A Taste of the Culture of China (2.12.15)

Reflections from our trip to China: The day before we fly out...(pardon the lack of editing to some of these photo-- no time for that these days!) :) Please note- video link may not be viewable on some mobile devices)

2/12/15 (Thursday) 

...Today we had a lazy morning and some of the families went to the zoo or had a chance to visit the Safari Park. Since Bri’s a little young and these options were going to cut a bit into nap time and a large part of the day, we felt a restful day visiting the local park and seeing some of the nearby areas would be a better fit. We had a late breakfast and let her take her morning nap and I headed out to a nearby store for one last run to ensure we had all of the souvenirs for Bri that we had wanted to get while here and a few gifts for a few others.

Once she got up, we headed to the local park near our hotel which is was absolutely stunning. Since Chinese New Year is just a couple of days away, everything is decked out and ready for the big celebration. You can’t quite picture what this is like, but if you think about how we celebrate and decorate for Christmas in the states, it’s sort of like that, but in some ways even more elaborate. 

It’s been really amazing seeing how important this holiday is in Chinese culture and how it’s celebrated. We walked throughout the park and there were so many beautiful decorations throughout. This year will mark the year of the sheep (or goat depending on which Chinese person you talk to as you'll find sheep and goat in various places- it's quite humorous and has been a bit confusing to most). Everywhere that you see displays, there will be little sheep throughout them. 

Some of the displays and decorations have been so amazing to see.  The park was absolutely beautiful to stroll through and we didn’t even touch a fraction of it! Such a gorgeous little lake and buildings and décor for the upcoming holiday.

Local children had also made numerous types of lanterns for the upcoming Lantern Festival which marks the end of the Chinese New Year celebration. These lined the walkway beside the lake and were so colorful and varied greatly 
with such detail. Pictures just couldn't do them justice.

After we left the park, we headed back to the hotel, which happens to have a Starbucks on site, and Nate grabbed a coffee and he bought me a Mango Hibiscus tea which was an absolutely amazing drink.  I will say the Starbucks drink menu in China has us beat (at least in my personal opinion). They have some different drinks than the U.S., but also have many of the same drinks as well. If nothing else- coming across one, is a little piece of home away from home.

We headed to the meeting room briefly to pick up Bri’s packet of paperwork and passport which now had her new US visa in it.  

Once that was done, we decided to head back out and take a stroll out of the “tourist” area and walk down some streets off the beaten path. A friend had given us a street to check out and it turned out to be an amazing suggestion! The area around the hotel, is very “touristy” and you can’t go far without seeing other adoptive families or just foreign travelers in general in the area where we stayed.  To explore and get off the beaten path and see a different piece of “China” in this province was a neat site.

We walked down a little stone-path alley and it opened into a narrow street where apartments lined the path.  

Along the road were markets and vendors and just about anything you could buy or need if you were a local. The first store we encountered was a meat market and the owner didn’t take too fondly to us videoing his store, so we quickly put that away, but did get quite a few pictures of the things that were for sell- butchered meat, live "chicken-birds" (because I don't know what they are or what to call them) and other living critters like snakes, eels, fish, etc. (ok, so maybe fish aren't critters)

Just a few steps down we came across fruit and veggie vendors and tons 

of Chinese New Year decorations for sell. 

 (there is just something about this picture above that I just love...)

There were flower shops, tea shops, little convenience stores and more.  I would love to have had more time to wander this street further, as it was bustling with energy as people were heading home from work and buying what was needed to cook dinner or to decorate for the upcoming holiday.

 ( sorry for cutting your head off in this picture, Nate--oops!)

While walking, we had a funny experience as a “Chinese grandma” saw Bri “having a little meltdown moment” and she walked up to her in the stroller and started talking to her and within seconds, the tears dried up and she just looked at me and all was made right in the world again.  We’ve noticed that several times while here that a little Chinese lady will say something to her and she gets so enamored by the conversation. I guess we’ll never know what they said to her, but whatever it was, it worked!

