Tuesday, April 5 - Last full day in Guangzhou

Well, thanks for the prayers!  Jim woke up feeling much better this morning!  I was glad to not have to do our last full day by myself.  And it would've been a bummer for him to miss it - it was a fun day!

This morning we went to a park in Guangzhou.  I can't remember the name of it, but it was a really neat place.  Again, this was not on our original Guangzhou itinerary, but was at the suggestion of one of the families in our group here.  Turned out to be another great suggestion from that family.  It was first of all, a beautiful place to walk.  But besides that it had a wide variety of other things to see and do.  One thing that was fascinating here were the number of people that collect in the park for exercise.  All forms of exercise - Tai Chi, dancing, ping pong, badminton, just to name a few.  Also lots of people spaced randomly through the park singing with a microphone and speaker.  After walking through the area of the park with all of those groups of people, we then came to the children's area.  This was a really neat area with all kinds of fun things for kids.  Similar to our carnival rides, but smaller and more basic - plus way cheaper!  But besides the rides they had things like mini pool tables for kids, craft activities, and also this really great fish-catching activity.  And as you will see in the pictures - it was with real fish!  We spent pretty much the whole morning at this park wandering through and letting the kids have all kinds of fun.

At the entrance to the park.  There were lots of landscaped flowers everywhere.

One group doing Tai Chi...

   

...another doing some simple aerobic dancing....

 

...frisbee and badminton...

....hacky sack....not bad for older ladies!

  

tennis...

...ping pong....

...long scenic places to walk...the older people in China are very fit!

This was funny - the signs say, "Best Lawn" and "Best Managed Scenic Spot".  Funny - the only spot of dirt in the whole park and it has those two signs on it!  We could only assume that it was being worked on!

The families we have been grouped with here.  We didn't even know until we arrived in Guangzhou that we would be in a group here.  We have been alone everywhere else, so this was a very welcome surprise at the end of a long trip.  What a great group of people to spend time with!

Keeping it real!  We didn't want to post all of her sweet smiles and not post reality!  This face (and the fit that accompanied it) was all because we took her out of the stroller to take pictures as a group.  Gasp!  Oh no - not that!  Then she had to learn that in order to get back in the stroller she had to be a nice girl.  Didn't take too long of walking beside the stroller to figure that out!

Check out this in the kids area - mini pool tables!

We paid less than $1 for 15 minutes for TingTing to catch fish from the pool and put them in a bucket.  All purely for fun, although they were also selling little containers for the fish if you wanted to keep some.

She ended up loving this activity!

  

She liked catching them, but she didn't like if they flipped off onto the ground.  She would back away and whine if they fell on the ground near her feet!

Are they still in the bucket MaMa?

She loved the carousel!  She almost protested about getting off at the end of the ride, but once she heard a stern, "No.  All done." she gave right in and got off.

We both laughed all the way through this one!

Until we would bump into another plane and then my shins would bang up against the wing of our plane.  Hence the face and the gripping of the right shin!

This was a fun thing - all of the kids got balloons.  TingTing of course loved it.  It's now floating in our room.  Not sure what will become of it tomorrow when we leave for the airport - especially since it has her favorite cartoon character on it!

 A picture of us with our guide Aron.  She really knows her stuff here helping the American families with their Consulate appointment!

Thought this was a funny contrast.  Before picture is up above - that one is at the beginning of the park.  This one is the after picture - shortly before we left the park.  What a difference in attitude!

 This is a short video of the fishing experience.  This is such a great idea - we think it would be fun for a birthday party.  Just don't ask me what we would do with all the feeder fish after the party is over!

 The park wasn't the only thing we did today, but it was the main thing.  In the afternoon we actually split up and I went with a shopping guide to the Pearl Market to look for some good deals.  Jim stayed with Lydia and was actually successful in getting her to lay down for a nap.  Way to go Jim!  Then for dinner we went back to the restaurant from a couple of days ago called the Banana Leaf.  Only this time we went with the whole group.  It was really fun with everyone there.  We almost filled two big circle tables and we were right up close to the entertainment.  We were glad to go back there for pretty much our last dinner in China.  Tomorrow we will still be in China at dinner time, but we will be in the airport so we will just have to get something there.  


I can't believe we are leaving tomorrow!  Yes, we have one overnight in Shanghai, but it really is just to sleep a little, and then we head straight out for home!


Three things we are thankful for today...


