The Road to Nanchang

(please note that this page is incomplete and in progress... -last updated 3/14/08)

... as told by James

 Welcome one and all to my version of the story of James and Heather's grand adventure half way 'round the world to meet, adopt and bring home a tiny baby girl that had been waiting patiently in a sparse orphanage crib for us. I'll tell you now that this story is somewhat long, occasionally meandering and certainly imperfect, and will be improved over time as I get to it.

 

Speaking for myself, this has been the most amazing journey of my life, and with a miraculous payoff of a charming, dynamic, intelligent and beautiful little girl to boot. It definately helped to plant the seed of world travel in me; now I just need my finances to catch up with my new hobby. But that's another story.

 

Where to start? The beginning, I suppose. I think I'll even partition this up a little for easier reading. Here we go.

The Trip Out

Before this, I'd been on exactly two plane trips, one to northern Florida over 10 years ago and then a work-related trip to Germany in April of '05. Luckily, the Germany trip (featuring a a ten-hour flight from Atlanta to Munich) I think adequately prepared me for the crazy-long flight(s) to come. I was strangely calm about the whole prospect of traveling half way around the world. Little worry was spent on whether our luggage would be lost, or whether we'd have trouble with customs, or if they'd suspect any of our belongings. I felt like we had some sort of protective Adoptive Parent bubble around us, exempting us from any major travel difficulties. And I was right, because we had virtually no incedents along the way, here or in Asia. (Well, there was the one time where we'd misplaced our tickets when transferring back at Tokyo-Narita, but five minutes of panic is good for the soul.) It all very much had this overall feeling of Meant To Be about it - a feeling which I still carry with me to this day.

We had a short jaunt from Cleveland to Detroit, and I was impressed with that city's airport. They have this nifty tram that runs inside, elevated over the terminal walkway. Unfortunately, we didn't have an excuse or the spare time to ride it. After being there for a half hour, I could anticipate the impending passing the tram just by the air pressure change in the terminal. 

An hour or so later, it was to be 12+ hours in the air direct to Tokyo-Narita. Thanks to some assistance from some diphenhydramine, we managed to sleep through a fair portion of the flight. And it as worth sleeping, because the choice of in-flight movies was pretty atrocious. It was a 'family' movie extravaganza, with The Pacifier (proving once and for all that Vin Diesel truly cannot act - as if that were a burning question of the age), Because of Winn Dixie (which actually seemed pretty cute, in a catch-it-on-cable when you're at home sick kind of way) and Guess Who? (which I barely saw). As I was falling in and out of sleep during the latter two films, my brain tried desperately to make sense of what was happening and managed to merge the two movies into one. This made for a very convoluted storyline, I assure you.

Anyway, thanks to the rest and to two pairs (one for each of us) of compression stockings to save our lower limbs from swelling from 12 hours of relative inaction (I cannot stress enough the inportance of compression stockings on a long flight: we managed to misplace a pair on the way back across the Pacific and I, being the gentleman, insisted that Heather wear the remaining pair; I know now the major difference a sock makes), we made it to Tokyo basically sane. Immigration took much less time than we feared, and we met with our friend Kirsten's husband, Naoto, still feeling somewhat pleasant.

Our traveling wasn't over, however; since Tokyo-Narita airport isn't really all that near Tokyo and their apartment is on the opposite side of the city, we still had two hours of train and public transit ahead of us. The train was cozy, though because it was almost dark when we got underway we didn't get to see much of the countryside. It was nice to stand for a while when on the metro, even if we were lugging most of our baggage around with us. We managed to experience varying degrees of fullness along the way, from sparse (early on) to tightly packed (through Tokyo). We even had a short taxi ride from the metro station to their place. The only thing we didn't ride on getting there was a boat. That would've been cool: To Tokyo by land, sea and air!

Tokyo

Our time in Tokyo was definitely too short, but it was also definitely worth it. We woke up at an ungodly early hour, and spent a quiet morning in their tiny apartment, having a little breakfast and some buckwheat tea (which was all the rage there at the time - it was okay, but I won't miss it). Naoto (who was gracious enough to take the day off work to spend with us) took us on a whirlwind tour of some of the more interesting spots in their area, including a number of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines (which mainly shared the same grounds), which seemed like they were around every corner. Naoto said that the Japanese are generally a superstitious people, and I could believe it. We paid our respects where they were due.

Then we haded into Edo, one of the more ancient areas of Tokyo. We toured a warehouse, an old building and one of the few to survive various invading/bombing armies. The warehouse had a trove of historical information on life in the region during the time it was built. Then we visited the museumized home of the third Shogun of Japan, a sprawling compound that sported a lot of history and a crazy beautiful garden. We toured around a neighborhood that was known for its sweet potato-based products (food, snacks, beer, etc.) and a courtyard featuring 500 (540, actually) Buddha statues. I got a lot of good shots from there, but I did not, in fact, find a Buddha that looks like me - or with which I associate - as the brochure asserts (without guarantee, of course). Maybe I just didn't spend enough time there to convince myself that one of them resembled me in any way. One did, however look disturbingly like Heather's mom. We also did a little shopping, including an area that Naoto used to frequent when he was a kid, shops full of toys and trinkets and snacks.

Our lunch was at an authentic local noodle restaurant, where I had my first try at soba noodles. Yum! And fun, too. The deal is that you've got a bowl of plain, cold (refreshing in the heat of midday) noodles and a separate bowl of a sauce, to which you can add flavourings like green onion, sesame, wasabe, etc. You then dip a chopstick-full of noodles into the sauce and slurp, noisiness acceptable. In fact, it's an oddity to not make noise eating noodles (as opposed to making noise-eating noodles, as Word's context underline squiggly suggests-- how quiet dinner would be!). It's also something of a trick not to spatter yourself with sauce while slurping, I learned.

Day two was spent with Kirsten. After sending her oldest to school, the three of us and her youngest ventured through the metro system and first visited Thunder Gate (yes, that's what it says on the giant red lamp in the picture), which is at its front a long line of open air markets, leading to a large Buddhist temple and a number of Shinto shrines. We managed to find an Anpanman item there, as well as try a few local snacky delicacies. There were some cool shrines there, but it felt a little touristy for me. We got a few charms (we were in Japan, how can you not get at least one charm?) for various people that we thought could use one. As we made our way through the crowds, I personally wondered what all those people were doing there in the middle of the morning on a weekday. Shouldn't everyone be too busy working themselves to death?

We left the old shrines behind and moved on to the city proper, walking among the trendier areas of Tokyo. We eventually (after a little diffiulty with the directions) made our way to a restaurant that, as well as featuring some tasty food items (and a difficult-to-spot location), sported a number of pictures of the only celebrity they had guesting there that we recognized, Stevie Wonder. Kirsten's youngest (who was a little under two years old, I believe) was particularly interested in Mr. Wonder and was fixated on the pictures that happened to be hanging on the wall behind us. Soon enough, it became the Find Stevie Wonder game, each picture having more people in it, and having to pick the visually impaired singer/songwriter out of the crowd. Fun for all ages!

Afterward was a real treat-- a short run through one of Tokyo's famous toy stores, Kiddyland. We were hunting mainly for Anpanman stuff, of course, as well as some Japanese-marked Star Wars items for a friend of ours (with Episode III having been just released there recently, there was plenty). There was a life-size Darth Vader made of Lego that lit up and had a voice box inside it spouting the occasional DV catchphrase ("Most impressive..." and the like). There were a number of things we would have gotten, had it not been for that we'd need to be dragging it with us for the next two weeks all over Southeast Asia. Sigh... there's always next time. Or the Internet.

