Big City Bright Lights

Ah, we're not in the Nanchang anymore!  We're glad to be in the big city of Guangzhou now!  This means our trip here is past the midpoint.  So we've merged back together with the other families in our travel group here.  I think most of the other families are also ready to head home in the US.  Traveling in the provinces have been tougher on some than others.  The White Swan hotel on Shamian Island is really nice compared to some of the places we've seen.  Actually, it's got this Disney World feel.  I'm expecting Mickey to pop out of some bushes.  It's pretty warm here, which is a blessing compared to the polluted weather in Nanchang.  I think the pollution was worse in Beijing.  The warm weather is so wonderful after the snowstorm all the families had to endure as we tried to leave Beijing for the provinces.

I'm happy to say Cantonese is one of the dialects spoken here in Guangzhou so I've been able to get around a little better.  Nancy keeps prodding me to stop with the English as people seem to treat me differently when I speak Cantonese.  At least I don't have folks talking to me in Mandarin here and then asking why I can't understand since I clearly am Chinese...  Not sure how to explain why the flight attendants on ANA kept trying to speak to me in Japanese though.

So it's about 10 PM here right now and I can see all these glowing neon lights out on buildings and on the Pearl River.  The river boats with the blinking neon lights are passing by the hotel and Noah is finally asleep.  Surprisingly, he fell asleep tonight without crying out a lung.  Last night was our first night here and Nancy finally had a chance to get a massage as her neck and back are killing her.  She'll have to blog about that unique massage experience....  Anyway, as soon as she left the room, he just started wailing and it took me forever to quiet him down and put in bed.  We're going to have to figure out something cause we can't do this routine every night.

Today, the kids got their TB tests and visa photos taken.  Noah earned a special trip to the Western doctor to get checked since he's had a runny nose and bad cough.  Just like in the US, the docs are rolling in the dough.  Five minute exam for 600 RMB ( ~$90US) and 200 RMB (~$30US) for some Dimetapp.  Go figure.  The taxi ride out to the clinic was an adventure also.  The guide got us lost.  The taxi pulling over repeatedly while the guy called someone for directions was a telltale sign.  Of course me understanding Cantonese helped a lot.  I like how he didn't tell us we were lost at all so he was somewhat surprised when I said something to him in Cantonese!

We did wander about the tiny island to do some clothes shopping for Noah since he's out of clothes and most of the stuff we brought are too big for him even though it should've based on the measurements they sent us before the trip.  It'll be good to get home and settle back into a routine. There's just something about having everything handy and not trying to take care of Noah out of suitcases.

Ok, but now I've digressed enough.  I better switch back to the good adoption updates you really wanted to read about.  Noah is doing much better today.  Hasn't really cried that much except for bath time.  He seems to be playing a lot more and enjoying our time with him.  I really wonder what is going on in his head.  It's almost like you can see that he doesn't trust us at times.  We've started to speak mostly English to him and pointing at objects.  He's pretty sharp and repeats the words we try to teach him.  Ice cream was a pretty fun word apparently.  Guess I'll have to share my DQ Blizzards with him.  We've found that he's got a pretty good reach for a two year old.  There's counters about 3-3.5 feet high and he's grabbing things off to play with.  Whenever he sees us doing something, he starts to replicate which makes it hard to prevent him from undoing whatever we do!  I'm glad he hasn't figured out the minibar yet...  However, he keeps helping himself to the fruit baskets we get every day.  You turn around and he's reached up for a banana or apple.  Probably a good thing he likes to eat fruits.

