China Day One

The waterfall inside the lobby of The White Swan Hotel.

Some Chinese art and antiques that were for sale.

Brooklyn is holding the tale of "mystery animal" We were told by the local selling it that it had a nice smell. Um...to each his own.

We just returned from an amazing trip to China. It was emotional, exciting, and hectic. It wasn’t a vacation for sure. It was an edu-cation. It was a chance for Brooklyn to reconnect with her past. It was a chance for Kade and Sydney to see just where Brooklyn came from and maybe get a little more perspective on the world she lived in. It was a chance for Kathi and I to thank those special people who looked after Brooklyn before she blessed our lives. It was an experience like no other trip we have taken together as a family, and one we are very thankful we were able to make.

Due to a combination of factors including lack of time, the strict monitoring of the Internet in China; which made the connection speeds glacial in their pace, and just needing some time to process what we were taking in, we were unable to blog our experience up until now. We will now start to blog each of the big events in our trip. We will try to get one up a day. If I write the whole thing out now I will end up condensing it due to typer’s cramp and I don’t want to short change anything about the trip. We are thankful that many so many of you keep up with our family through this blog and love hearing from you. We also however are using this as way to not forget any of the great experiences and memories we have undertaken while in Southeast Asia and want to keep it for posterity’s sake.

Here we go:

Getting There:

We left school a little early on Friday so we could catch our 4:00 flight out of Pekanbaru. A big thanks to our principal, Lory, for letting us take off early. The PKU airport is an experience all to itself. It includes a moldy interior, an international side of the airport that is roughly the size of single-wide trailer, and smoking rooms that where shutting the door while you are smoking is optional not to mention even if the door is closed there is an open area at the top of the room that opens to the main seating area and no fan in the room to suck up the smoke. Other than that it is really great!

On a side note this is the lightest we have ever packed for going on a family excursion. We took only two suitcases plus carry-ons. This was due to the fact that we stayed in a different hotel just about every night. This light travel made getting around easier but as the week went on I felt like I was back in college trying to judge which of my clothes could make it another wearing.

Also of interest to those of you who know Kathi well was our color-coded folder system. That’s right; each of our eight days had its own folder, complete with hotel info, any tickets that were needed, and even anything we were to be looking for that day be it shopping or a recommended restaurant. Knowing Kathi would you expect anything less?

We hopped on our Air Asia plane and took the short 40 minute flight to Kuala Lumpur. Here we had a 2 hour layover where we were able to eat some McDonalds and enjoy a Starbucks. With the kids fed and watered we then loaded our plane to Guangzhou. Now Air Asia is the Asian version of Southwest Airlines (No Frills). You can typically get a good deal and the planes are all in great condition and very new. What you can’t get however are the amenities that come with a more expensive airline. Did I mention that the flight to Guangzhou was 4 hours long?

It is not the flight time that really bothers us anymore. The kids really are extremely good travelers. They know what to expect and don’t really have any issues with flying. What was kind of frustrating about this flight was that we are used to entertainment (movies) on our longer flights. Anything over two hours is a longer flight for us. The kids have gadgets to play with and Kathi and I had books so it all worked out but any longer and we could have had trouble.

We arrived in Guangzhou at 1:20 A.M. There is only a one hour time difference between PKU and GZ. so it was pretty late. Luckily that night we were staying at a hotel right at the airport. We simply cleared customs, grabbed our bags and walked about 400 meters to our hotel. That was nice. It was a very nice hotel but we really just wanted to hit the sack as we had a big day ahead.

Kathi had arranged to have a driver take us around while we were in GZ. She had set it up with a women named Ann, who specializes in helping adoptive families send their waiting children packages before they come to get them and she will also take people shopping for things like pearls, antiques, clothing, etc. when they come to get their child. We had used Ann when we 1^st went to get Brooklyn in 2007. She speaks great English and knows how to get things done.

Our driver met us with his minivan at about 10:00 AM and we loaded up our suitcases as we were off to a new hotel for the second night. (More on that in the next post.) While I did say that Ann spoke great English, our driver on the other hand, not a word. That made for some interesting back and fourths that pretty much left us at a loss.