1.  For another great place we went in Guangzhou.  Thank you Donna and CJ for your suggestion!

2.  That in two days we won't have to eat in restaurants at every meal with our 3 year old!


3.  That our guide got us a very extended checkout time from our hotel tomorrow so that we don't have to check out at the normal time of noon, but we can stay until we have to leave for the airport at 4:30.


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Monday, April 4 - The last of the hoops in China has been jumped through!

Ok, we are officially home free!  We had our Consulate appointment this morning at 8:30 and that is the last of the China hoops to jump through.  That was where we submitted the final paperwork for Lydia to be a US citizen and took an oath on her behalf to make her a citizen when we land in the United States!  Only two days left in China, and then Thursday morning we fly for home!  Tomorrow is some sightseeing in the morning and then hopefully Rachel shopping some in the afternoon.  Wednesday we pack everything for the flight home and get Lydia's visa at around 3pm.  We then catch an evening flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai.  We will barely be in Shanghai long enough to sleep, and then we will fly out Thursday morning.

We are very ready to be coming home.  It has been a really great trip in a lot of ways, especially of course how things have gone with Lydia.  I still can't believe we actually did this - what an experience.  When I think back to the beginning of the trip when I cried as our plane took off from Detroit, it's hard to believe how much can happen in three weeks.  I was so terrified, really, of all the unknowns, and yet trying so hard to have faith in God's plan.  And now, talk about looking back and seeing God's complete faithfulness!  Wow!  He has done mighty things for us in matching us with this little girl around the world and bringing us all the way to her.  He has done mighty things in preparing her for us, and I suppose also us for her.  And He has done mighty things for us during our travel as we get to know each other and figure out how to connect across cultures and languages.  Now we have to continue to trust that He will again do mighty things for us as we travel home on that very long flight.   And also as we return home and settle back into what is our normal life, but what to Lydia will be a very different environment from anything she has ever known.  God is faithful and we will continue to think on His truths.

The fact that we are ready to come home is evidenced today in the lack of pictures that we took!  I really don't have many to post, certainly not many that are very exciting.  A couple from the Consulate - although they are only of the building that it's in and the sign just inside since they don't allow any cameras inside.  After the conulate we did some shopping but didn't take pictures.  We also were on Shamian island again and we do have a couple pictures of that beautiful area.  Also, we have a couple funny ones of our room service tonight.  We didn't want to go anywhere and weren't that hungry, so we ordered a couple of small things from room service - and paid of course way too much for them.

This is the fanciest it gets for the consulate sign!  It's in an office building with a bunch of other things - yet this appointment is what our entire trip was scheduled around!

She must really wonder why on earth we smile for pictures in front of boring things like a sign with words on it.  She has no idea this is a big deal!

Waiting in line with other families who also had a consulate appointment this morning

Outside the office building.  Plain old office building - nothing special.

This and the following pictures are of the area on Shamian island.  Quaint environment, manicured landscaping, and lots of little shops.

We thought these statues were funny.  They are like old west fiddlers - one is even on a barrel.  In China? Really?

Our room service table

We laughed at the things we ordered and what came.  We got Lydia noodles - they did ok with that one of course.  And it was the cheapest things we ordered - a huge plate of stir fried noodles.

Jim ordered buttermilk pancakes and got unleavened pancakes.

I ordered a bagel sandwich with scrambled eggs and sliced cheese.  I got this.  Scrambled eggs with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and some sort of sugared roll with who knows what inside.  That is definitely NOT a bagel.

 As I get ready to finish up for tonight, I do have a couple of specific prayer requests for those of you nice enough to keep us in your prayers.  First, Jim is not feeling good tonight and went to bed early to try to sleep off whatever he has.  I would really love to not have to do the last two days here alone, so please pray for him to fight off whatever he has.  Also, our flight schedule is very crazy leaving here Wednesday night and leaving Shanghai Thursday morning.  We are certain it will be hard on Lydia since we will be getting in Wednesday later than she would normally be in bed, and leaving Thursday before she would normally be up.  It will make for a short night and a questionable start to a 14 hour flight.  Prayers and more prayers!  That would be Wednesday morning and Wednesday night for you.  When you all wake up Thursday morning, we will have been flying for many hours and will be on the final stretch of that flight into Detroit.  Thank you for your prayers!


Three things we are thankful for today...