Next day was travel day. We had a casual morning with Kirsten, sampling some items from a local bakery (maple melonpan- yum!) and slowly, begrudgingly making our way toward the metro that would take us to the train that would take us to the airport that would take us to Hong Kong. One of my favorite moments along the way was when we were in a metro terminal getting passes for the next leg of the trip and an older gentleman passing by decided to try out some English on us and exclaimed, "It's hot!" I heartily agreed, with a smile. We made our goodbyes and bravely made our way, guideless, on the train, and through the airport to trip three out of what would be a total of nine airline flights before we were done.

After the very long flight over the Pacific, we thought a four-hour jaunt from Tokyo to Hong Kong would have seemed like nothing, but it actually felt like forever. The weather was terrible, so it was pretty much bumps almost the whole way. Heather held my hand, white-knuckled through a good portion of it. We could not get off the plane fast enough.

It was dark by the time we reached Hong Kong International, and we gratefully went straight to our one night at the Regal Airport hotel before meeting up with the rest of the families and our local guides the next morning. Decent enough hotel, and had a cool lobby with a grand piano set up on what looked like a small spaceship.

Hong Kong

Like I said, we got into Hong Kong late, so we didn't get a chance to get around until the morning. First thing after breakfast (a stupendous breakfast buffet, I must say) and checkout was to meet up with the rest of the families in our adopting travel group. Most of the rest of the folks looked pretty haggard from flying, and we could certainly sympathize. There, we met our guides for out time in Hong Kong, Matthew and Joanne, who began the shepherding process that would be a good portion of our existence in China - not that we minded; we had better things to worry about that which way we were going at any given time.

From the airport, we took a bus across the city to the hotel we would be staying at for the majority of our short time in Hong Kong, the Kowloon Shangri-La. Assuming you've clicked and looked at some pictures, not a shabby place, eh? (And if you haven't clicked and looked, then why the heck am I bothering with these stupid links, anyway? Sheesh!) You know a hotel is ritzy when they have floormats in the elevators that they change daily because they have the day of the week printed on them. Fancy! Since we were already basically acclimated to the time zone, we let everyone else get their rooms ahead of us so they could get situated, and took advantage of the extra time to go exploring.

Po-Lin Monastery

So as I said, we went on an excursion in lieu of immediate housing. First taking a ferry for a short trip across the water from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, then hopping on another ferry west, we made our way to Lantau Island. Once there, we gave our lives over to a bus driver. Winding through narrow, not-well-maintained roads in a bus that had seen better days and sounded worse than it looked, about 45 (very long) minutes later we were at the upper reaches of the island and arriving at Po-Lin Monastery.

As I'd hoped, it was much cooler in the upper reaches, and the humidity did not do much else other than obscure some of the scenery for a while. We wandered about the main grounds, admiring the architecture and the marvelous Buddhas within the many buildings. When visiting one temple off to the side from the others, we noticed a sign that hung in the room, saying, "Visitors are requested to pay respect to the Ksitigrabha Bodhisattva on the second floor," which, naturally, we did. The door leading to the stairs was kind of stuck, so we imagined that not too many visitors actually went through. Upstairs (after passing - and paying respect to - a nun doing dishes in an old sink) was a beautiful shrine (as seen in above link - we felt like we'd be disrespectful snapping pictures, but luckily that guy felt a little more liberated about it), with a looped tape of someone sounding of importance and pontificating on something that I'm sure would be of great significance, had we been able to understand any of it.

We started getting hungry, so we went to one of the two vegetarian, monk-run restaurants on the grounds. We opted for eating in the more communal area (rather than the 'deluxe' area, where it's more private with booths and all), sitting at a round table in a big open area full of visitors, 95% of which were Asian (there was at least one American group there - they were fairly easy to spot - and a couple of European groups - I caught some German, I think, and something Nordic), and were quickly served up the first of a number of courses, some mushroom-based broth. This was followed up by a couple of tofu-and-veggie dishes, some spring roll-y things, and a plate of mushrooms and bok choy (oh, so many kinds of mushrooms in China). Accoutrements included a pot of rice (one of the few times we'd actually get rice with a meal - apparently, rice is so common in China that people there don't normally want it with their meals when they eat out. And it's a common breakfast food as well - it'd be like going out to eat here and getting a bowl of Cheerios with your meal. Which wouldn't so be bad, if you have a tot with you...hmm) and a gigantic pot of tea, of which I believe we drank the better part. The both of us managed to not embarass ourselves while using he more rounded, Chinese-style chopsticks (Japanese-style chopstics are more sqared and a little easier to use for novices like us). We'd been practicing at home, knowing there'd be rare access to forks ahead of us.

Anyway, tasty and satisfying meal done, we got back to exploring. We headed into a less-frequented area (by visitors, at least) of the grounds, up behind the living spaces and through an old, lush (with the humidity, I think all the plants there are lush), overgrown-but-somewhat-maintained gardens. At the top of the garden (which merged with the woods there) was a relatively small shrine (pictured here) to someone who didn't seem very Buddha-like - I suspected it was the man who founded the monastery there. There were a few meager offerings laid out, but not nearly with the display-like care that one would see at the main shrines. It seemed more practical and lived-in, which made me feel like we were encroaching somehow, even though there were no 'keep out' signs or locked gates. Thus, we treated the place with respect, and tread carefully and quietly.

Moving up the hill further, we came upon a pair of what seemed like small stone water collection towers, to feed the monastery (or maybe they used to - they both seemed under-maintained). Up the path, further into the woods, we came upon a clearing that lent us a rather spectacular view of the grounds, with the towering Buddha in the distance, which seemed almost one with the surrounding hills, as if it really belonged there. It was very quiet there, just the sound of the sea breeze and the occasional gonging from the grounds below. Very peaceful.

We looked up the hill further and saw some sort of monument that we weren't sure we could get to - and weren't sure there was time, judging by the unpredictable weather. Luckily we managed to find a path that led to the place, which turned out to have some sort of small, circular court (not for sports), a small enclosed shrine, and a monolith of sorts covered in Chinese and, somewhat to at least my surprise, Sanskrit. Heather reminded me that, since Buddhism originated in India, Sanskrit had its place there. We're hoping, since we have a decent picture of it, to get it translated, so we can find out what/who it's for.

After admiring the structures and the view (we were at about the same height as the head of the Big Buddha at this point) - and getting a nice little gash in my leg from the local flora, we moved up and on along the newfound path, to what looked like it may have been one of the original buildings from the inception of the monastery, a shrine and living quarters that looked like it had about the same amount to floor space as a small apartment, as well as an outdoor area about as big, with life's daily stuff here and there (a water hose, a bucket, a table, etc.). It looked old but lived-in, though no one seemed to be home and the door was locked. Inside we could see the shrine, lit by a bare bulb and lightly shrouded in incense smoke. Some recorded traditional-sounding music played softly in the background. We could tell that we were in a Spiritual Place; somewhere that's seen a lot of daily ritual. We could just feel it. Since our journey upward seemed done, we stayed there for a little while, meditating on the experience, soaking in the place, taking in the stillness that was in great contrast to the bustle of Kowloon, and wondering at the view. We were now higher up than the Buddha himself, and even he seemed a little smaller at that distance.

After what felt like an appropriate amount of time, we moved on and back toward the milling masses below.

Slippery Slope

So down headed we from the mountain lair, for the hour grew late and the weather disquiet. Wending along aged cobbles amidst strange (to our foreign eyes), misty flora, we set on quietly nearer, toward my unanticipated fate. After such a relaxing respite above, perhaps it was that our footsteps on humidity-slickened stone stairs were a bit too casual, because - whoops - and, feet going forward out from under me, down I go, my wrist taking most of the impact. I didn't hear a crunch or snap that would signal an obvious break anywhere in my hand or arm, but at the time I was more worried about the blood welling up in the newly-made gashes on my right hand from the steps that weren't exactly tooled, flat planes of stone. Immediately, visions of foreign hospitals and disrupting out adoption process went through my head - along with the "ow ow ow".

