaning no machines were used to make or fix this part of the wall. It was very steep.
Christine tried to go up but her fear of heights took over and had to stay at the lower part. Kurt took the hike and got some great pictures. Three things we learned about the Great Wall:
1) It was created to keep the enemies out and used by many dynasties.

2) the wall officers used smoke to communicate along the wall to warn the town. The special smoke during the day was made from wolf dung (poop). This smoke is darker and goes straight up. They used regular wood for night fires.
3) It is 8700 km long.


We needed a break and had lunch- family style with the food in middle. It was fun. We did not get to choose what we wanted but there was a variety. Where we ate was another gov sanctioned restaurant with a gift shop below that you had to go in and out.
.

We took a short trip to where the Summer Olympics in 2008 were held.

We saw where the torch was placed.
The "Bird Cage". Amazing architecture!

And the "Water Cube" where swimming was held. The place was kept very clean.

The evening ended with a flying acrobatic show. Very entertaining some highlights (I couldn't get a good picture):
10 girls on a bike while it was moving in a circle.
2 guys in a dual hamster ball wheel in the air moving it around in a circle while jump roping.

Over all, Beijing feels very safe. They are use to foreigners. There is a lot here that we are not going to be able to see. There are the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City, and so much more. I think it would be a great place to visit and stay longer.
we were so tired and fell asleep at 7 pm Beijing time. Which is why at 3 am we are awake posting this:)
We leave Sunday afternoon for Tianjin.