Tikvah turned eleven!

A highlight on our trip was Tikvah's eleventh birthday.  It was also the day of our appointment at the US Consulate.  Since this whole adoption adventure began, Tikvah has been saying that she wanted to get her little sisters on her birthday.  Well, we completed their paperwork to become American citizens on that day (effective upon entering the USA) so we are calling it close enough!

After our appointment we went to a nearby park.  While the little girls played on the playground, Tikvah played with her new hackey sack.

She chose Pizza Hut for our lunch and we got a stuffed crust.  They make it a little differently in China, with the stuffed part being almost a ball of cheese.  It was probably horrible for us, but it tasted pretty good!  Oh something else different was not finding bread sticks on the menu, but getting waffle fries as an appetizer!

After lunch Ethan took the Little Princesses back to play in the room while Tikvah and I ventured out to the department store on our own.  She got some little toy animals that she collects and we also found a REALLY good cake.

I had been told the desserts in China aren't ever as good as the ones here.  This one was better!  It was so, so rich with dark chocolate frosting in several layers - much like a torte - that one couldn't eat a very large piece of it.  The man at the bakery was so nice that he even thought to ask us if we needed candles, and he threw in those plus a server, plates and forks at no extra charge!

We had just finished our feast on this cake when our doorbell rang - yes this hotel had doorbells.  It was a hotel employee with a fantastical cake creation and a card from the manager of the hotel. 

Apparently when we checked in the staff took note from our passports that Tikvah would have a birthday during our stay.  We were so surprised at their thoughtfulness.  

In case you can't tell from the photo, there is a block of yellow cake under those decorated pieces of solid chocolate!  I'd say it was a memorable birthday.

What else did we do?

So did we do anything else in China besides official appointments and touring?  Yes.  The girls could often be found as in the photo above - snacking and flipping through the TV stations with the remote.  Or as below playing with play dough.

Tikvah and I went shopping a couple of times with Ann of Red Thread http://redthreadchina.com/  She took us to the wholesale markets and got us some fantastic deals.  She also came up to the room to talk to our girls a little bit and translate for us.  If you are on an adoption trip, be sure to contact Ann.  She was so, so nice and helpful too!

Ann with Jen

Tooth brushing was a main event!

And MORE nail polish.

One of our best purchases while out shopping with Ann was little silk parasols.  The girls loved them!  They treated us to a song and dance about the rain.

We had MORE snacks -

And fed snacks to Hello Kitty.

And fed the fish. (Can you tell that eating is a favorite past time of these two?)

And walked through the gardens at the hotel.

We played at playgrounds,

and pretended to be Pleasant Goat and Big, Big Wolf.

 

We played in a little ball pit that had some rain water in it.

And we played in the pool too.

Oh, and did I mention that we ate?

Other places of interest....

We visited the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall.  This is a historical memorial to commemorate Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, forerunner of Chinese Revolution. Our guide called him the "Father" of their country, much like our George Washington.

 One thing I loved about China was the sense of community in the parks.  There were hundreds and hundreds of people exercising in them!  Or dancing....

Loved all the RED in China!  It is my favorite color, so it looked like they decorated just for me!

Chen Ancestral Hall

Located outside the west gate of Guangzhou City and built 1888-1893. It used to provide temporary accommodation for the Chen family people when they came to the provincial capital for official discussion, imperial examination or litigation. It has a magnificent artistic appeal, though our littlest girls thought it was pretty boring! It now houses a museum of various folk arts and handicrafts of the local province. It has things like ceramics, antique furniture, embroidery, carvings, etc.

Our girls weren't all that impressed with the art work, but we enjoyed it!

Safari Park

Our medical appointment was supposed to be on Thursday,  April 25.  We were quite surprised to end up at the Safari Park instead!  Since there was rain in the forecast for the next few days our guide wanted to get us to the one place we had requested.  The medicals are totally required, so it kind of freaked us out to skip our appointment, but we were totally at the mercy of our guide and Safari Park it was!  It looks like we dressed Abigail for the occasion, but it was absolutely a coincidence.

Tikvah gave a bottle to a baby tiger.  I think that was the highlight of the whole trip for her!  The other two had the chance too, but they were too afraid to feed it.

Both girls were pretty happy about the day except for two specific times.  Abigail didn't like the elephant show - though it was VERY impressive -

And Jen TOTALLY FREAKED OUT when she saw the giraffes!  Though as noted by my oldest daughter, she didn't seem the least bit concerned about the tiger just a few feet away checking out the lunch menu!

If you go to Guangzhou, be sure to include a trip to the Safari Park.  Well worth the investment!

Adoption Day!

April 23 was our official adoption day.  Abigail still didn't want much to do with the whole process.  She spent most of the time as seen below with her "Baba" carrying her.

While in China... a recap

Neither time nor connection was cooperative for allowing posting to my blog while in China.  I apologize to those who had wanted to follow and couldn't do so on Facebook.  I'll post some photos and brief descriptions of our days just in case there are any of you out there still interested!

We began our journey to Guangzhou, China on the afternoon of Friday, April 19 and arrived early in the morning on Sunday, April 21.  Our adoption agency had assigned a sweet lady called Elsie to be our guide during our stay.  She met us at the airport, helped us get checked into the hotel many hours before the normal check in time, then left us to ourselves for the rest of the day. We passed the day walking and getting acquainted with the area around our hotel.  We discovered a department store that had a large grocery area on the ground floor.  This proved to be a regular stop for us - almost every day - as our girls ended up preferring to eat in our room.

The view from our room at The Garden Hotel

We woke very early in the morning on Monday, April 22 - the day to meet the Little Princesses! Although they began serving breakfast at 6AM, it was still a couple of hours away!

Ethan, Tikvah and I spent quite a bit of time walking around the elaborate gardens area at our hotel after breakfast.  The HUGE fish in the ponds appreciated the leftovers from Tikvah's breakfast!  The waterfall was amazing too!  Our guide arrived to take us to the Civil Affairs office and we made the short drive.

Tikvah wore her BIG SISTER shirt for the first time!  She has waited nearly 11 years to be a big sister!

Traffic in China is pretty much indescribable.  There are so many people, in vehicles (including entire families on motorbikes!) on bicycles, on foot - and pretty much the biggest thing has the right away it seems!  At any given time there are more lines of vehicles than there are lanes allowed for them.  Amazingly there seemed to be very few accidents with all of the honking and merging of vehicles.  Our guide instructed our driver to drop us off at the edge of the street and then she wove us in and out of the alleys on foot to somehow end up at the office!

We entered the room that I've seen pictured on so many other blogs.  Because of the Trade Fair and a labor holiday approaching in China we didn't have lots of people waiting with us that day.  One of the families were acquaintances from an online group, and this was their second time to adopt in China.  They were a great encouragement to us throughout our stay.

We had  barely taken a seat when we were told that our daughters had arrived!  Jen (ShaMei) came out first, wheeled out in her chair.  She was smiling and seemed happy to meet us.  Abigail (XinQing) was NOT happy, however.  She was howling and they were literally dragging her.  It was heartbreaking and definitely not the stuff of the romantic, put to music "Gotcha" videos.  She created such a ruckus that they put US behind the curtain so as not to ruin the moment for the other families.  The reactions were pretty much what we had predicted, only more so!

We went back to the hotel and the guide thought a trip to the playground at the hotel might help.  Not so much!  Jen loved playing on the slide, but Abigail refused to participate at all.  She perked up a bit back in the room when we did nails and hair - such a true girly girl!

It was a sweet picture when the three of them were tucked in for the night!