We made it down the rest of the hill and back into the monastery compound and tried to figure out a way to wash my hand, paranoid about non-purified water getting into my system. I used a little bottled water instead, and then used a wet nap (boy the alcohol in that thing really felt good). Then we went hunting for ice. Heather asked at a food counter - a challenge in itself, considering the language barrier, getting across that I needed ice for my hand - and once the girl registered what is was we were asking for, she actually ran off across the courtyard, seeming apologetic that they didn't have any right there and then. A couple of minutes later she returned with a plastic bag full of ice wedges. Eternally grateful, were we. We sat for a while in the sparsely populated courtyard, watching the ice melt at a disturbingly rapid pace over my wrist.

Satisfied that my hand wasn't going to fall off anytime soon, we moved on toward the Giant Buddha. It wasn't as tiring as I thought it would be, walking up the 250 (yes, we counted) steps of the main stairway leading to the statue. The thing was impressive, to be sure, but it honestly wasn't as inspiring as our journey up the opposite hill, fall or no. The view from the base of the statue, however - of both the grounds and of the South China Sea - was pretty awesome. We spent a good while taking in the sights and the sea breeze. Turns out that there was also an inside of the Buddha, which was a small museum of sorts, including having a couple of crystal fragments of the Shakyamuni Buddha. Apparently he was so down with Buddhism that he burst into the flame of enlightenment that was so hot that it crystallized him. His remains were then split up and sent to various parts of the world. Current street value: unknown.

Inside the museum were also many works of art (including a very cool piece that I'm still trying to hunt down online; unfortunately picture-taking inside was forbidden), as well as many religious and historical documents and info on the creation of the statue. There's also a huge bell in his chest. Or his belly; I'm not sure of the placement relative to the innards. Mmm.. Buddha innards.

The rest of our visit consisted of taking in the amazing view, enjoying the sea wind, meeting a nice couple from California who were on the tail end of their vacation, and trying out what is not one of my new favourite drinks, chrysanthemum tea. Thank you, Vitasoy.

The hour getting late, we headed back to Kowloon, via another white-knuckled bus ride and, rather than the ferry this time, the metro system (mainly so we could say that we'd tried every mode of transport available - plane, bus, ferry and train - all in one day), where we learned that Di$neyCorp was putting the finishing touches on a new park there in Hong Kong. Oh joy. So we got back to the Shangri-La to finally get our room, only to find out that they'd run out of standard rooms due to it being the weekend and our group being so large, so they were forced to upgrade us to a deluxe suite. The humanity! How would we survive?! We spent the rest of the night getting some late take-out from a place around the corner (as well as some ice cream from a 7-Eleven) to bring back to the hotel, and bought Ocean's Twelve on pay-per-view, through which we took turns sleeping. Between the two of us I think we cought about two thirds of the movie. I guess we were a little tired.

Hong Kong Day 2

Next day we were herded along by our guides to a jade jewelry manufacturing shop. I was put off by the whole thing, mainly because it felt so contrived and touristy. We did manage to have some fun there, though.

As convention goes, the more one seems disinterested in something/someone, the more someone else wants to convince you that you need it/them. This proved terrifically true in the sales area of this place. At first I was miffed that we were using up a good chunk of our morning in a jewelry shop, thus choosing not looking at anything, especially the trinkets they had on display in the lower cases (everyone knows the good stuff's always in/on the back shelves). Eventually we started admiring the artwork of some of the jade statuettes and other nicer objects; when that happened, the sales folk, in typical (as I'd learn eventually) style, started pushing whatever is was we were looking at on us, reciting their spiel on the jade quality and whatnot. Apparently we were looking at the right stuff and in the right way, because suddenly they were offering us tea (something no one else in the room seemed to be getting) and being especially nice. We carried our aloofness around with us around the room. I began to think of the sales folk as sharks, and me as a quick but tasty fish. I'd stay looking at something particularly nice, and when I saw one of the 'sharks' out of the corner of my eye coming my way with spiel in hand, I'd casually move on, feigning disinterest but presenting an aura of wanting to spend a lot of money on something that might catch my eye (a few things almost did, but practicality got the better of us). What fun! What I thought would be a waste of time ended up being a casual morning of poking a stick at the Sales Machine. Something like this will get me killed one day, certainly.

After jade-watching, we hopped into the bus and headed up Victoria Peak, purportedly the highest point in Hong Kong, and on which the richest of the rich live. We wandered for a bit out onto the outdoor areas of a shopping mall that wasn't quite open yet, and looked down onto the city. Pretty amazing view from up there. We only got about a half an hour there, sadly, and had to rush off to our next destination, a boat tour of a fishing village. It's a boat tour, because everyone in the 'village' lives on their boat. It was off-season (letting the fishes replenish themselves during a mandatory two-month period), so all boats were in and packed pretty tightly into the bay that served as their neighborhood. Apparently there were two boats per family; the one they lived on and one they took out for trolling. It's said that many of them are born, live and die having never set foot on land. Small boats were zipping all over, even in the downpour that started just after we got underway (it was a canopied boat). It felt a little odd, gawking at what amounted to people's homes as we made our way through. I'm pretty sure the tours funded the village, though, at least in part.

After that, we were done with the group stuff and were on our own for the rest of the day. We decided to get a look at the city from the pavement, so we headed down the main drag of Kowloon and sightsaw. We had a plan of finding a place for dinner along the way, and definitely had to traverse the Temple Street Night Market, which is basically a side street that's taken over nightly by trinket vendors. We found three sets (six pair total) of jade chopsticks that we haggled down (haggling is a must - it's insulting to the seller not to) to $80 HK, or what amounted to about $12 US. We really need to go back there one day.

We saw lots of things along the main street: Indian men offering to tailor me a suit; typical folding-table sellers of cheap watches and girlie mags; stores with bags of just about everything edible from the sea dried and ready to eat; a 'Sony' store on practically every street corner; a lot of (surprise) Chinese-style restaurants; the occasional massage parlor; a video game place, featuring a game that's like DDR but with a full simulated drum kit (want one!); a Japanese-style bakery, which unfortunately did not have maple melonpan but did have a stock of Vita chrysanthemum tea; and people, lots and lots of people. As we were walking south back down the street, we noticed flashing lights over the cityscape near the water, and the occasional 'pbbbt' of some small fireworks. We made our way toward the action, but ended up missing it because we couldn't for the life of us find a way across the busy street to get to the harbour (Kowloon, like many Chinese cities, has underground crossing areas, and it wasn't until after the show that we managed to get un-turned around and find one). We made our way to the water anyway, as the cityscape lit up for a Saturday night was still something to see.

We had dinner there along the boardwalk at a place called Blues, mainly because we could eat outside and they had live music (which consisted of a coffee-house-style folk group singing in Chinese). There was a wait, so we sat at the bar, each had a Chinese-made beer and watched the attractive bartenderess do her thing. Dinner consisted of Heather having some sort of veggie dish I can't remember, and I had something that was basically some slightly spicy fried noodles 'with prawn'. I expected a bowl of noodles with little curled up bits of prawn meat mixed in. What I got was a bowl of noodles and a gigantic, 8-inch-long whole cooked prawn, googley eyes, antennae and all, cooked lobster-style. And it was staring right at H. Once I came to terms with the presentation (and knocked the head off so it was no longer ogling the vegetarian), I dove in. Tasty. Slightly disturbing, but tasty.

After that, it was sleepy time. After all, we had a big day the next day, what with the getting a baby and all.  

Destination: Baby

H said she didn't sleep well that night, in anticipation. I think I did, mainly because of our long days in Hong Kong and knowing that I'd need as much energy for this day as I could muster. We made a quick breakfast and I flooded my system with as much tea as I could manage to get in me, mainly because it would be (or at least feel like) a long trip to Jiangxi and needed the boost. We were about to enter into Real China, and become true foreigners, not just tourists in a major metropolis.

