Last Day on Shamian Island

In his continuing quest to sample all the viruses and bacteria available in China Mark woke up today with pink eye. Fortunately, we had brought eye drops in case Allie developed it, so he is using her medicine.

Today is our last day on Shamian Island—this is the location of the White Swan Hotel. In the late 19th century when the Chinese were fighting with the French and English they confined all foreigners to this little island. They even forbid them to learn Chinese, on punishment of death. So the Europeans created a little colony for themselves here. The island is still primarily French and English colonial buildings with a couple of new, large hotels. It feels like a resort community. There isn’t much traffic and the narrow streets are great for walks with a stroller. And since so many adoptive Americans come here the stores and restaurants cater to them (us). Many of the stores offer strollers for loan. It is a nice break for us after the intensity of Nanchang. Since China is experiencing a heat wave the temperatures here have been near 80. We are really enjoying walking around in t-shirts and drinking beer at an outdoor café. (Yes, we are rubbing it in for those freezing back home.)

We have ventured off the island to explore the shopping markets. Especially interesting have been the food markets with all manner of dried and fresh veggies, legumes, noodles, fish and meat displayed on the sidewalks. Mark forgot to put the battery back in the camera yesterday so we don’t have any shots of the many kinds of live and skinned animals we saw, but he has them on videotape for viewing at home.

Today we will pack and do some more shopping this morning and then have lunch with our group. We leave at 3:00 to go to the US consulate for our official swearing-in ceremony this afternoon and to receive Allie’s visa to go to the states. Then we head straight to the airport for a flight to Beijing. Tomorrow evening we head home.

Group Pictures

Yesterday we took group pictures in the hotel lobby. Guess who wants to play.

Buddhist Blessing

This afternoon we went to a Buddhist temple for a traditional baby blessing. All the parents held their babies and sat on the floor of the temple in front of three huge Buddha statues (no pictures allowed) while a Buddhist priest chanted and then sprinkled water on us all (parents, too). It was a moment of connection between all the parents, our children's heritage and the larger community--at least that is what I, Mark, felt. A note to Monica Willard: they have a peace pole on the Temple grounds.

White Swan Barbie

This is the special commemorative Barbie made by Mattel for all adoptive parents who stay at this hotel. No comment.

Good Medical Check

Allie passed her medical check with flying colors. She weighed 20 pounds is 28 inches long and has a 43 cm head circumference.

To Guangzhou

Sorry we haven’t time to post much on our blog. Mark’s illness returned on Sunday morning (only this time in his stomach—not nice) and that was travel day. We flew from Nanchang to Guangzhou. Ronnie had a big job to do with caring for baby and husband and packing everything. You can’t imagine what an operation it is to move nine families with new babies. Fortunately, our guides do a wonderful job with arrangements, and though it is long and hard, everything goes smoothly.

Our last day (Saturday) in Nanchang was spent with a visit to a Confucian/Taoist Pagoda and our continued quest for a tea house. We finally found a tea shop and after a convoluted discussion involving a translator on a cell phone we ended up buying a very expensive bag of green tea. We have no idea what it is, but it must be good. We also had to go back to Wal-Mart to buy another suitcase for all our purchases. A Saturday afternoon at Wal-Mart is no fun.

Allie did great on her first airplane flight. She was her usually squirmy self, but a bag of toys and a lot of Cheerios kept her busy. She does like to move. As Ronnie says, “She plays hard and she sleeps hard.”

We are now in Guangzhou, which is a major manufacturing area in China, only two hours from Hong Kong. Driving in from the airport it looks like a much more concentrated city than Beijing. Large apartment buildings packed tightly together. We are staying at the famous (in China adoption circles) White Swan hotel. It is a top-of-the-line 5-star hotel. It has everything and it is all best quality. Because all 6-7000 adopting US families have to go to the US Consulate that is in this city, and they virtually all stay in this hotel, they cater to families with adopting babies.

Right now we are lying in bed watching the Super Bowl. It began at 7:30 AM here and is on ESPN. The only bad part is that we don’t get the US commercials. All the commercials are about Asian soccer. We have to leave for Allie’s medical check-up (standard practice for all babies) at 10:00, so we will miss the fourth quarter—oh, the sacrifices we make for our children!

Allie is going great. It is so amazing to see the changes in her in such a short time. She is a very active, happy child who eats everything. She also likes to have everything on her own time, we are learning to be more flexible. She still sleeps about twelve hours a night and takes an hour nap each afternoon.

Allie pics--as requested

Allie takes a bath, Dad gets a shower.

Starting to crawl

She loves noodles

Nanchang Photos

At the People's Park

Monument to the August 1 (1927) uprising of the Communist Party.

About the Food

Virtually all of our meals have been eaten with the group. At each meal we sit at round tables with very large lazy susans and various dishes are served from that. Most of the food would not be uncommon at a Chinese restaurant back home, though it is more lightly sauced (without all the corn starch) and it all is very well cooked and the ingredients quite fresh. We’ve enjoyed the food at every meal. The food in Beijing was mildly spiced, but Nanchang has a reputation for spicy food. It has been hotter, but nothing to knock your socks off.

