Folk Art Museum, Island, and More Noodles

Part 9 of adoption travel for Isaac.  Catching up (months later!)  March 31, 2014

Today we were to have gone to a park, but it was raining HARD so instead we went to the folk art museum. Isaac wasn't feeling well after breakfast (said he was really tired) so Ethan took him back to the room to take a nap. Tikvah and I went on to the "field trip".  This was the group from WACAP while we were there.  I just love these people!

 Isaac would have enjoyed this particular place so much. It was sad he had to miss.  There were various types of art displayed as well as some artists exhibiting their techniques.  This man "painted" his pictures with ink using his bare hands, fingerprints, etc.  Fascinating!

In the afternoon Tikvah and I (along with some friends) took a taxi back over to Shamian Island since we didn't get much of a chance to look around (in the rain) on Sunday. It had actually stopped raining by that afternoon. We hung with Tracy and her son Tao, got some lunch, and took some pictures. 

 

 We barely escaped death returning to the hotel (ok SLIGHT exaggeration -- maybe) in a taxi with a road raged driver. When he wasn't YELLING and gesturing at the other drivers he was singing. It was very weird and very scary!

Isaac was feeling better by dinner time, so we went to the noodle restaurant again. Service in the restaurants in China is not like at home. The tips are built into the prices so the servers have no motivation to give good service. The food isn't timed to serve the entire party, but brought out as it is done. Some people may be finished by the time the others have their food.

  In this instance ALL of us were finished by the time Tracy's food arrived, and then we practically had to beg for it. They kept insisting that the order of noodles that our family ate was her order, and didn't seem to want to bring more. Bizarre. But we had a lot of good laughs throughout the evening about it.

Church in China

Part 10 of my catch up on travel with Isaac posts.  March 2014.

The first thing in the morning, as always, we hit the breakfast buffet. We miss that a lot when these trips are over! Once again the regular dining room was full up, so they sent us up to the fancy place on the executive floor to eat.  You can see out all over the city from up there!

 
You may not be aware that at The Garden, the adoptive families are generally seated in an actual hallway off the regular dining area so our (often upset) children don't bother people. When we are sent upstairs we get a really fancy private room. We had breakfast two mornings in a row in this private dining room with another adoptive family from Cincinnati! What a small world!

 After breakfast we headed out to Shamian Island. Since there are four families here from our agency, we traveled as a group on a small bus. 

 At the island we browsed around while waiting for church time.  Check out the photo of Isaac watching his "chop" being made.

 

 I assume because of the European history on the island, a Christian church is allowed to meet openly on the island. 

 Some songs were in Chinese and some in English. It honestly brought tears to my eyes to be in China and hear all of these people singing praise songs in Mandarin. 

The sermon was in Chinese with an English translation following every few sentences. It has to have been the highlight of our trip for me! It was so great to have our first church service with Isaac to be in a language that we all could understand.  From the viewpoint now of knowing that we'll be back in this area when we adopt Pat, I'm looking forward to being able to go TWO Sundays!

The Health Exam

Part #8 of travel with Isaac.  March 2014.

Today's big deal was the health exam. After being sent up to the fancy restaurant for breakfast because The Garden's regular restaurant was totally full, we hurried through eating, then met the rest of the families from our agency to head to the health office. 

 
Once we got to the health office there were LOTS of people I'd met online. If it hadn't been such a stressful time with/for the kids we could have had quite the little party there!

We had to go to various stations such as an eye test, weight and other vitals, etc. plus a blood test for TB and our poor guy had to get four shots. I felt pretty bad for him, but he was a trooper.

Then we had an outing to restock water and snacks.

 Shortly after we got back to the hotel all the moms met with our guide to get our paperwork in order for the immigrant visa which we'll apply for at our appointments at the American Consulate next week.

The day finished with a meal out at a local noodles/dumpling restaurant. The day likely sounds fairly ordinary - doctor appointment, shopping, paperwork, dinner - but it was special to meet these other families, most of which I've been talking with for weeks online. It is also helpful to talk with others in a similar situation. Most of us are in that twilight daze of not really knowing what day or time it is. :)

Leaving Nanning for Guangzhou, Apartment at the Garden Hotel

Part 7 of our March 2014 adoption trip, catch up post. 


