Friday, August 26 at 7 am Hong Kong time

Well, this is it. We've finished and now we're heading home. It's been a great trip and a wonderful experience for us.

We have to leave for the airport at about 9:30 or so and our plane leaves at 12:45 pm Hong Kong time (which is 12:45 am Michigan time) - we'll arrive in Grand Rapids at 5:40 pm Michigan time. The trip over was long, but the return trip will be especially long with a 1 year old. We'd appreciate your prayers that Stacie will do well.

Sue and I will have one final post on our blog once we return giving our thoughts about the trip and the adoption, but for now I better get going to help pack!

Attached is a picture from last night of the harbor in Hong Kong. (There are better views, but almost all of our night pictures showed up as blurry due to the combination of it being night and being on a boat that was rocking with the waves.)

Take care, and see you soon!

Gord

Here's a picture (actually, 2 copies of the same picture) of the kids on top of Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong (see Sue's post earlier tonight for a narrative). For some reason I couldn't add it to her post.

Hi. I haven’t posted in awhile since I have been busy being mom to four children. It is great to see Stephanie, Sarah and Ryan all interacting with Stacie and loving her to pieces. When they go to school Stacie will surely miss playing with them. It was encouraging to see Stacie love both the swimming pool and her bath.

Yesterday was another whirlwind day. We had to pack everything, pick up different things that we ordered such as etchings of the kids, paintings, Ryan’s tailor-made shirt, pearls, etc. and go to the American Consulate. We even had to buy another suitcase! At the American Consulate we received Stacie’s visa and took an oath on behalf of Stacie. So now when we get to the United States she will automatically become a United States Citizen!! Yeehaa!

We quickly said goodbye to our group of 11 families and took a shuttle van to catch the train to Hong Kong. I was so sad to say goodbye to the other families who had gone through so much with us. Again, I was crying (I hate goodbyes). As I looked at each family with their daughter I thought of how here we were only 10 days earlier meeting each other and climbing the Great Wall of China to meeting our daughter’s for the first time to now seeing all of the babies bonded with their parents—smiling and cooing and so happy to be loved. So much emotion and so much we have gone through this trip and more so this past year and a half. It was a very long “pregnancy” but so worth the wait. She is the perfect baby for us. As I look over at Gordon he is sitting on the bed watching TV and Stacie is hanging out with him and so comfortable with him. I have to laugh because she is babbling mamamamama. Oh well, she’ll get it someday.

The train ride last night to Hong Kong took less than two hours and it was a high speed train. It was nice to experience another mode of transportation. We sat with a group of people from Australia.

Today we took a Grayline bus tour of Hong Kong. It was a great way to see the city. Hong Kong is made up of 3 islands, and tonight we took the ferry over from the island our hotel is on to the central island of Hong Kong. The skyline was fabulous. Everything was lit up like New York City. Our hotel is right in the middle of excitement—bright lights and people everywhere.
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Our flight leaves tomorrow (Friday, August 26) at 12:45 p.m. Hong Kong time on United. I would appreciate your prayers again for safety and that no one gets sick on the plane. I am not looking forward to the long flight. I hope that Stacie will be able to sleep on the plane. We fly to Chicago and then to Grand Rapids—arriving around 5:30 p.m.!! This trip has been one I will never forget but I am homesick and look forward to being around family and friends again.

Sue

Tuesday, August 23, 11 am and 3 pm Guangzhou time (post by Gord)

[Note: This is a long post today because it includes Stephanie's post from Saturday/Sunday which never showed up on our blog. If you only have a short period of time, skip to Stephanie's post at the bottom because hers is the more interesting one by far!]

Today’s our second day in Guangzhou. I’ve had some extra time to type up this post both in the morning and in the afternoon because Stacie is taking some naps (Sue said she cried a lot last night, which is unusual). While Stacie is napping, Sue and the other kids are doing lots of shopping at the local mom and pop stores surrounding the White Swan Hotel.

There are some particularly appropriate Chinese souvenirs that we bought today. Each one of us bought a ink stamp-type of thing (called “chops”) which allows you to stamp your name (in both Chinese and English) on letters and anything else you want.