One distinctive meal was a lunch as one of the new “hip” restaurant called “0791”—the zip code for the city. (It appears that restaurants with dreams of pretension have numerical names all over the world.) The food here was more regional with healthy amounts of red peppers and other hot seasonings. We particularly liked the mushrooms (shitake?) served with hard boiled pigeon eggs, the sliced large mushrooms served on a large hot stone so that they simmered the entire meal and the small, whole shrimp quickly fried with fresh tea leaves. We were instructed to peal the shrimp, but Mark thought this a chore and the head and shell added a nice crunchy element to the meal. The fried tea leaves were yummy. These would make a great snack for our super bowl party.

Last night we ventured out on our own in search of a “hot pot” restaurant. After a couple of wrong turns and a nice Chinese couple who stopped to give us directions twice we finally arrived quite exhausted and hungry. The most pressing problem, though, was that the menu was in Chinese and no one spoke any English. Ronnie solved this problem by taking the waitress to other people’s tables and pointing to the things that we wanted. The hot pot is a large bowl of water with seasonings placed over a propane burner that is built into the middle of the table. We were served raw greens, rice noodles, dried tofu and some interesting meat that looked like prosciutto. These are put in the broth to cook and then eaten communally with chopsticks. It was fun and good. And a mess. Especially when dad tried to feed Allie noodles with chopsticks. The waitress finally came over and wiped off Allie herself. (When will the new parents remember the bib?) It was interesting to eat with the entire wait staff watching our every move. Does Mark eat the meat here? Well, when in Rome…(or when at Julie and Danny’s house…) We wished Mari could have been here with us--the tofu was excellent. Allie loved it, but she eats anything that gets near her mouth--we didn't give her the mystery meat.

Beverages are less interesting. The best beer is Tsing Tao. The worst tastes like a blander version of Bud light, if you can imagine such a thing. We tried Dynasty, a “dry red wine,” that tasted vaguely of some odd grape juice. I wouldn’t recommend importing it.

The beverage of choice is green tea. We have seen over a dozen different types of green tea on a restaurant meal—and it can be one of the most expensive things on the menu. Unfortunately, the traditional teahouse seems to be disappearing. We haven’t seen any and when asked we were given an address that turned out to be where one had recently closed and the space was now a boutique-clothing store. We have a lead on one that we will search for this afternoon.

Reality Check

The town where Allie was born is Heng Feng. It is about a three hour drive from here so we will not be able to visit it. It is a predominately agricultural area that, like most of rural China, is very poor. To give us an idea of what it is like our guide took us to a village near Nanchang. It is a place of great poverty and was sad to visit, but we are glad to have this have a more complete picture of our journey and, perhaps, Allie's roots.

Temple Tour

I’m back—Mark here. After a day spent in bed (thanks to Anna and Rich for the DVDs) I was feeling better yesterday. It appears I had a bad cold. Now I’m awake at 5:00 AM so I can get caught up here.

One of the highlights of our trip has been a trip to a Buddhist Temple. It provided an oasis of quiet and solitude in the middle of this crazy, noisy, over-stimulating city. We’re not sure if it is a commentary on religion in China, but the place was virtually deserted. The temple was quite large, with four large buildings in line, separated by courtyards. Each of the first buildings held increasingly larger Buddha statues (the largest over 30 feet tall). The outer gate was guarded over by some fierce looking statues. I’m not sure how much this would help membership growth—perhaps we could use some at the Congregational Church of Huntington. The temple dates to 504 AD, but it was ransacked during the cultural revolution in the 1960s and 70s. What is there now has been restored since then.

In the third building, the one with a “strictly no photos” sign, there was a prayer service in session with 15 monks (men in saffron robes and women in brown) chanting prayers accompanied by a large drum and bell. We felt privileged to be there at this time. Their chanting was mesmerizing and we stood for quite some time. One monk offered for us to join them as they processed around the large central statue, but we declined as we felt more as spectators than participants at that time.

The backside of the largest Buddha was the most impressive of the statues. It was a montage of hundreds of figures (bodhisattvas, perhaps?) that appeared to be ascending to the clouds (sorry, no photo). It was amazing.

The Girls Head Out On Their Own

Well – since Mark was down for the count yesterday (Thursday), Mom -yes, that would be me - and Allie ventured out with the other families on our own. Baby and diaper bag firmly affixed, we headed to the Tengwang Pavilion, which overlooks the Gan river and the city and then lunch with the gang. I have to admit that I was a bit preoccupied with Allie to take in all of the historic facts – but according to our guide there have been 26 multi-storied towers built on this site since the first was raised over 1,000 years ago in honor of a Tang price. I did notice and enjoy watching the barges and boats on the river and the small indoor theater where performers were demonstrating traditional dance and music.

The families that we are traveling with and the people that we have the opportunity to meet in China have been wonderful – from fellow travelers lending a hand when I was trying to figure out the damn baby sling or eat with a fidgety person in my arms to strangers holding Allie upright on the sink counter in a public restroom while I try to change negotiate a diaper change.

Allie’s personality is really starting to materialize – she is quite social and loves being with a gang of folks laughing it up. We’ve also gotten past (somewhat) the trauma of simple events such as changing cloths, diapers, bedtime, etc. Getting the chance to play quietly for a couple of hours in the hotel room really helped and the progress is quite remarkable, she is like different kid – trying to crawl, rolling over, chatting to herself and such. And, yes, I can actually watch this for hours.

I know that Mark wants to write about our family adventure on Wednesday at the Buddhist temple and Chinese version of an American coffee house – so stay tuned for this as well as the reports on today’s outing.