We were definitely the only foreigners on this street so we got the stare down more than we had on any part of our trip. Everyone would walk up to us and look at “B” and then start chatting among themselves or pointing to her big eyes (which they are all so fascinated by) We’ve been told that “big eyes” are quite coveted by Asians, so I guess that explains why they are so interested in her eyes all of the time.  

Here's a little piece of China via video...

We snapped a few photos and then decided it was time to head back to the hotel.

We headed back for the night to start the fun process of packing for our long trip home. Now is the moment of truth- will all of our stuff fit in our bags and not be overweight!  Thankfully since we have “B” with us for the return home, we are allowed one more bag, so we can stuff our carry on with more this time around and check it if need be.  Lucky for us, some of the items for “B” like food and diapers have slowly diminished over these last two weeks, so we should have a bit more space in our bags due to that. We will definitely be loaded down- backpacks in tow along with several suitcases and a baby this time!  Hard to believe we leave tomorrow for home.

US Consulate Appointment & Shamian Island (2.11.15)

Reflections written from 2/11/15 (Weds)- U.S. Consulate Appointment & Shamian Island:

Today we headed to the US Consulate in downtown, which is run by the Department of State. This was the last step needed in order to finish our adoption to receive “B’s” US immigrant visa for her passport.  

We went through security and couldn't take any type of camera or phone into the building (even Bri's diaper creme didn't make it through security- lol!). Once through security, we headed to the second floor of the building nearby to wait for our number to be called in order to finish the steps for her visa. We all took oath together as adoptive families and then did a fingerprint signature and they made sure we were 100% aware of our children’s paperwork and medical needs, etc. before leaving China. They checked everything over on the paperwork and made sure nothing was missing and everything was accurate. During our interview they did bring up a medical item that had not been listed in any of our paperwork from the orphanage, but did not come as a surprise to us- so we hope that once we are able to get additional records from her orphanage once the adoption is finalized (this is something they shared with us that we will receive since she was in a care center at her orphanage), that maybe there will be some additional notes that were taken. 

The American officer on staff who gave instructions and led us through the oath was hilarious and did a great job with something that most likely could be so monotonous day in and day out for him.  He had us all laughing and just told us that we had to keep our brown envelope of paperwork and do not open it at any time as this will go directly to the U.S. immigration services in the airport when we land in the U.S. and will grant automatic citizenship to our daughter.  He told us if we opened up our brown envelope that we would end up in parts of the airport for immigration that we didn’t want to be in and made a bunch of jokes about everything and kept it funny and lighthearted. Someone should seriously consider giving this guy a raise.

After we wrapped up things at the US Consulate in Guangzhou, we took a few last pictures as families in front of the building, since cameras and other devices are not allowed inside.

Gotta' love the Chinese lady photo-bombing!

 We headed back to the hotel and then Nate and I met up with a friend from Beijing who wanted to hang out for the afternoon and so graciously agreed to take us out and about to a few places this afternoon.  We headed to the pearl market (which we had missed earlier in the week) where pearls and other items are wholesale (jewelry store owners and people from all over the world come here to purchase and bargain for pearls, jade, precious stones, etc. and then take them back to their home countries to sell in stores, etc.  We had wanted to pick up a few small things for Brielle for when she is older.  This area is considered one of the busiest in the city of Guangzhou and was filled with people! There were marketplaces selling foods and fruit and just about anything on a stick.  We then took about a 20 min walk and headed over to Shamian Island.

This lady below didn't like me taking photos of her food booth apparently...

While in route to Shamian Island, we passed this tea store...I thought it was really amazing how they packaged all of these different types of tea.

and another store with some sort of native food item (wish I would have written it down) that they dry out and then make into hangings for their home.

Shamian Island was absolutely gorgeous. I had no idea what to expect, other than I knew it was a place many families liked to shop for items to take home for their children and was a popular spot among adoptive families.

  

Suddenly, within minutes, it was as though we had been transplanted from China and suddenly arrived in Charleston, SC. Huge gnarly trees with beautiful wood, lined all of the streets, each adorned with moss hanging from above. (sorry ya'll, I'm not a tree connoisseur so have no idea what kind of trees these were, but I loved them and some were just massive!)

There were no motor vehicles, no large crowds or noise (something that is beyond rare here) - just beautiful Chinese lanterns, lush greenery, flowers and cobblestone streets.