There are a couple of souvenirs that are pretty cool. One of them is a small bottle, and based on a photograph that we provide an artist paints a picture of our kids inside the bottle. The photo isn’t put inside the bottle – it’s just used for the artist to copy to paint the picture. It’s pretty amazing. The other souvenir involves a photograph again, but in this case an artist takes a photograph of our kids and then engraves a picture of the kids on a small stone surface. Again, the photo isn’t placed on the stone – it’s just used for the artist to copy to engrave the picture.

There’s one souvenir that everyone gets for free for staying at the White Swan. We received two of them because we have two rooms. It’s a Barbie doll (an American woman) with a Chinese baby girl. I understand that we’re not supposed to open the box because these are very special. The box says that the doll is presented by Mattel to “adopting parents of Chinese orphan children staying at the White Swan Hotel, Guangzhou, China.” It’s a pretty neat doll and something that I think we will treasure.

There are some things that we’ve learned in traveling to China, and here are just a few:

1. Bring plenty of cash. Fortunately, Sue decided to bring more than I would have. Aside from hotels, there are very few places that take American credit cards. Some take typical American credit cards (Visa, MC, etc.) but only if they are issued in China. We found that out in Wal-mart, which is where I tried to use my credit card but wasn’t able to do so. I didn’t have enough cash in my wallet to pay for the stuff at the check out line, but fortunately one of the members of our group was right behind with cash for me to borrow. The bottom line is you can’t have too much cash in your wallet nor can you have too much cash back at the hotel room.

2. I’ve been able to borrow electricity adapters (from 220V to 110V) at all of the hotels we have stayed in. However, if you have plugs that have a 3rd prong for grounding or if you have a 2 prong plug with one prong larger than the others, then you may want to bring your own converter because each of these have created some problems. Ultimately, though, I was able to make everything work out.

3. Don’t bring a lot of food. We brought a ton of snack foods in the event we needed them for lunch or whatever. We won’t end up eating a lot of them and will leave them here because we need the space in our luggage. We didn’t eat a lot of the snacks because there are grocery stores where you can buy snacks, including some American stuff. The main reason why we didn’t eat a lot of the snack foods that we packed, though, is because there are always Western-style restaurants around. We have eaten two or three times each at McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut. This has been for lunch only, except on one occasion we did eat at McDonald’s for dinner when the kids didn’t want Chinese. We have typically eaten Chinese for dinner. (By the way, Stephanie and Ryan in particular are yearning for Taco Bell right now – Stephanie said she wanted to stop at Taco Bell on the way home from the airport in Grand Rapids.)

I received a question about why we are only staying 2 nights at Guongzhou when others have had to stay longer (sometimes up to 5 nights). Actually, most of our group is staying for 3 nights – we leave early tomorrow evening for Hong Kong, which the rest of the group isn’t doing. As to why we only need 3 nights rather than 5, though, I can’t answer that question. The question was also asked as to how far the new Consulate is from the White Swan. I think it’s about a 15 minute drive, but we won’t know that until late tomorrow afternoon.

I don’t have any new pictures from today that I wanted to post, so attached is a picture with Stephanie and Stacie in the pool in Changsha.

Hey! I was almost done with today’s post when I found out that I could finally, finally access our blog site (which calls into question my conclusion that the blogspot.com website was taboo here in China). I have now found out that Stephanie’s post didn’t show up last Saturday or Sunday when I was having major problems with the Internet. My brother Marc brought the problem to my attention, and fortunately I had Stephanie’s post saved as a Word file. So, the rest of this post is from Stephanie from last Saturday or Sunday, when we were still in Changsha. Enjoy!

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Saturday, August 20, 2005 about 4:30 pm Changsha time


Hey Everyone,

It’s Stephanie! To start, I thought that I liked Chinese food, but that was “Americanized” Chinese food. “Chinese food” is a fish that has the head, eyes, and gills still on it! Doesn’t that just sound nummy!:) Anyways, we have had an awesome trip so far, and if you have time, you can read on what I think about it.

