Arriving in Guangzhou

We have made it to our last stop: Guangzhou. We left Zhengzhou early and we were more than a little

anxious about the two hour flight. Chloe is a bundle of energy and sitting still for two hours is torture for her. However, she did amazing! She slept for about 1 hour and sat nicely for the other hour. That was a huge answer to prayer! We are settled in nicely to the China Hotel now and have visited the McDonalds next door for a late lunch. Some of our options were drumsticks, corn on the cob, a blue egg roll, and luckily plenty of recognizable western options. 

The China hotel is very nice, we somehow made it onto the executive floor and have a beautiful view of the playground and garden/waterfall area. A few families went down to the playground area and it was amazing to see personalities emerge. Chloe's roommate, Mei Na, has been a very quiet reserved little girl but you would never know it seeing her on the playground today. Chloe and Mei were cracking each other up as they chased each other around the area. It was the best!

A few things about Chloe: 

She is most definitely in the terrible twos - not afraid to tell us how she feels (tantrums a plenty)

She is the life of the party - she has a happy scream that she uses to see how the other kids react and then she runs toward them trying to get them to play. Her best buddy is Mei Na.

She is very generous - she will give items to people and then take something of theirs to give to another person. She's a mini Robin Hood.

She likes to wave to everyone and if you are lucky she will blow u kisses. And she loves Baba kisses.

I am unable to upload pictures from the camera right now, a few iphone pics are all I can offer.

The Pagoda forest at the Shaolin Temple

Chloe loves to wave to all her admirers. 

A dance party in front of Burger King

First plane ride 

Adoption Registration Day - She is officially a Lyttle!

Today we traveled to the registration office and to the notary office to finalize the adoption. It's official, she is a Lyttle! 

Chloe is starting to show her personality a little more. She loves to run up and down the hallways with Sean and will reach for his hand and pull him where she wants to go. She has been talking to us more as well. If only I understood what she was saying! I think it mostly revolves around food. 

She is a good eater and will shove as much into her cheeks as possible, I am sure there is security in that. We gave her a good variety at breakfast and she ate most everything. She didn't like the watermelon but chowed down on everything else. I am glad to see she isn't afraid to be picky.

She seems to prefer Mama but is happy with Baba too. We are doing our best to make sure there aren't favorites as we both need breaks from time to time. Its been a while since we have chased a toddler around. 

She reaches towards us for kisses now

C'mon mama!

Cinco de Chloe!

We have our girl! I will post more later but here she is

Arriving

Her friend from the orphanage was also adopted today

The doll I made was a big hit!

Arriving in Zhengzhou

Yesterday was our travel day to Henan province, the province that Chloe lives in. We woke up early to be at the train station by 6:30 a.m. After a little confusion on where to pick up our tickets, we found our way to the waiting room by 7 a.m. for our 7:30 train. It was a great way to see more of the country and we arrived ahead of the rest of our group by an hour or so. The bullet train traveled at 300 km/hr for most of the ride with a few stops in between our destination. We traveled with another family from our group, and am very thankful that we connected on fb before the trip and braved this journey together. The rest of the group mentioned that there was some awful turbulence on the ride down to Henan, just another reminder that we made the right choice! 

We had to catch a cab to the hotel after the train. Erin had looked up the distance and it showed that our hotel was 3km away from the train station. The cab drivers saw the white families and decided to take us on the scenic route, ensuring themselves a little more money for the day. We took about 20 minutes to make this 3 km trip and saw quite a bit more of the city than we had anticipated. I knew we were in trouble when the cabs pulled parralel to each other and the drivers spoke to each other. I

m sure it went something like this "These white people don't know where they are going, lets show them the town!" Luckily for us it was still less that four dollars to pay for the ride. We all decided we would have paid them plenty if they would have just taken the direct route! 

Once we arrived to the hotel, we decided to find lunch with Larry and Erin. We had skipped breakfast and were pretty hungry by this time. After braving our lives to cross the street, we found that there was no food down the direction we were heading. We turned around and came back to the hotel, realizing we should have just checked with our guide before heading out. Our guide Vivian pointed us in the right direction and we enjoyed a good lunch right next door to our hotel. 