Christmas decorations and Chinese New Year decorations were also hanging  

throughout the streets.

The buildings were beautiful and surprisingly, didn’t have Asian architecture. It was a beautiful place to take a stroller and walk along the sidewalks and browse through the shops. (and yes, there was even a very modern plantation style Starbucks here)

There were also a lot of really neat bronze statues throughout the area and we tried to get “B” to take some photos with a few of the more popular ones, but she was terrified of them for some reason. Total meltdown. That said, this is pretty much all we got.

We came across an amazing store called China Charities, which was a Christian store that sold really nice and unique items, but gave the profits to charity to help feed, clothe and take care of orphans and children in foster care in China. You couldn’t really bargain in this store, but the items were so neat and being sold for such a good reason, that we loved that concept and purchased a few neat things here. We were able to get “B” a little bracelet and a doll dress that is a traditional Chinese dress. Nate also found a very cool Chinese print and we realized it had a great Bible verse on it and as we walked through the store, there were a number of other items with Bible verses on them throughout the store. I’m not exactly sure how they are able to sell a lot of what was in this store, but they had quite a bit in there and Nate bought a neat Chinese scroll for his office with the verse from Philippians 3:13- “...Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth to those things which are before…”

Before we knew it, it was time to leave and find a taxi back to the hotel, which unfortunately proved to be quite the challenge. We had to be back for individual and group photos at 4:30 in the hotel lobby and though we started the process early to get back, we couldn’t find a cab anywhere for the longest time. Finally we hit a point where we were racing against he clock and suddenly it felt like we were contestants on the ‘Amazing Race’  (those who follow that show will understand what I mean-- but I'd vote that our little experience was one level crazier than the actual show, since we were running around in a foreign country with a baby, all the while trying to get to the next place.  Maybe they need to launch a new show called- The Amazing Baby Race). We ran several blocks with “B” in her stroller looking for either a metro station (which we knew was a few blocks up) or an available taxi. (we knew the taxi would be much quicker) I'm sure the Chinese people we passed wonder what in the world the crazy white Americans were doing jogging through the streets with a baby stroller.

As you can tell, she didn't have a care in the world and was probably loving the crazy stroller ride!  Finally we found a taxi and made sure they knew we only had 15 minutes left and they had to drive quickly. The next 15 minutes was certainly the ride of our life as this guy was quite the driver.  They say if you can drive in China with all of the craziness, you can drive anywhere in the world and now I understand that quote more fully.  It was as though Nate and I were suddenly in the last leg of the Amazing Race, trying to make it to the next pit stop, racing against the clock. “B” fell asleep so fast after we started riding in the taxi, that she missed out on one wild ride-- and that was probably a good thing!

We arrived just two minutes late at the hotel, but families were still piling into the lobby, so we were good to go. The next half hour of photos of the entire travel group and their families, a group shot of just the children on a big long couch, and individual family photos proved to be very interesting.  Try getting over 30 people plus the 17 new children to all look at the camera and smile together...

Oh.

My.

Word.

Organized chaos.

It was actually quite hysterical and made me laugh. All the parents just had to make jokes and keep lighthearted as kids were crying, falling sleep, or wiggling and wouldn’t let anyone take their picture. (Hence an example from the photo above-- not one of mine turned out as kiddos were moving everywhere- lol!)  Our little one decided it was nap time still, so barely woke up in enough time to get a picture or two and we definitely didn't have a chance to get "sleeping beauty" dressed in her Chinese "silks" as they call them. As it turned out, we weren't the only ones. Oh the funny travel moments we’ve had  with our children while in China.

After the photo session, little “B” was quite ready for food and a nap since her naptime was a bit shortened today with all of the moving around and she just slept in transit to places.  We settled in for the evening and miss personality started showing her fun side again. We fed her and then gave her a good bath, then started to wind down for the evening.  

Tomorrow we are going to keep it low key and likely visit the local park and maybe hit up a few last places before we leave China.  We will receive our daughter’s final paperwork and passport and US Visa tomorrow afternoon around 4pm. It’s bittersweet to think we leave in less than two days.