The beginning of a long awaited dream come true:
January 5, 2001 |
January 5, 2001 |
|
|
We aren't in Kansas
anymore Dorothy! We made it, we are in Guangzhou, China. This
is a picture of a street just down from our hotel, the White Swan.
We arrived at 6:30am on Friday morning which is 3:00pm Thursday afternoon
Denver time. Our flight was very long and we watched the same movie
3 times in the night, some movie with Tommy Lee Jones, I finally could
comprehend the plot the 3rd time. We had more food and drinks on our
plane than we could eat. Our hotel is very nice and we have an
upgraded room because the other rooms were full. We also HAD to fly
first class from Denver to LA because the flight was over booked
also. Too bad, boy are we getting spoiled. |
We are here
with 2 other couples from our group. Linda Lee and Kevin Shuey from
Virginia and Joe and Jennafer Bryan from North Carolina. We ate
lunch at the White Swan, it was okay, not the greatest. Our waitress
kept laughing at us because we were having a difficult time with our
chopsticks. I had chicken and rice with mushroom soup. I think
I got the spinal column. I didn't eat the chicken, exposed bone
marrow didn't do anything for me. The rice was great. Dennis
had shrimp with Italian noodles, he thought is was very tasty. Our
bill was 271 yen which was $33.00 US. Kind of pricey for rice. |
January 5, 2001 |
January 5, 2001 |
|
|
Here Dennis is
standing in front of the famous White Swan Waterfall. This is inside
the hotel. There are really big fish in the pond. We looked in
several stores inside the hotel. Everyone is very friendly and it is
really nice to look around before we get the babies. The guards
won't smile at us no matter what we do. |
Here is Kevin, myself
and Linda by the waterfall. I am trying to look happy. I
didn't realize I would miss the boys as much as I do.
Justin and Daniel, I love you and I miss you! |
January 5, 2001 |
January 5, 2001 |
|
|
This is
looking down the Pearl River just outside the White Swan. It is very
foggy here today, but nice and warm. I think we came at the right
time of the year. We do not need jackets and are comfortable in
jeans and t-shirts. Guangzhou is much cleaner than I expected, it
just smells funny, kind of like a Grandma's attic with a sweet smell also.
There are street sweepers who are constantly washing and picking up trash,
they wear red suits. People will stop and stare at us and some
almost crash their bikes just trying to look back at us. I just
smile and they usually smile back. The Pearl River is pretty dirty,
there is a boat that scoops up trash, well, not the boat but a man on the
boat. |
This is a
picture of people in the park. Life here seems very different than
at home. I don't think anyone sits in front of their TV's here.
There are people walking everywhere. Old men are sitting in groups
of 8 or more playing some kind of checker game or a game of cards.
Girls are flying kites and everyone is playing badminton. No one is
in a hurry.
|
January 5, 2001 |
January 5, 2001 |
|
|
Dennis is happy,
he found a Pepsi! |
Here is a
little 'junk' boat. I think that is what they are called.
There are all kinds of boats that are going down the river, this one was
the shabbiest one I could find. We saw one bigger boat full of black
rocks. |
January 5, 2001 |
January 5, 2001 |
|
|
Just another
boat.
|
Bamboo
scaffolding is EVERYWHERE. OSHA would have a cow. I don't know
how they do this, the poles are just tied together and balanced on the
ground. This guy was working about 3 stories up and was just walking
around. When we walked by later, he was done and was taking down the
poles. |
January 5, 2001 |
January 5, 2001 |
|
|
This is the
White Swan from across the Pearl River. Linda drug us all over this
city, we should be in really good shape by the time we get home. I
bet we walked for 4 hours. We found some really interesting shops.
We went into a department store that was 5 stories tall. There was a
sales lady at every rack. If you looked at something for longer than
a second, they would take it out and show it to you. They followed
you everywhere you went. We didn't buy anything. |
Looking down
the Pearl River the other way. |
January 6, 2001 |
No more pictures for today. It is 7:00pm and we are going
to go to bed. We made it through the day without a nap. We had a
great dinner at the sub shop next to the hotel. I bought a ham and corn
bun and Dennis had a bacon and cheese bun. Dinner cost us a whopping
$.80. Tomorrow, Raymond, our guide is taking us on some tours. We
are going to see a Buddhist Temple, Sun Fat 'Someone' Museum and something
else. We can't wait to come home. Email us if you would like.
Our address is drjdvaughn@aol.com.
Bye for now, Rhonda |
January 6, 2001 |
January 6, 2001 |
|
|
January 6, 2001 |
January 6, 2001 |
|
|
We had some
trouble sending pictures the first couple of days, but now we think we are
successful. On January 2nd, we had a girl named Irene take us around
the city, we also hired a driver. Irene met us downstairs at 9:00am
and the first place we went was to the 6 Banyan Tree Buddhist Temple.