Now, in case you didn’t know, I was the one in the family that pushed this thing along, so if you are wondering what I think of her, it isn’t the brightest question. OF COURSE I am so excited to have Stacie! We couldn’t have gotten a better baby for us if we had hand picked her. She fits right in, and is happy all of the time. She is starting to learn that we are her family forever and that we are not going to let anything bad happen to her. She trusts us, and understands that we love her so much! The Chinese women here are always wanting to hold her, but most of the time she just pulls away…..which is a good sign of bonding. She is one of the brightest one year olds that I have met. She continues to amaze us in everything that she does. It makes me wonder what we were doing without her! Some of her characteristics are starting to show, this meaning, she is very strong willed, if she knows what she wants, she is going to get it one way or another and it is hard for us not to give in to her.

The hotel is beautiful! There is staff everywhere that want to please us by helping in every way. There is so much stuff to do like play tennis, swim, ping pong, get a massage (where my mom is right now), go bowling…(I know, a bowling alley in the hotel, weird!), shopping, eat at the restaurant, and much more! Only one problem, the beds are like sleeping on a wood board.

China is so much different than the United States. Every time that we walk on the streets, it is so weird because we stick out like a sore thumb. Usually, people just look at us because my dad is so tall, but now it is because my brother has blonde hair and blue eyes, me and my sister are wearing shorter shorts than Chinese women do, we have 6 people in our family, and one of them is Chinese! It’s crazy!

If you are ever thinking about adoption please do it, I can guarantee that you won’t regret it!

So much love from the other side of the world,
<3 Stephanie

Monday, August 22 at 9:15 pm Guangzhou time

We're now in Guangzhou at the White Swan Hotel. The White Swan Hotel is well known to those in the U.S. that have adopted Chinese babies - I suspect about 95% of them have stayed here. The reason is that it is close to the US Consulate, although the Consulate moved to a different location just last month.

I don't think that will affect White Swan's business, though. It is a beautiful 5 star hotel on the Shanmian Island in Guongzhou. Guongzhou itself is a large city (10 million or so) and Shanmian Island was set up with a European influence. These days, however, it is very Americanized - I assume in large part due to the number of Americans staying at the White Swan. There are tons and tons of stores here catering to the US visitor - many of the mom and pop store owners speak English and they know their customer. This is once again one of the situations where you bargain with the vendors to get the best price (even though quite frankly the original price is oftentimes cheap). Sue and the girls already picked up some stuff here. Stephanie picked up a traditional Chinese dress that is very nice for $5, they bought some bracelets, etc. I'm sure they're not nearly done yet, but I think that whatever they buy will be a good reminder of China for them. Sue's also picking up stuff for Stacie as she grows older.

Aside from the shopping in Guangzhou, the only other significant thing that we did today was have a physical exam performed on Stacie at the health clinic. This is something that apparently all adopted babies have to go through, although in this case it was helpful because we were wondering whether Stacie had an ear infection or perhaps sinus infection due to her coughing at night. One of the doctors examining her said everything was okay. I presume that's correct, but everything was done so fast it's hard to say whether they paid all that much attention.

On that same subject, there were two couples that had to bring their babies into the hospital in Changsha. Although one of them was told by a Chinese person that this is the second best hospital in Changsha, they said the conditions were terrible - if you weren't sick when you went in you were sure to be sick when you left. Aside from the lack of air conditioning and the flies that were in there, they said it was filthy, including blood in various places where it shouldn't be. One of them said that the hotel was 10 times cleaner than the hospital (admittedly, the hotel was very clean, but still . . .).

By the way, our flight from Changsha to Guangzhou was (fortunately) uneventful. It was Stacie's first airplane flight, however, and she did well.

Attached is a picture of Ryan and Stacie in our room at the White Swan.

I should have more updates tomorrow. We're in the home stretch now . . . .

Gord

Sunday, August 21 at 4:30 pm Changsha time

Ryan and I are back from swimming. The pool is huge and the temperature is great - almost close to a hot tub. I'm sure that's why Stacie liked it so much yesterday.

After a couple of more relaxing days, today was busy again but in a very good way. We ended up doing different things. Sue, Sarah, Ryan and Stacie went with the group to a museum. The original plans were to go to the park (a big park in the middle of the City), but again it was kind of rainy and uncommonly cool temperature-wise. I understand that the museum was good.