We didn't borrow a stroller here cause we're trying out these slings and backpack carriers.  He seems to have a great time making me gallop around the street.  Apparently I need to rethink this as he's going to be hard to carry around on my back the heavier he gets.  He eats a ton of food at every meal.  Spaghetti, noodles, and rice seem to be his favorites.  The foster parents had told me that he really likes meat.  It's really amazing how God has this plan for us and given Noah to us.  He's almost a mix of our personalities.  He seems pretty intelligent for his age (I think too smart for his own good).  We find Noah playing and walking around mumbling in Chinese at times.  Since I don't know Mandarin, I only get a word here or there.  I've been trying to record him so someone can tell us what he's talking about.  Of course, he's super stubborn (look at both Nancy and me).  He's loving food.  Apparently he's into animals.  The foster parents said they had a cat and it looks like Noah played with dogs as he keeps pointing them out to us.  Originally we were worried about how he would adjust to all our pets, but now we're starting to worry how he'll terrorized the animals!

The flight from Nanchang to Guangzhou was fairly short.  We were so happy that Noah seemed to enjoy all of it without any crying.  We just hope the flights home will be as uneventful!

I did want to share about my adventure out to the Jiangxi countryside from Nanchang.  When we did the Chinese paperwork, we met the orphanage director and it turned out it was possible to visit where Noah was from.  Nancy was going to go on the visit but fell ill, so I got to go.  It was a 3 hour van ride each way on a surprisingly perfect toll highway until we were almost there.  Then it became an adventure on roads that were in need of repair.  The worse was getting on the road to Noah's village.  The 'onramp' was this dirt path up a hillside over boulders and potholes.  I think it was one of those four wheel drive trails.

Amazingly, I was able to see the village and meet the foster parents!  They were expecting me and had set up all these snacks.  Given the state of their house and the rural environment, I could tell it must've cost them some.  They also brought out these cases of cookies and tangerines (apparently the area is known for them) to bring back to Noah.  I didn't have the heart to accept so much from them knowing how little they had.  It's so amazing and humbling to witness the love and generosity that could come from people that have so little.  After much negotiating, they managed to force a huge bag of tangerines on me to bring back anyway.

This couple apparently had fostered a dozen or so kids over time.  They were so proud to show me the framed pictures of all the various families with our picture right in the corner!  I could tell they love Noah very much as everyone kept tearing up.  The foster family's entire extended family had come out to meet me.  The foster father's sister, the couple's son and daughter in law, and the foster mother's mother.  They were so wonderful to show me around and tell me about Noah.  I hope to show him the video footage some day and have him tell us what they said.  Most of the neighbors and villagers that knew Noah were also there to meet me.  Apparently he was a pretty popular kid.  He was outside playing all the time with everyone.  His foster mother was saying how he loved getting some change so he could go buy a snack.  (This does not bode well for my stash of snacks.)  I asked everyone to say any message they wanted to give to Noah through a video recording.  It took some explaining since I don't think anybody understood video cameras.  I hope Noah gets a similar warm feeling in his heart when he watches the messages some day as I did hearing the folks as I recorded.

I also learned another reason why he was crying after waking up in the middle of the nights in our Nanchang hotel.  Noah slept together with his foster parents in their tiny bed.  This explains why he seems a little better when we put him in our bed.  We're glad he's sleeping in the crib by himself the past couple of nights cause he's going to have to learn to sleep in his own room.  I'm sure one of the cats will join him.  Something else I discovered was that Noah would sometimes kick on the house door of the foster son in the mornings to wake them up.  Hope he doesn't do that to us...

So after the village visit, the orphanage director hosted me for a wonderful lunch.  It was great to meet some of the orphanage staff and to express my appreciation for the wonderful work they are doing.  This director is known and loved by many families.  Over the twenty or so years he's been doing this, over 900 kids have been placed around the world.  He proudly showed me the wonderful binders he gets annually with pictures of kids as they grow up.  He gave me a special souvenir mask (which will join the others in our TV room) and a directory listing all the kids that are in the US should Noah want to connect with any of them.  I toured the orphanage facilities and was amazed how sparse things are.  It sounds like most of the operations is funded through donations.  As I was preparing to head back to Nanchang, I did get to stop by the hospital where Noah was found.  I am glad we were blessed with the opportunity to visit both of these very important pieces of Noah's early life as I'm sure he's going to want to know about them later on as he grows up.  How amazing will it be for him to go back to visit someday?