A visit to a 1000 year old University

Today I am feeling much better! Whatever bug I picked up was a bad one! Forrest has done a great job being a single parent for the last couple days. :) I definitely could not have been here without him.

We went with our guide Amy on a tour of the Yue Lu Academy, it is one of the oldest universities in China. There were beautiful trees and flowers everywhere. The buildings were very intricate and we had a chance to hear a song performed just for us.

Delilah is doing great! She was staring directly into my eyes today and babbling. I decided to try saying "Ma ma" and she said it back! It was more like "Mmmmmaa" but that is a start! She was definitely listening and trying to mimic what I was saying.

Forrest was eating noodles today and Delilah was watching him so he grabbed a noodle with the chopsticks and put one in her mouth. It was hanging out so he went to pick it up again and before he could do it.. Slurp. The noodle was gone! The girl likes noodles. :)

Tomorrow we leave for Guangzhou and we will meet up with our original group again. We are looking forward to seeing all the children with their new families. We also can't wait to see the White Swan Hotel that we have heard so much about. Until tomorrow... Tracy

Goin for a walk

We had some down time today away from our guide, she was off helping some other people. So I decided to be adventurous. Tracy wasn't feeling that great today so she stayed at the hotel with the baby while I went for a walk. I thought I would go to a local shopping plaza and check it out. The plaza was about 2 miles from the hotel but the city here is very pedestrian friendly. There are lots of pedestrian bridges and tunnels designed to keep people away from traffic, similar to the Vegas strip. The primary modes of transportation here are bicycle, moped and motorcycle. Traffic here is insane, there is very little regard for traffic laws and the local police here dont seem to care about enforcing it. Motorcyles and motor scooters frequently drive on the sidewalks with pedestrians, you really have to be alert. I finally made it to the plaza. This was one of the largest shopping areas I have ever seen. The say there is over 2000 stores here, although most of them were very small shops. It was a little intimidating going without a guide but I managed. Well, it is getting late and I need to go to sleep so we will post tomorrow. Until then:-)

Park and Museum day

Today we went to Martyr Park and the Hunan Provincial Embroidery Museum. The park was fascinating, we arrived there at around 9:00 am. It was very similar to Balboa Park, there were thousands of people there doing all kinds of things like traditional chinese dancing, singing, playing instruments, Ti Chi and exercising. There was a giant lake in the middle of the park where you could rent all kinds of boats. There was several small fishing ponds filled with Koi fish. You could rent a fishing pole for about 1.50 and catch the Koi fish and take them home for a pet if you wanted. It was very bizarre. We then went to the Hunan Provincial Embroidery Museum. Apparently the province of Hunan is where traditional chinese embroidery was invented and perfected. The museum was full of lots of incredible embroidery pictures, the neatest ones were the double sided pictures. There would be a picture of a tiger or something on one side and when you flip it over there was a completely different image on the other side. Overall it was a good day, the weather has been very nice in the high 70's low 80's. The baby is doing well also she is very laid back and doesn't fuss much at all. It's almost time to go eat dinner, maybe we'll have some chinese food tonight. We miss all of you and we'll talk to you later:-)

A visit to a museum

Today we spent the morning at the Hunan Provincial Museum. It houses the artifacts from the tombs of Hunan's Royal Family. The family ruled the province in 200 BC and the tombs were unearthed in in 1973. They actually had the mummified corpse of the mother which was..well..interesting. Forrest was a celebrity today and was asked to pose with a local for a photo. We also were surrounded by a HUGE group of school children who wanted to practice their English on us. They were all very cute waving and yelling "Hello! Hi!" Enjoy the photos! Tracy

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We got her!

Sorry there was no post yesterday we were having trouble with our internet. Yesterday we spent the day at the civil affairs office getting Delilah. It was very interesting seeing all of the different families getting their children. We saw some very heart breaking moments of other children that didn't want to go with their new parents. We were very lucky, Delilah seemed very happy with us from the start. She appears to be very healthy but, is also very developmentally delayed most likely from lack of attention at the orphanage. She has the motor skills of a 4-6 month old baby. She definitely seems to be making improvements just in the 24 hours we have had her. We realize that we have a lot of work to do but we are very confident that she will catch up. Today we spent the day doing some shopping around town. We went to a Walmart here in Changsha and whoa was it different. The food section was completely different than in the US. They sold lots of live food there like frogs, turtles, crabs and giant fish that you net yourself. Needless to say we didn't purchase any live food. We left with a few items and then went to a children's store to buy some things for Delilah. We had heard about the really good baby shoe prices and had to see for ourselves. We are going to have to do some creative packing to find space for the 6 or 7 pairs Tracy found...but leather shoes at $8 a pair had to be bought! Tomorrow we are going to a park, hopefully we will be able to show you some pictures of it when we get back assuming our internet connection cooperates. Forrest

Our first day in Changsha.

Today started with a 4:30 am wake up call. We had to be ready to leave the hotel by 5:30 am. It was not a problem since we are still not completely adjusted to the time difference and we were awake around 2 am. :) We expected to miss out on breakfast since the hotel did not start serving until 6:30 am. We had no idea that our day consisted of not one but two breakfasts. Waiting for us at the front desk were packaged breakfasts for every person in our 10 family travel group of around 25 people. It contained a banana, a hard boiled egg and 2 of the best tasting sausages we have ever had. They looked a little odd but were really good! Once we were all accounted for, we boarded the bus and headed to the airport. Because we were all going to different provinces, our guide had to get some help. We had a total of 3 guides to assist the 10 families. We made it thru security with LOTS of scrutiny. They were very interested in the powdered baby formula that I was carrying in my backpack, but allowed me to go thru. The airport was HUGE. We walked for a long time and the group kept getting smaller and smaller as the guides were taking them to different gates. Eventually it was down to 3 families and 1 guide. Forrest and I were going to one gate and the guide and other 2 families had to go an opposite direction so the guide just said to "go that way". We went and hoped for the best. We followed the signs and went down 2 levels to the correct gate where we had to board a bus to be taken to the plane! It was standing room only on the bus, REALLY hot and Forrest and I were the only foreigners on board. When the bus stopped we got out and boarded the plane by climbing up some stairs. We sat in a row of 3 next to an older woman who of course only spoke Chinese. She was very nice and kept touching my arms and then showing me her 2 layers of long sleeves. I think she thought I needed to be warmer. :) The on board announcements were in Chinese and then in English, which I thought was nice since it was ONLY for Forrest and I. :) Right after take off we were served another breakfast. Our flight was less than 2 hours and we were given, scrambled eggs, hash browns, snow peas, sausage, a fruit cup and a croissant with jam. You all know what you would be served on a U.S flight that was less than 2 hours....maybe a snack-definitely not an entire meal. The flight was easy and when we arrived at the airport, we found our luggage quickly and didn't even have to look for our new guide, Amy. She spotted us. I would guess we were easy to find. :) Changsha is much different than Beijiing. The weather is cooler and today was very gray. I am not sure if that is normal weather or not. Hoping for some sunshine tomorrow for our big day. We are meeting Amy and one other family in the lobby at 10:30 am to go to the Office of Civil Affairs, which is where we will receive Delilah! From what Amy said, it will be very quick. We already completed the initial paperwork this afternoon along with the other family that is here with us. Ready for something unbelievable? The other family whom we just met today, lives in San Diego! Mira Mesa, actually. How crazy is that? They are adopting a 7 year old boy. It is unbelievable that we are only one day away from meeting our daughter. :) No pictures today since we haven't done anything except travel but there will definitely be some tomorrow. :) Tracy