There are only 2 banyan trees, I don't know why they call it 6. |
There were
several Buddha's and a couple of different things to worship. One
area was a place to bless your ancestors. You bring flowers, fruits
and incense to each area. It smelled kind of neat, not really bad at
all. Jen and I successfully found a squat toilet and took a picture
of it. I did actually have to use one in the airport. It
wasn't to bad after all and probably a cleaner way to go than at home. :-) |
Next we visited
the Chen Family Academic Museum. This was a really rich, smart guy
who built an academic school. There were several rooms in the
museum, it was all outside with open air windows. I guess this
picture is of an arch. It is all built of very precious wood and
intricately carved. The more wood you have in your building, the
more well off you are. This guy was really well off. There
were several rooms which displayed all of the folk art which the people of
Guangdong Province are known for; Jade carvings, Peasant Paintings, and
Ivory Carvings. Everywhere you look, you can find beautiful Ivory
carvings, but I guess we cannot bring that home. They have camel
bone carvings for us Americans to bring home. A man of education has
4 things: ink stone, ink well, paper, and quill pen. You can
buy these sets everywhere but they are very expensive. |
The highlight of
the day was lunch. Irene took us to a very nice restaurant for
lunch. She ordered for us pigeon, seen in the picture, shrimp with
the eyes still looking at you and the little feet dangling off the poor
little limp body, fish (whole), crab which they showed to us before they
cooked him, sweet and sour chicken, corn soup, dim sum dumplings,
broccoli, rice, and of course, coca cola. We all ate for under
$20.00 and that included us paying for our guide and driver. The
driver enjoyed eating the pigeon head, he said the heads bring you long
life. After lunch, we walked around the streets looking at cheap
things to buy. Jen bought a Rolex for $7.00. I might have to
go back to that store. |
January 7, 2001 |
Today is the
day that we get the babies! Linda is calm and Jen and I are nervous
wrecks. Linda has adopted a baby from China before so she is not new
to this. We made it to the airport in plenty of time. The
airports are remarkably clean. This is where I found the squat pot.
I later learned that the handicapped stalls have western toilets.
When in China......... We met up with the rest of our very tired
group, boy are we glad we came early. We have had a blast. I
feel guilty for having so much fun while our wonderful boys are back at
home. We flew safely into Nanning around lunch time. |
January 7, 2001 |
January 7, 2001 |
|
|
We met up with
our guide, Michael. He is wonderful. On the bus ride to the
hotel, he told us about our babies. Our baby was found the day after
she was born in a city about 14 kilometers from Cenxi. She was found
at the front of a factory by a cleaning lady. She was taken to the
orphanage the next day. We also learned how to make our babies,
poos and pees. We set them on the toilets facing the toilet and say
shhhhhh, shhhhh for pees and moomoommooo for poos. It works!
Our baby has gone potty every time. This should save money on
diapers. We were then told that the babies would come at 6:00pm.
Now what would we do? We will eat! We went to the hotel restaurant
and we had Italian food. There will be no losing weight on this trip
Laurie! |
Finally, the
babies arrive. We are to stay in our rooms and wait, but of course
we stay in the hall. The Wuzhou babies are the first to arrive.
There are two of them. One of the nannies cried when she gave up her
baby. They really love the babies a lot. The Beihai babies are
next. There are 4 in this group. Our friends both received
Beihai babies. They are all cute and fairly healthy. Most have
colds. The Cenxi babies are next. Wouldn't you know that they
bring us the babies according to our last names in alphabetical order.
We were the very last ones. It was worth it though because we could
watch everyone else and take their pictures. We could see our baby
in Michaels room. That was the holding area. We were allowed
to take pictures of our baby, just not take them from there.
Finally, our turn came. |
January 7, 2001 |
January 7, 2001 |
|
|
We were allowed
to ask questions from the director, but of course who could think about
questions. Our baby was found with 20yuan of lucky money on her.
I don't think we will get the money. Our baby is
soooo cute. She has the longest eyelashes that I ever saw on a baby
before. She is pretty scared of everything. She just hides
under her arms. She likes to suck her finger and her thumb at
the same time. |
She is pretty
little and more like a 5 month old. She can sit up though. She
likes her bottle and she slept all night long. We celebrated by
eating french fries and cake for dinner. |
Today,
Monday, we went to the registers office to do paperwork. Lillia is
officially ours. We had to promise to never abandon, abuse or
transfer her and we had to state that we are adopting voluntarily.
Easy. All of the babies are cute and they all very in size.
Most are 9-10 months old. Tomorrow we will go shopping. :-)
That is all for now. Have fun putting this all on Dan.
Bye Bye. |
This page was last updated on
02/26/12.
|