It was sad to see KH dwindle away as we rumbled in a bus down the highway and toward the airport. That was feeling counterpointed by the occasional "Oh crap, we're getting a baby today!" that washed over me. Otherwise it was an easy trip, mainly due to the help of our guides 'Joanne' and 'Matthew' - though those might be their actual names, since HK has such a strong British influence still.

Getting through HK airport was a breeze, and all there was to do was wait for our flight. I spent some time worrying about my wrist, which by this point wrapped up and hurting twice as much as it had the day before, though I was not at the point of admitting it yet to H. Yes, it's true, men are stubborn about injuries, and I'm no exception. I mean, sure, it was swollen and induced sharp pains whenever I moved it in a certain direction. I just didn't want anything interfering with our day.

The flight safety video for China Eastern airline (which we'd see at least once more before all was said and done) was pretty humorous. It was done in cheap anime-style, including their bird mascot, which flitted about the cartoon jet and stole your sickness bag. Also, there was a indicator about throwing trash in the bathroom into the proper receptacle, and I was pretty sure that the example item was a tampon (the string was a giveaway). They must have had a problem with women trying to flush them, which is a nice thing to share in their instructional video. I wish that, since they chose to animate the information, they'd gone ahead and thrown in some superheroes or aliens or something into the show - though the mascot-symbol bird was two-dimensional and had no eyes, so the fact that it could hone in on your sick bag and make off with it I guess is pretty super. But does it use its powers for good, or for awesome? Is it a supervillain? After all, it steals things, perhaps more than just vomit receptacles (I understand that the market for those on an individual basis is not very lucrative). Look out - it's Flat Eyeless Sick Bag Stealing Bird! Contact your anime flight attendant immediately!

Anyway, It was a pretty clear day, though a bit hazy (as it was pretty much every day), and I got a window seat for a change, so I was glued to the view for most of the flight. Ninety percent of the terrain we flew over - after we got past the South China Sea - was agrarian. Even as we approached the Nanchang region, I was hard-pressed to point a finger at the city itself, even if things started to get a little suburbish, or at least saw a smattering of small factories and warehouses and whatnot. We then landed at Nanchang's airport, and, after scooting through some rudimentary immigration, entered into what must be one of the most uninteresting arrivals areas in any airport known to man. Mostly it was white wall, some escalators and a few ticker signs giving us the time and day. I guess it was strange to me not to be inundated with stores and advertising, as one might expect in a more capitalist region. Now that I think about it, I don't mind the blandness at all.

We hopped on a bus and trucked along to central Nanchang. Things got more citylike until we reached downtown and our hotel, the Jiangxi (which was one of three Jiangxi Hotels right there in the downtown area - strange). The place seemed nice enough, and would have seemed nicer if it weren't being directly compared to the Shangri-La from which we just came. Soon after getting our room, we met 'Larry', the Magic Bellhop. Larry was fast, efficient, humble and courteous almost to a fault. And it seemed like he was everywhere at all times of the day. I'm not sure that he slept for the six days we were there. I don't feel like I tipped the boy enough - though I can't even be sure that he got to keep his tips, if it works anything like waiters/waitresses in Chinese restaurants. Thank you, Larry.

After getting settled into our room - and giggling/getting teary/freaking out over the baby-oriented items in the room (little plastic bathtub, crib, bag of formula, etc.), the families got together in a meeting room to talk about how the evening would go and what needed to be done that day. We also all ordered pizza, because there wasn't enough time before the babies would arrive to have dinner. We met 'James' and 'Evelyn', our guides for the Jiangxi leg of the trip. Both of them seemed sharp and experienced, and definitely an assuring presence for what was to come. After discussing paperwork and the week ahead, we split up back to our rooms to wait for our food and for the babies' arrival.

45 minutes later, it was time to meet back up, but no dinner got there. Oh well, who cares about dinner when you're about to adopt a baby, really? Everyone gathered up toting cameras, toys and whatnot. We all tried to pretend that we were waiting patiently, but really - possible? I think not. Then one of the to-be-moms comes in saying, "The babies are here!" In reality, half of the babies arrived, and they were out in the hallway waiting for the other half of the orphanage caravan to get there.

Then the pizza arrived.

Thankfully, James and Evelyn took care of the pizza guy because there was no way in hell we were going to spend two seconds thinking about paying for, let alone eating, pizza at that moment. Then suddenly, one by one, the babies were brought in.

We were sure that we'd recognize Lu Tong when we saw her. Thy called out the family's last name as each baby came in. Ours wasn't first. Or second. I think she was eighth (I wasn't counting). We as a group tried to make some last-minute arrangements for who would take pictures for whom as trade-offs, so everyone would get some shots without having to miss out on the reception. I'm pretty sure that fell into chaos, judging by the quality of the stills we got (we have yet to check the video, believe it or not). But in came our baby, wide-eyed and definitely confounded by the situation - not surprising considering that this was probably the first time any of them had ventured away from Yi Feng orphanage since they were left there. She didn't seem afraid, exactly, but curious and unsure at the same time. And tiny! She was, I think, the second smallest of the group (officially 12.3 pounds when she had her check-up a few days later - not big when you consider that she was one day away from turning 8 months old), and felt feather-light when she was handed over to me by her caretaker, who hurried out both to make a clean break and to fetch another of her charges.

It was all so surreal; first we were standing around in a room with a bunch of people we barely knew, then suddenly we were in charge of a baby. Lu Tong - about to become Laurana - looked at us in a 'Can you tell me what the heck is going on, because the nanny ain't talking' kind of way, then, getting scared, let out this strangely quiet cry that was so mournful that it hurt. Her cry of "ai ya" (which, coincidentally, sounds just like the Chinese equivalent of the French 'merde') was both endearing and heartbreaking. And a small part of me was glad she was upset-- after all, a dubious baby is a healthy baby.

When she wasn't up to crying, she was deeply curious about the both of us. She immediately gravitated to my beard, as well as H's and my glasses. She also had an almost immediate tendency to stick her hand in our mouths and check out our teeth, leading me to believe that she has a future in dentistry.

So yes, it felt surreal, but it also felt very right. Maybe it's because we were already experienced parents. Maybe it was because we were in something akin to shock. But I think it was just right. She was - and continues to be - our wish, manifest.

We made our way out of the chaos of the meeting area and headed up to our hotel room, where we played a little get-to-know-you. She seemed to calm down after a while, maybe out of resignation, but she also seemed interested in us and everything new around her. She was, from the get go, intensely curious about everything. She had to get her hands on whatever she could. We had a little puffy picture book with pictures of the two of us, the kids and a couple of the pets (we sent an identical one along in a care package earlier, but we're doubtful that it ever got to her), and I was showing it to her and, when she got to my picture, got this look of surprise and started looking back from the picture to me to the picture. She immediately recognized me, even though she'd just met me an hour or so ago. She even tried reaching for my beard in the picture. It was then that we realized that we had adopted a genius.

The Rest of Day One

So we got in some Firsts - First Bath, First Bottle, First Cuddle, First Time Falling Asleep In My Arms, etc. We also scheduled with our guides an appointment for a visiting doctor to look at Laurana's heat rash, which she and her roommates developed at the orphanage. Luckily for her, she had it the least out of the five of them; two of the worst actually needed to go to the hospital for an IV of antibiotics. Sad, but true. The reason they had the rash was because A) they were in a south-facing room that got a lot of sunlight, and B) the caretakers wanted to keep use of the air conditioning to a minimum, to keep them from 'getting a cold'. Ack. To try and prevent a malady (and one that really doesn't happen, anyway, not caused by air conditioning at least) by causing another: smart thinking. It's evidence of Jiangxi's lack of quality education - I heard that the average education level in the province is around grade six.