Soon, the rest of the families arrived and we headed to Walmart to get supplies for the next few days. Unfortunately, the camera had died by this point but I will have to get pictures another time. Was certainly not like Walmart back home! 

Beijing - the beginning of our journey

Charlie Chaplin played on the screen for our trip

Lots of fields

The bullet train

The rooms have curtains between the bedroom and bathroom... don't worry Sean is fully dressed

Touring: The Great Wall

Today we visited the Great Wall of China. We woke up at 4:30 a.m. this morning, the jet lag is pretty  bad. I was sure we would be ok traveling this direction but its been difficult to sleep. We are both doing pretty good during the day, lots to keep us busy, just can't seem to sleep. Oh well, I guess it is preparing us for life with Chloe ;) We skyped the kids around 7a.m. and then headed to the tour bus. 

The Great Wall was amazing! We arrived early, around 9 a.m., and it  proved to be a very good decision. The view was good, the weather beautiful. As we were preparing to leave it was much more overcast and the visibilty was not as great. I had great intentions about climbing the wall, unfortunately my legs/body did not get the memo. I did make it to the second tower you see in the pics (the one that the stream of people are heading to) and was happy to have climbed that far. It is extremely steep! Sean headed further up the wall while I chatted with another group member. Some of our group made it all the way to the thirteenth tower! 

Tonight we will head to an acrobatics show. It sounds like a lot of fun, will hopefully be able to get some good photos. 

Our group - we are really enjoying getting to know everyone

People leave locks along the wall to signify their love.

After the Wall, we stopped at a jade factory and were able to watch as they carved the jade. It was really interesting but a little too rich for our blood. We plan to see what we can find in Guangzhou. 

Tomorrow we leave early for Henan on a train. Soon we will have Chloe in our arms!

Touring Beijing

Today was our first day of touring in Beijing. We went to Tian'amen Square, the Forbidden City, and then we visited a local house and ate lunch there. There was so much to take in, and lots of history to learn. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of it but I did take some cool pics! 

In Tian'amen Square

Government building in the Fobidden City

So intricate and beautiful

This gentlemen made us a delicious lunch!

So far, so good... In two days time we will be on a train to go to Chloe's province. 

Travel Day

The day to leave for China finally came! The morning began at 3:30 a.m. on 4/30 and didn't end until 8:30 p.m. on 5/1, It was a long day!! The flights over were good. I am not a big fan of flying but had peace about the journey and survived the day. The 12 hour flight from San Francisco to Beijing was packed and uncomfortable. There were 380 passengers on that plane! They had lots of movies to keep us entertained so I got to watch a few movies I had been wanting to see, that helped.

We arrived in Beijing at 2:30 p.m. and that waited about an hour and a half to get through immigration, customs and baggage claim. Our lovely guide Ceceila met us at arrivals and along with another CCAI family we made the trek to our hotel, SunWorld Dynasty. Ceceila talked to us throughout the van ride about what we would be doing in Beijing, and interesting things about China. One of the interesting thiings we learned was that in China you must apply for a license plate and then wait for the government to accept your application before purchasing a car. One of her friends has been waiting for 2 years! They also have certain days of the month that limit when you can drive. If your license plate ends in 1 or 6 for example, you can not drive on Mondays. We were lucky to arrive on a Chinese holiday so traffic wasn't too bad getting to the hotel.

We arrived at the hotel, showered up and went to a noodle shop next door. The food was amazing! Some of our options were donkey meat, rabbit, duck (with the head still on), and carp. We chose to be boring and just go with chicken ;) After dinner we walked around town and found some street vendors. There were some interesting food choices available... 

Inside the noodle shop

we both made valiant attempts at chopsticks, eventually we gave up and used forks.

Spring rolls, fried grain rice (similair to couscous), and kung pau chicken - soooo good!;

Street vendors lined this street for at least a quarter mile. 

Squid on a stick, this seemed like a popular choice