All China adoption trips end up in Guangzhou because that is where the American Consulate office is located.  We enjoyed Guangxi Province and getting acquainted with some of the history from the area where Issac was born, but it was time to move on at the end of the week.  Driving to the airport...

 

Guangzhou is a larger city, and more westernized than Nanning. There is also less smog, though noticeably more this time than a year ago when we were here adopting our daughters.
 

This is a view out our apartment window.
 

A LOT of adoptive parents stay at The Garden Hotel while in Guangzhou.  Again, because of our need for bedrooms for both an adolescent boy and a girl, and the need of an additional bathroom, we chose to stay in the apartment tower of The Garden instead of on the hotel side.  It is difficult to find any information on these apartments online, and the questions I'm most often asked about travel have to do with this apartment.

To give you the idea, the regular hotel room has two twin beds, one bathroom and a small living room area. Our apartment had two bedrooms, one with a king size bed that Tikvah and I shared, and another bedroom that Ethan and Isaac shared that had two twin beds. There were also two and a half baths, a good size living room, a dining room with a large table, and a smallish kitchen that was supplied with dishes and cooking utensils. There was a microwave, an oven, a full size refrigerator, and a teeny machine that washed AND dried clothes.

It is not fancy or plush at all like the hotel side is. The half bath has been updated and there is a funky toilet attachment in the master bath - don't ask, I didn't use it! :) The carpet is worn and stained, but it was very functional and seemed clean overall. It had space enough for a family to stay here a week and not lose their minds in the process. Having a big table and a washer/dryer is a huge plus as are the extra bathrooms.

And now for the picture tour:  Entryway with the ever present, ever needed umbrellas. (I brought them)

 The updated half bath, just as you come in the door.

 Off the living room, the guys' bedroom with two twin beds and a bathroom.

 

Living room and to the left the dining room.

Dining room - one thing that has really surprised me is the lack of decorating. There were nails for pictures but no pictures hanging on them!  The carpet in the hall smelled AWFUL and was stained terribly, so I think they may have had some water leakage previously.  They possibly were remodeling.

From the dining room into the kitchen..

 

  
There was a full size refrigerator next to these sinks. The stove/oven had pans. There were dishes in the cupboards and silverware in the drawers.

  
Hot pot for making cofee - vitally important! Microwave and little machine that washes and dries clothes.

  
Master bedroom that Tikvah and I shared. The ironing board just stayed out because either I couldn't figure out how to set the dryer appropriately, or it just always fried the clothes. Everything ended up having to be ironed.

 

  
Large closets in both bedrooms.

  
The master bath, and the fancy toilet.  

 

Advantages from my viewpoint.  We paid about two times the amount for the apartment as a regular "suite" room in this hotel.  We all got to sleep in an actual bed.  We had the extra bathrooms.  Four free breakfasts came with the apartment vs only two with the regular rooms (the breakfast buffet is like $20 each for kids?)  We were able to wash clothes instead of sending them out, and friends from our agency ran some laundry as well.  Because of the extra room - living and dining - we got to be the hang out spot for other families, and this was great!  The English speakers had lots in common, and the Chinese speakers took comfort in playing games with the others who could understand them.  Those who understood English a little better than others helped translate for their friends.  I believe it was good for ALL the kids.  The adopted children had someone who could identify with their feelings as did the siblings who had just gained a new family member.

NOTE!  While the twin beds seem to have been ok, the king sized one was REALLY HARD, like sleeping on a box spring only.  It was so hard that my hips literally HURT the next morning.  If you run into problems with this ask the staff for extra bedspreads.  We put several under our bottom sheet and it helped quite a bit.

  

Feeding gold fish at the park

 Part 6 of our travels with Isaac. March 28, 2014.

After the museum we went to The People's Park and fed the giant goldfish.

I also included pictures of our drive to and from our outing. China is full of contradictions. High tech fancy buildings right near the old style little street shops, it is a mixture of an evolving city.

Greatly amused because Tikvah accidentally dropped her entire bun into the water instead of just little pieces. This is french bread (that the Little Princesses LOVED when we were here) so Ethan - talking for the fish - said "Hey, come over here. They've opened a French restaurant!"

 
The French restaurant floated quite awhile until the fish figured out it was actually eatable.

The scooters are everywhere. I saw what appeared to be hundreds of them parked on the sidewalks all over town. They all bunch up like that at the stop lights