Anyway, we also got some basic paperwork done that evening, mainly so we could get it processed as soon as possible, notarized and sent back to us. Waiting for paperwork was the main reason we were staying in Nanchang for six days. Not that I minded; we wanted to spend as much time as we could in her home province, because who knows when (not if - when) we'll be back? We had a ton of pictures to take.

Our Week in Nanchang

Our first full day was pretty low key and mainly spent bonding. Our first breakfast together was an experiment of congi (rice porridge) and other soft things mashed up. I think there may have been a banana involved (thus starting Laurana's deep affection for the banana which continues to this day). We also discovered that she loves to play with placemats. We were (until they magically disappeared) constantly trying to keep dishes in place on the table and/or keeping her from gnawing on the paper. I'm sure they were clean, but ink's not the best breakfast for anyone, let alone a baby.

We did have one trip out to talk to a rep from Jiangxi province and get our adoption papers from them. Mainly it was our travel group sitting around worried about saying what we needed to say (not to say that it was a make-or-break moment for the adoption - unless we told them something like, "we're not going to feed her until she gets a job at the salt mines and works her way out of staying in the doghouse we've built for her;" then they might be reluctant to validate the process) and signing in the right place. H and I passed some of the time playing our new favorite game, Spot the Characters We Know and Say The Out Loud Like Idiots: [point] Big! [point] Mountain! [point] Mouth! "Wait-- Mountain + Mouth = 'Exit'! Yay!!" Such it was. There was something pure and therapeutic about being completely immersed in a place where you knew almost nothing of what you were reading or hearing. Our minds were constantly in Learning Mode, in ways that they hadn't been in a long time. Certainly it built major empathy for the plight of the baby: all that input on a constant basis was completely exhausting. And it made the days seem twice as long as they were. I believe that some might call this 'living'. I should really look more into this concept. Perhaps the exposure to new and interesting things is good for you, after all.

The rest of the day was more bonding time. We got our First Midday Nap in, which was awesome and made an opportunity for a great picture of her in cozy napping position. We took the opportunity to go to the nearby grocery store and pick up some fluids, snackies and baby things. As we were in a foreign country, we wanted to take some chances on trying new, interesting and/or mysterious things. One item we got was a sport-drinky looking drink called Scream. One was green, one was blue and one was red. H got green and I got red. We set them to chill in the mini fridge and then headed off to dinner with one of the other families.

We went to this place called 0791, which I understand is the equivalent of a zip code for their area. The place seemed pretty ritzy - big round tables, lots of twinkly lights, and a huge conical fish tank in the middle of the lobby. We get a table and the challenge begins to figure out what exactly it is that we can or should be ordering. The entries have pictures and very brief English 'descriptions' of each plate. Everything seemed to be served 'family style', as in good for 2-3 people to share. Some things were colorfully described as having a 'flavor explosion', or having the meat of the dish 'smashed', even though it was obviously a vegetarian dish. But we managed to find enough items to satisfy the mainly vegetarian group.

I'd been warned that Jiangxi food is generally spicy and greasy (making it pretty much heaven for H, especially since the country is 40 percent Buddhist, a religion whose members are primarily veggie), but I had no trouble here. Sure, there were some things that were somewhat pinchy, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. There was a soup made from multiple kinds of mushrooms, a couple of tofu dishes, some fried, spicy eggplant and some kind of dish that involved stir fried pumpkin. All was quite good. And this was our first real chance to test out some table food on the baby. After some preliminaries, she took to the eggplant and the pumpkin like a magnet. And she downed almost a whole little bowl (about 6 oz) of mushroom soup broth. It was almost as if she was interested in eating something other than congi and formula for once in her life! Go figure. All of this went over with little fuss, and we realized again that our baby was pure and good and perfect.

The check came, and we expected to be working out between the lot of us how to pay for what turned out to be a rather large meal that fed five adults, a three-year-old and two babies very well. I was the first to look at the bill and, after figuring out how it worked, saw that it was for 88. Immediately in my head I read 88 dollars, which wouldn't have been terribly unreasonable or a posh place and a big meal. But then the currency converter in my head turned on, and I realized that all of this was going to cost us a whopping 88 Yuan (or RMB, depending on how ass-kissy you're feeling about the government), or $11 US. I don't think that any of us had really gotten a feel for the cost-of-living difference between China and the US until right then. It felt almost criminal to pay so little for so much. But it definitely eased my worries about how far our spending money would go while we were here.

Next morning, we decided it was time to venture out into the city with the baby ad do a little actual sight-seeing. It wasn't too terribly hot and it was cloudy, so the sun wasn't hammering us with every step. (And it this point, I was tired due to lack of sleep due to pain in my wrist. I was really starting to consider asking about seeing a doctor, but I wanted to give it another day. You know, because I'm a guy.) Our first stop was a Buddhist shrine down the street and caddy corner from the August 1st Memorial Park (which we'd visit another day, when the sun had its hammer out). It was partly going under some renovation, but it was still accessible to be worth looking into. We paid a tiny donation of an entrance fee and entered a courtyard that was dusty and had remnants of renovation here and there, including a patio covered in small statues of various gods and historical figures that I imagine were temporarily displaced from their original locations. As we made our way toward the temple, a monk who was doing some daily-type shores in an alley off the courtyard began to sing, looking our way. I had no way of knowing, but I had the distinct feeling he was singing some sort of blessing on us, as we were obviously adopting parents, soon about to carry one of his homeland's children off to America and to the proverbial Better Life. I think that I was as touched by his blessing as he was appreciative that we would think to bring her there to gain the gods' blessings for her. (And thinking about it now makes me desperately miss being there.)

Inside the temple was a grand Buddha, as well as a few other gods. One was female and looked the angry mother; another was a fierce warrior demanding respect in return for protection; yet another was a laughing minstrel. I'd like to think that we gained their blessings for Laurana in some small way. At the next building in was a surprisingly massive bronze Buddha, which must've stood a good 40 feet tall. The building from the outside didn't seem like it could hold something so tall, but there it was. I regret now not taking a picture, even though it was out of respect for the temple.

Also in the room was a Laughing Buddha, pack on his back and a very round belly. When we were in Japan, NS mentioned that touching the Buddha in a given place and then touching the same place on yourself was said to be a curative, or help you be smarter/wiser/whatever, depending on the location, of course. He mentioned this in the vein of rubbing the Buddha's bald head and then rubbing your own head, to boost your wisdom. With this in mind, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to rub his wrist and mine. Time would tell if it did anything.

Into the Park

After our short but sweet time in the local temple (H just recently connected why the place was under construction, by the way - seems they'd just in the last couple of years finally got the funds together to do proper reconstruction from the damage done by the Cultural Revolution), we crossed the busy street (which was an experience in itself, considering there were no crosswalks - or any kind of traffic system - to be found; we just followed some locals on when seemed the best time to cross and prayed they knew what they were doing) and ventured into August 1st Park.

An Aside: I just Googled "August 1st Park" and found very little information on the subject. There were a few 'Our Trip to Get So-and-So' journal/shrines, and a few sites that had about two paragraphs on Nanchang in general, all of which had the exact same info, word for word, even typo for typo. What's with that? For a city that was the heart of the Communist revolution in a country that holds one fifth of the world's population, there's not much to go on there. Knowledge is power, kids.

We immediately knew we'd like it here; the entrance to the park was bustling (for a park) and was adorned with beautiful natural stone displays. We wandered in and soon saw the supposedly cliché display of older folk in shady areas doing their stretching and Tai Chi, as well as many families, single folk, couples, all milling about and doing their thing. It made me wonder, again, how it is that a park would be so busy in the middle of a weekday. Work? School? Do these things happen at night here or something?