Regardless, after we dropped off our bags, got a little Mickey D’s (This was not our first choice but it was what we knew and they have picture menus.) and picked up Ann we were off to do a little shopping. Ann took us to an antique market where they have all kinds of Chinese artwork and pottery. We had been there in 2007 but it was great to show the kids all of the Chinese artifacts and let them get a feel for the culture. This is an open air market where locals hang out and sell their wares. It is definitely not commercial and without Ann we would have not been able to go to a place like that and have any idea what was going on. We picked up some paintings for our home and Kade got a small jade dragon as well as some replicas of ancient Chinese coins from dynasties gone by.

Next we headed to Shamin Island. This area is where most adoptive families in the past have stayed while waiting to leave China to head back to the US with their children. In fact this is where Kathi and I stayed when we went to China in ’07. The main hotel here is called The White Swan. Currently this hotel is under renovation. (year two of a two year process.) No one stays here now due to this. In fact we only saw one other adoptive family there this time around.

The Island (more of a neighborhood) has many little shops that were trying to get the tourist dollar. Anything bootleg you can think of: North Face Jackets, Callaway Golf Clubs, Rayban sunglasses, luggage, and any number of t-shirts and trinkets. Each of the shops has store keepers who will, “Make you special deal!” on their merchandise. It was where I first got “hustled” by paying way too much for a children’s book in ‘07. Since then I have learned a thing or two about haggling and I am quite a bit more confident in my abilities to negotiate.

Another cool thing about the island is that it has a Starbucks. That was the one thing that kept us sane when we went to get Brooklyn. We were in the same hotel for 18 days and had a toddler that was not all that excited about her new surroundings so Starbucks was looked forward to daily.

What was great about going back there was that the White Swan still had their lobby and restaurants open so we could show the kids all of the places that we were during our first trip. They could see the shops, the little medical clinic where each adoptive child had to get a check up at as well as the building where Brooklyn got her US Visa picture. All of these places are part of her history and places where she started her life in our family. It was a really fun day for all of us.

At about 6 PM we arrived at our second hotel to stay for the evening. It was something else for sure. We’ll get to that in the next post.

Each hotel had these masks you were to put on if there was a fire. Apparently they are approved by NASA.

"The Deli Shop" was a place we stopped at ofter when we visited in 2007. It has some great apple bread. The kids really enjoyed it and it tasted the same as we remembered.

One of the restaurants had live seafood that they let you pick out for them to cook up for you. Here are some water beetles. Everything from turtles to snakes could be had for your dinner.

A parking lot in Shamin Island.

Not nearly as many people there now that The White Swan is under construction.

The Pearl River. Guangzhou is built around this river.

A statue outside Lucy's restaurant on the island.

It serves western food which is hard to find in GZ.

A fountain outside Starbucks.

Where Brooklyn was given a physical before we could take her home.

A great Thai restaurant we ate at when we were in Guangzhou in 07.

Fishing in the little river that runs through Shamin Island.

The Fisherman's catch - Turtle anyone?

Shamin Island has a quaintness to it that attracts a TON of young people there to have photo shoots. In a span of 15 minutes outside Starbucks we saw about 6 different groups being photographed.

A little piece of home!

The girl at one of the stores told me that this says that Obama is smart.

I will let you all judge this one yourself.

One of the photography sessions.

Big Goldfish!

I am bigger than I was the last time!

This 1o foot tall jade statue is carved with amazing detail.

It is in the middle of the W.S. lobby.

These Red Couch photos are of a famous red couch in the W.S. where most adoptive children get dressed up in traditional Chinese clothing and are photographed before leaving to go back to the US. We have some pictures of Brooklyn on this couch from back in 07. The difference from then till now is pretty staggering.

Brooklyn being silly.

Heavy bronze stamps.

Carvings on a pillar infront of a temple located in Guangzhou.

Family photo time.

A buddist temple inside the market.

Where did Mom go?

Kade trying to throw a coin into the statue. Legend says it is "good luck" if it goes in.

For a tiny Chinese women Ann moves FAST.

This is us trying to keep up!

Infront of the Guangzhou Airport

Sydney waiting for our hotel room at 1:30 am.

Our hotel at the airport

Sydney's dream car