You may not believe it but Stephanie and I, as well as another family, went to church. The young Christian woman that I mentioned yesterday took us to her church - called the North Church because it's on the north side of town (I understand that there's also a South Church on, you guessed it, the south side of town). I don't know how many other, if any, formal churches there are. I'm hoping that there are many of the "house churches" but I don't know.

Anyway, the church itself looked a lot like an older-style U.S. church - it was actually quite big, had cathedral ceilings, and would probably hold 300 to 400 people if full. I have attached a picture of the church. I would guess that there were maybe 200 people or so there, and there are two services - one at 7:30 am and one at 9:30 am. There weren't as many young people as I would have hoped, and our friend tells us that's because younger people are worried about their money situation and trying to support themselves. In the U.S., I generally see people trying to make money to buy a bigger house, etc., but especially for the common people here it's a matter of survival. Anyway, I hope that there are more young people involved in the house church movement. (BTW, according to the website www.light4hunanese.com, the Hunan province is 2% Christian and the city we are in, Changsha, has 6 to 10 million people).

I can't say much about the church service itself because I couldn't understand it. In many ways, though, it seemed similar to our traditional church services - had singing at the beginning, had a few songs by the church choir (which was very good), had a traditional sermon, had a Bible reading from Psalms 103 (there were lots of pew Bibles as well as hymnals), etc. The pews themselves were short and the legroom was, well, not made for someone 6 feet 7 inches tall.

Afterwards, we met with the pastor and talked with him for a bit. I think he was in his late 20s, and he clearly was glad we were here. He gave us some pins with the Christian cross on them and also gave us some other gifts (some cards with sayings on them and some bottled water). We also took his picture and took some a video of him.

I don't know exactly what to make of this given the fact that I know that there is a lot of persecution among Christians in China. I'll let others that are much more familiar with the church in China speak to that issue. What I can say is that the young Christian woman we befriended sure seems to have the love of Jesus in her (as does the pastor, from the short time we were with him). By the way, although we do know the name of the woman, I'm not identifying it just because I don't know for sure if that would create any problems.

Outside the church, the one-way street was buzzing with all sorts of street vendors - selling vegetables, beef, clothing, etc. I've got a video walking down the street and it's just incredible.

When Stephanie and I returned to the hotel, there were a couple of wedding parties that were coming in. It was pretty neat to see them. They must have been very upper class, however, because it is very expensive to have the wedding reception at the hotel. This is also evidenced by the fact that outside the hotel there was a BMW SUV, a Mercedes and a Hummer (yes, a Hummer!).

We then went shopping with our new friend - Sue picked up some embroidery that she wanted and the kids got some other stuff. All of us then went to Pizza Hut for lunch. It was good, as normal, but it was more costly than what we are used to - not much different than the U.S. prices (although our friend had a 20% discount card).

Stacie continues to do very well, although we do wonder whether she's struggling with a cold or not. She is a happy baby. We do think that she may well be active and perhaps strong-willed, though. She truly is a joy.

Sue and the girls are heading out for some more shopping now. We'll then have dinner (probably Chinese) and head to bed early because we have to leave the hotel at 6:45 am tomorrow for the airport. We fly to Guangzhou (about a 50 minute flight), which is fairly close to Hong Kong. We'll spend 2 nights in Guangzhou at the White Swan hotel and then take the train and spend our last 2 nights in Hong Kong. Then we return back to the U.S. , leaving at about noon on Friday and returning at about 5:30 pm on Friday evening Michigan time.

Although things have gone really well for us, there have been others in the group that have been really sick. We really appreciate all of your prayers and support, and we look forward to completing this journey over the next 4 or 5 days. Thanks again - and, oh, if you haven't read Stephanie's post that I put on the blog this morning, please do it. She's probably the best writer in the family!

Gord

Sunday, August 21 at 2:55 pm Changsha time

Hey, the Internet and Google (which owns the blog site that I use) are working well again! It's night and day difference.

Here's a picture of Stacie and Sarah swimming yesterday. As I mentioned in the previous post, Stacie enjoyed swimming yesterday.

I plan on updating this later today (unless Internet and Google problems re-appear), but for now Ryan wants to go swimming and so I've gotta go!

Gord