There were also a few groups of musicians. We had our video camera with us, and H went up to capture a little if the local traditional music scene. The performers, after spotting her, quickly got embarrassed and then broke into what I vaguely recall being Jingle Bells (I'll have to check the tape). After showing our appreciation for their attempt at intercultural communication, we moved off a ways until they got back into their own thing, then H snuck up and tried getting a little of their own music. Again, I've got to check the tape (seems a shame that we haven't managed to look at any of the video we took there yet). Moving on, we go to the rides area of the park. There was a carousel, some bumper cars, another carousel-like ride that was sea dragon boats in shallow water going round. There were also these things that looked like three-wheeled, covered rickshaws without the pulling handles. We had no idea what they were until a mother and her young child hopped into one and plugged in a coin-- then it started going in circles, bouncing lightly and playing ice-cream-truck-style music. Awesome ride! We want one. For some reason, it never actually occurred to us to try and get in one. It probably would have attracted too much attention, anyway-- heck, just standing there attracted attention. More than once a spunky teenager would come up to us indicating that they wanted to get a picture with us. It was a little weird being treated as novel objects, but we had fun with it.

Further down the path, we came upon more musicians, this time electrically amplified and with a singer. They were performing some traditional music and had a decent crowd (at least 50 people) watching and listening. We stood a bit off, then H cracked open the vidcam and went up to get some footage of the performers. My presence, a (comparatively) tall American with a Chinese baby strapped to his chest (thank you, Snugli), inevitably attracted some notice. A few came over to see the baby, a few to see me. A couple of older ladies were chattering away and reverencing the baby, indicating things like 'it's too hot for that outfit' and 'you shouldn't let her suck her thumb' (something she doesn't do, now - she's got her woobie, after all). Lots of people wanted to touch the baby (for good luck - theirs and hers). Mostly though, it was curiosity about Big American with Baby On Chest. With my trying to communicate with the advice-givers and such mainly through smiles, nods and gestures (and the occasional 'xie xie', which I was trying really hard to get just right), it took me (and H, who was absorbed in getting footage of the musicians) a moment to notice that I'd managed to attract most of the audience. It was almost claustrophobic (and probably would have been, had I not been able to see over most of their heads), and I was doing my best to be as cordial as possible, so as not to give off the stereotypical Idiot American vibe. I'm pretty sure that I did okay. H then finally noticed the crowd and came over to help if not save me. After a little more nodding and smiling, we managed to venture on.

More pretty park, more hot day. We couldn't see the sun behind the grey slate of clouds, but boy we knew it was lurking up there somewhere. The baby got to touch a bunch of stuff - rocks, bamboo leaves, metal, wood, all sorts of stuff. She's really into touching stuff. And not just cos she wants to put it in her mouth or drop it on the floor; she gets joy out of tactile input. Could be wallpaper, could be a painting, could be a cat, could be a mirror, and certainly could be your glasses: she's got to get her hands on it, and a few seconds later she's doing her wiggly dance and either squealing or making her cute little grunting noise. It's so much fun, and an easy way to entertain. A close second to her wanting to touch stuff is wanting to put her forehead against things, especially other peoples' foreheads. I think it's a form of greeting on her planet. We play this baby game called 'toots', where the adult and baby slowly bring their heads closer together, saying 'aaaaahhhhh... toots!', toots being when the foreheads meet gently. She now does this with just about anything. The process has healing powers, as well; when she went to the doc's office for shot updates, the nurse felt bad about making the baby cry. Two minutes later, though, the baby was smiling and tootsing the nurse. I'd say that she could be in international relations when she grows up, but I don; think tootsing would be very popular among the world leaders.

Anyway, the afternoon was getting long, it was threatening rain and Little Monkey was getting tired, so back to the hotel we went. Or tried; the park proved something of a maze, and it took us a few tries to find the entrance we went into originally. I was of course perfectly calm, with an agitated baby on my chest, worrying about rain and trying to hide the severity of the pain in my wrist. Yes, I was showing no sign of distress at all.

That evening we were slated for a group dinner. We gathered up in the hotel lobby and the guides shepherded us along like we were suddenly idiots (which was especially annoying to me since we seemed to be navigating the town well enough on our own), and was taking us to a veg-friendly restaurant... well, whaddaya know, it's 0791! We of course showed off our travel savvy by saying that we'd already been here and isn't it really good and cheap and the décor and the fish tank! Apparently, though, having a large group gives license for a restaurant to schlep, because the service wasn't nearly as good as when it was just the five-plus-kids of us. The tea was all but just hot water, the food was slow in coming (that part I could at least understand, our group being so large), and everything was, for some reason, twice as expensive. Of course, we wouldn't have known the place was any good if we hadn't been there the previous day. Just goes to prove, kids: there may be safety in numbers, but there isn't any good food.

Exercise in Futility

Next day brought us on a short group day trip to Tengwang Pavilion. The place was built in the 600's A.D. for the nephew of the emperor. He had no interest in politics, so se was sent off to be governor of Nanchang (of course). The nephew had Tengwang Pavillion built to serve as, for all intents and purposes, a party house for him and his friends. Today, it's a tourist trap and historical facility. I'm sure the nephew would be pissed to know that the room he used to score chicks is now being used to house bas relief stone artwork.

Not that the building that stands now has any physical connection with what was built originally. Apparently, the place had been wrecked and rebuild 27 times in its life, until it was burned to the ground in 1923, I assume a victim of the Revolution. The pavilion was rebuilt in 1985 to serve in the capacity it does now. I'm sure the outside of the place is more historically accurate than the inside; I don’t think the original designers had space for elevators in mind.

For some reason, we only had an hour to spend there - not much time to explore a museum. We browsed a bit, and then went straight upstairs for a performance on a small stage on the top floor. After waiting in some uncomfortable temperatures, the curtain parted to reveal a group of about 10-15 musicians and a trio of dancers, and they broke into some quality traditional pieces. Because there were Americans in the audience, they did an American song - what it was I can't recall. We didn't even bother taping it. If we'd wanted Western music, we would've stayed home. The whole of the program was quite good, though.

We spent the rest of the time there admiring the architecture and getting some shots of the city from the top floor balconies. As usual, the haze over the city from the humidity gave every picture a gray pallor. I think I was starting to get used to seeing everything that way, since every day had been like that since we'd arrived in Hong Kong.

Something interesting that I noted was that my wrist was feeling somewhat improved. It was still stiff but only hurt half as much, thus allaying my fear that I'd broken something. Suffice to say, it was a dramatic change from the day previous. Could it be that there's something to this Buddha-rubbing business? It had been only two days before, after all...

Too soon we ran of from the pavilion and back to the bus, to engage in another group meal for lunch. I have no idea what the name of the place was because no name was evident anywhere, either in Chinese or English. We got packed into a banquet room with more substandard tea and Nanchang-greasy food. Good food, but typically greasy. I was beginning to regret not being a vegetarian for our stay in China.

Thus ended our group part of the day. Afterward, we made our way to the store for a few things. Then the real fun began.

Six Hours

Maybe it was the blister on the back of my ankle caused by my Tevas that let something in; maybe it was some undercooked food. I was certainly careful about what I drank. Nonetheless, it wasn't long after we got back to the hotel that the fever hit.