1.  That we finally found a giant suitcase for very cheap to replace one we brought that is badly falling apart.

2.  That at home we will be able to drink the tap water again.  No more brushing our teeth with bottled water!

3.  That we will be home in 3 days!



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Sunday April 3 - We're having fun now!!

Today was another fun day in Guangzhou!  We changed our sightseeing itinerary from what we were originally scheduled to do here.  Since we are with a group, one of the other families was requesting to go to the Safari Park and we were scheduled to go somewhere else.  But since we also had heard good things about this Safari Park, we decided to skip seeing another Buddhist temple and go see a really good animal park.  We are so glad we did!  TingTing got to see a LOT of great animals, many of them right up close.  This park was huge.  It had some rides - although we didn't do those, and it had a walking safari as well as a safari on wheels.  The safari on wheels is one of those where you can drive through in your own vehicle and the animals will come right up to your car.  We took the park tram through that safari.  There were animals of all different kinds on both sides of the tram, some up quite close!  Then after the safari on wheels we did the walking part and that was basically like a very nice zoo.  The exhibits were really nice and the animals were again often up quite close.  Here are some pictures from our time there....

Getting ready to enter the safari on wheels

Camels...

...deer of all kinds....

....and more kinds....

There are lots of white tigers at this safari park.  We found out that there are only 300 of these in the world, and 130 of them are here at this safari park!

This shows the curving road and the line of cars that park to wait for animals to come up close

I love this picture of the lions!  They were throwing meat to the lions, so that is why they are all looking in one direction.

This ostrich came up very close!

TingTing LOVED all the animals!

There were several pens of baby bunnies!

A baby monkey - TingTing has the English word "monkey" down very well!

Woah JIM! 

Our cute little tiger!

This part was so cool!  You could feed the giraffes!  TingTing LOVED it!

Note #4.  Too funny!

The koalas were really neat too - although mostly sleeping of course.  This guy was so funny- he looks like he is chilling in his recliner!

The Chinese word for Panda is "Xiong mao" which basically means bear-cat.  TingTing pronounces it Shyo mow.  She says, "Da Shyo mow!" which means big bear-cat!

She loved this panda!  I thought she might scream, but definitely not!

So the giant panda is a big bear-cat...the red panda is a little bear-cat!  Or to TingTing, "Shyow Shyo Mow!"

The elephant habitat was really great.  Two babies, lots of adults, a waterfall...this one was bathing itself!

Lydia rode much of the time in the stroller, but anytime she was walking, she was squeaking with her new squeaky shoes!

Loved this picture of the flamingos with the reflection in the water!

Oh, and the weather here is beautiful!  It was around 80 today I think.  Plenty warm for walking around the safari park!  I think after today it is supposed to cool off a little, but only down to the lower 70's.  Nice!

After the safari park we were pretty worn out so we had some down time in the hotel.  ACtually Lydia fell asleep in the bus on the way back to the hotel and we carried her up to the room and laid her down - still asleep.  So she actually got a bit of a nap while we enjoyed some quiet - and got a start on this post!


For dinner we went to a place nearby the hotel called the Banana Leaf.  It is a Thai style restaurant that turned out to be quite good.  TingTing hasn't had as big of an appetite for the past day or so, but tonight she looked at her food like she hasn't seen a meal this good in a long time!  Guess we've been trying too much American food.  She definitely still loves her Chinese food!  She's gonna have a hard time when we go home - or I'm gonna have to get myself a Wok and learn to stir-fry!  Here are some pictures from dinner.  There was also some singing entertainment as the place got busier with people.

A view of the restaurant environment.  There were big artificial trees everywhere with branches all over the ceiling.

So glad to finally be given what is in her mind a decent meal!

Hey look!  I'm finally getting the hang of these sticks!

The singers entertaining everyone

Here is a cute video from dinner.  Lydia persisted a couple of times with trying to use her chopsticks.  She has used them quite successfully at times, but this video shows her patiently struggling a little more to make them work right.  I love the part where Jim offers her a fork and she waves her hand no!

Three things we are thankful for today....

1.  For the group that we are with here.  It's a fun change of pace to be with other adoptive families.  Plus, they are both families that have adopted from China before.  For one family this is their second adoption, and for the other it is their third.  Fun to glean knowledge from their experience!

2.  For the chance to watch Lydia interact with other kids.  She loves the attention from the two 8 year olds in our group.  Good practice for her eagerly waiting sisters at home!


3.  For the chance to have Lydia see lots of animals today - even more than we could show her at many zoos in the US.








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