It came on fast and hard. I knew I was in trouble when I felt cold, which should have been impossible even in the air-conditioned room. Soon I was under the covers, shivering and dizzy. Luckily, there was ibuprofen on hand--

I forgot to mention one of our most interesting mini-journeys in Nanchang - the pharmacy. Because of my wrist, we were starting to run low on the pain meds we'd brought with us. So while in the Nanchang Wal-Mart, we decided to try the challenge of finding medication without a translator. All the drugs were segregated into a corner, along with a pharmacy counter. After smiling at the counter lady, we perused the aisles, hoping that symbols, pictures and loose translations would lead us to Advil. To no avail. e found something we were sure was aspirin, and something else that was obviously pain medication, thought we didn't know what kind. The counter lady saw we were having trouble and made a sentence that had the distinct tone of  'well, you're not going to understand me, nor I you, but can I help you?' to it. We tried, again without seeming like Idiot Americans (hopefully), to communicate the concept of ibuprofen. It didn't go well. Another pharmacy lady came along, joining in the non-communication fray. Luckily, she had a flash of brilliance and lead us over to a book sitting on the counter. It was a medicinal reference book, which had both Chinese and English translations. Yay! I quickly looked up ibuprofen, pointed it out, and she looked for the Chinese version and immediately knew what we needed. One minute later and we had a box of meds in hand. We would have never found it ourselves, since the packaging made it look like back pain medicine. Many xie xie, pharmacy book, not to mention the lady who thought to use it.

...so luckily there was ibuprofen on hand. I lay there, worrying about whether I'd still be sick in two days for our next flight, whether I'd be sick for the next day's special trip, whether H and the baby would be sick too, whether I'd get bad enough that I would need to seek a doctor (and we all know how I feel about that idea). I fell in and out of sleep, listening to and trying to watch Chinese television.

Another aside, this one on Chinese television:

First things first, Little Monkey loves Cantonese opera. We were flipping channels one morning and came upon a couple telling a story and playing their instruments, very Cantonese in style. From the very first second it was on, LM was rapt, completely absorbed. Eventually the show progressed into full-on opera, with the whiny, nasal tones, the drum banging, you name it. The Little Monkey loved every second of it.

My other comment is, there's either something seriously wrong with the producers of some of these state-run Chinese television stations, or there's a serious agenda going on. Often we'd se the tail end of some children's show, which would segue fluidly into some war program. Seriously, it's like they were dove-tailed together and certainly a little kid wouldn't know they were separate shows. Trying to get all those boys with no prospect of marriage because of the gender disparity into a war mindset? Interesting...

The oddest show we saw there was this competition show, with teams from different countries competing. It seemed like something out of a Nickelodeon show, except the adults involved were taking it quite seriously. The wackiest competition item was one where one of the teammates from each group had to wear this ostrich-like, long-necked bird head over their head, stand on this rotating platform, try to jump up and 'peck off' a giant stuffed worm that was velcroed onto a hanging thing, then, after pecking success, run over to this wall and stick the bird head through a shuttered window. I think the team from Ukraine won that.

Anyway, shiver shiver shiver, sleep wake sleep, then suddenly, "pop" -- the fever breaks and I'm sweating like crazy. I almost felt the fever break, it was that sudden. Either I got a very small dose of something nasty, or a whole lot of something weak. Either way, about six hours later, I was ready for dinner, which we decided to have in the nicer (non-buffet) restaurant in the hotel. Not bad, but not the best we'd had in China, either.

Thank goodness I was feeling better. We needed our energy and a god night's rest, since we were getting up early the next day for an important trip-- the orphanage in Yifeng.

The Road to Yifeng

Not exactly a Bing and Bob movie, I assure you. However, it was, for other reasons, an adventure.

We started out early, leaving at 8am or so. Most of the families only sent along one adult, preferring to not subject the baby to the two-to-three-hour (one way) bus ride. Both of us and the baby went together, though, because, well, we do just about everything together and neither of us wanted to miss out on the visceral experience. We were adequately stocked with water and lunch and munchies, all batteries charged and ready to go.

It took us a bit to get out of Nanchang proper, but once we did, it really hit us just how rural the area was. Most of the trip reminded me of driving through southern Ohio or Indiana - lots of semi-flat farmland and woodland, broken up only occasionally by the odd city, which was really not much more (that we could see from the 'interstate' we were driving along) than over-paved towns where you could get your truck fixed, fuel up, get supplies or hang out with fellow motorcyclists. All the towns we passed through, save for one with a fancy, sculptured park, seemed gray, drab, and otherwise completely characterless. Utilitarian, but characterless. Now granted, we were in what is basically, being one of the least developed provinces in the country, the backwater of China, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't have been some sort of humanistic touch applied to the region. It really seems like the result of a development policy that is all plans and no heart. There was really nothing to visually distinguish one of these towns from another.

The drive was equitable to anywhere else we'd been in China - the strong survive and lines in the road are merely friendly suggestions. It was like Darwinism in action, only in vehicular form. I really don't understand why we didn't see any horrendous accidents while out on the road. An as we got farther out from civilization, the road got worse and worse. By the time we were getting near Yifeng, potholes were frequent and bone jarring.

Arrival at the Orphanage

We pulled in through the gate to Yifeng orphanage - which is actually an institution for the elderly as well as orphans - and saw a vaguely décored courtyard, a number of apartment-like buildings and the small, main orphanage building in the center. The orphanage building itself seemed a poor rendition of a day care center, with some primary-colored art objects here and there and a hint of that general feel you get from a center you'd see in the U.S. It was like they were trying to imitate American day care, but only using information they got by word-of -mouth. Which may have actually been the case, now that I think about it.

Everything was well maintained and seemed quite clean. H and I took turns going into the facility, because we didn't want the baby traumatized by seeing her former place of residence so soon after leaving there. H went first, carrying both still and video cameras in with her. After a while of hanging with the baby (and begging the bus driver to turn the air back on while we and the others on the bus waited), H returned and it was my turn to peruse.

Oh - one thing I forgot to mention about the trip there. Our two regular guides while in Jiangxi couldn't go on the trip to the orphanage, so they provided a substitute, a woman whose name I have completely forgotten (maybe she's on the tape, I'll have to check. Can you believe that we haven't watched any of our video footage since we got back?). She spent some time during the hours-long trip doling out some Chinese trivia and information on the areas we passed through. When I say information, I mean Party Propaganda. this woman sang the praises of the People's Government and all the swell things they've done for the People in this region. It made me wonder how many hours she'd spend memorizing the talking points she was chucking at us. It time I managed to tune her out and concentrated on the countryside.

Anyway, into the building. Everything was pretty basic but solid. There were rolley walkers lined up neatly along the wall of the main entrance - one of which we recognized from one of the baby's dossier pictures. There were little plastic sandaly shoes lined up in the laundry room, which looked to big for the babies, but maybe not after the 15 million layers of clothes they wore on the non-summer months got put on (it's a Chinese thing). Each crib room had four or five cribs, as well as a sleeping area for the caretaker. Most of the rooms were filled to capacity with babies, save for on less crib in a room here or there. (It didn't register at the time for me to ask where these children came from in a within-the-orphanage sense, considering that ours were supposedly in these very rooms not 3 days previous. I guess it's hard to think of these things when you're an overwhelmed visitor trying your best to absorb everything you see.) I think having a camera in my hand helped me disconnect with the fact that these little girls were given up in secret by their parents and were here waiting for a new home in a place most likely totally alien from what they would have known in China.

We brought all the families together with the babies and we took some pictures with the orphanage director - who seemed to have a special little place in her heart for our little one, judging by the way she spoke to her during the picture taking. We also did a group shot with the two donations we'd scraped money together for - a new washing machine and a new air conditioner unit (we'd originally looked at getting just the air unit, but the items were so cheap that we got more bang for our buck than we expected. Got a lot of overhead and some ambition? Fly to China and buy up a bunch of electronics to resell in the U.S. You'll make a killing).

One thing we made sure to do was bring a small Ziploc bag (Corporate synergy nausea alert - MS Word automatically capitalized Ziploc for me! Did they pay for this privilege, or is an assumed, household name thing, like Kleenex? The world may never know...) so we could sneak off and collect up some dirt and stone from the site. I guess we're visceral like that, wanting a little piece to actually touch, as long as we're not disturbing the environment. I don't think the manicured lawn minded a little missing dirt. And now the baby, when she's older and might care about such things, can touch a bit of her homeland.

We said our goodbyes to the caretakers and the managers and hopped back on the bus for the hours-long journey back to Nanchang. The terrain now provided landmarks noted from the trip there, so the ride went a little faster, mentally. We found a fun game to play with the baby, which was to make faces in to the digital camera while she looked at the little camera monitor. She of course, being the curious girl, was grabbing the camera and flipping it over, trying to figure out how I'd gotten inside it like that. She does the same thing with photographs.

One thing we noted along the way was a classic Chinese stereotype - rice. Jiangxi being the rural epicenter it is, it was everywhere. Not only was it everywhere in fields grow in paddies, it was everywhere out drying on cement or on large woven pads, in front yards, in driveways, even in the street (the bus had to go around them). Town after town, there was always someone sifting drying rice or tending to a field. I later learned that Jiangxi is the majority grower of rice for China, go figure.

We also noticed what seemed to be two other major products of the area, being bricks (lots and lots of red dirt to be found there) and either watermelon or pumpkin (both seemed to be prevalent in the menus of local restaurants) - it was hard to tell which because the leaves for both are pretty similar, especially when you're flying by in a bouncy bus. But there were huge patches in areas near the rice fields.

So came to a close our trip to the orphanage, which, after reading back here, doesn't sound nearly as emotional or influential as it actually was. Let me just say that I am very glad that I got to go there and see the place, to get a better understanding of the situation that our girl was raised in for almost eight months, and to plan the seeds of questions that I now have about how the operation is really run. More to come on that, at least one day.

We didn't do much else that day, except for some shopping to stock up on supplies for our next leg of the trip and to have some dinner, which we decided just to have at the hotel buffet. I had the pleasure to witness but not eat fried duck - just the neck and head. I guess it was true that sometimes, while eating in China, you had to 'break the beak off'. Or maybe you're supposed to eat the beak, to. I'll never know. Too freaky for me; I'll just play Stupid American on that one.

The next day was out last full day in Nanchang. It was also the day the sun chose to work with the gods of humidity to try and crush us underfoot.

The Hammer

It was our last full day in Nanchang, and we were starting to schvitz about things we hadn't done in town that we felt were important. Mainly, we wanted to visit the August 1st Memorial, the monument dedicated to observing the beginning of the Communist Revolution, which was launched right there in Nanchang itself. It's because of this reason that so much of the city looks relatively new - the town was pretty wrecked by said revolution.

The memorial is basically a large, open, concrete-paved rectangle that has some stone bas-relief scenes of import leading up to the Cause and a tall stone monument with a Chinese flag atop it with 'August 1st' on it as well as the star. Surrounding the monument is a moat of sorts with the mechanics of what looks like an intricate fountain. No water in there that day, though, because it would have most likely evaporated within minutes of exposure to the sun that was glaring overhead.

While we have no official statistic on exactly what the temperature was on that day, it was surely the hottest since we'd been there. Best guess, it was about 105 degrees, maybe including the heat index. Damn hot by our standards. And what time of day do we go to witness this sun-baked slab of concrete? Why, 1 P.M., of course - truly the coolest part of the day.

I think we lasted a little over five minutes there. We got ourselves a few pictures, then we were the heck out of there and into the nearest store. Crazy thing was, there were a couple of people hanging out there - under a big umbrella, at least - and if memory serves they were vendors of some sort. I couldn't tell what, through the waves of heat emanating from the pavement. Perhaps they were just a mirage.

Later in the afternoon, we went to a local porcelain shop - Jiangxi being the birthplace of the craft and all - and poked around for some things that might do for gifs back home and that would also travel well. It was a nice little place, featuring a few welcomed air conditioning units, and items that ran from heap/typical teaware to some really gorgeous wall art of intricate naturescapes. A few made us wish we were wealthy enough to afford both the item itself and the shipping costs, which can run as much or more than the cost of the item. We managed to find a few things to make good presents that we could actually pack and travel ourselves without too much worry over breakage.

Before we made our purchases, our guides advised us on how to make a minimum effort at haggling and still be respectful, as haggling's pretty much expected. It was more of a formality than anything, basically getting us about ten percent cut off the price. More fun was when we were at the night market in Hong Kong and haggled three pair of jade chopsticks (6 sets total) down to about $11. Especially since the guy we were haggling with new almost no English and we communicated through a calculator. I guess it goes to show that, no matter what language you're speaking, business is still business.

After the porcelain shopping, the only other major thing we did that day was to have one last group dinner together in Nanchang. We were at another place that didn't seem to have an obvious name, either in English or Chinese or anything else. It was nice, full of art and brass and chandeliers and a circular staircase. As usual, there were way too many attendants for the number of people eating there - there were four women in black dresses just for working the front door as greeters - and we sat in the 'party' room of the place, full of large round tables and not much else. I decided that I'd had enough of Jiangxi's idea of what carnivores eat there - not to mention sitting separate from my wife during dinner - and sat with the vegetarians. Their meals were just as good and usually slightly cheaper, anyway. Problem was, for some reason for which we never learned the answer, the vegetarian meals were late arriving - like by a good 15-20 minutes. And here, we had a newly acquainted baby on our hands who was desperate for some food. I walked with her so I didn't sit there seething at the table and to try and keep the baby distracted from her hunger (and me from mine, for that matter) by showing her pretty things around the restaurant. There was only so much bouncing and "oh, look at that thing!" she could tolerate, though. Luckily, some food arrived before we worried about reaching that stage.

And let me tell you, this child could eat. For one who new little beyond super-soft noodles and thick formula for seven months, the girl knew how to heat. She tried just about anything she could, and eggplant had proved so far to be her favorite. Mushroom broth, cooked carrots, tofu, you name it - we stayed away from meat at that point, just to take a few steps at a time - she'd eat it. Even now, the only food we've found that she doesn't like is fresh blueberries. Very adaptable, this baby.

We spent the rest of the evening quietly in our hotel room, hoping to get a decent night's rest before the next leg of our journey, Guangzhou.

Goodbye, Nanchang; Hello Guangzhou

Our flight time wasn't until mid-afternoon, so we were lucky enough to have a casually-paced morning in preparation for our first of many flights with the baby. We had one last breakfast at the hotel buffet, and one last exposure to the Worst Music to Eat By in the World. I can still hear it, lurking in the back of my head like a musical cancer.

Breakfast during this week had also been the Paranoid Parent Conference arena, wherein the adults would compare and contrast their dilemmas and experiences with their newly adopted against the dilemmas and experiences of the others'. Is yours sleeping through the night? What is she eating? Is she taking to the formula? We were not really participating in the exchange, for the most part. The discussion was understandable, though; for many of the adults, this was their first child, and they were not only learning on the fly how to become parents of an adoptee, they were learning to be parents in general. We were - I think I can speak for H, here - intently focused on our child, wanting to forge a bond as quickly and painlessly as possible. We weren't to the point of doting and fretting; we just wanted to make ourselves present and available to her, because we wanted her to want to have us present and available.

By this point, we'd pretty much left congee and microwaved eggs behind, and she was picking from whatever is was we were eating, so she was getting lots of fruit and veggies and noodles and whatever else we thought her under-trained tummy could handle. She was showing no signs of allergies to anything, and had only gotten sick one single time, from eating a little too much mushroom soup. That was a fun cleanup, I assure you. All in all, though, great signs of a healthy baby who knew that she had some catching up to do.

After sending our luggage off and making a third and fourth check of the room to make sure we weren't forgetting anything (which we did, anyway: we left a freezy teether thingy in the minifridge), we sat in the lobby with the rest of the travel group until the buses arrived to cart us back to Nanchang's airport. We said our goodbyes to James and Evelyn at this point, and everyone made sure to get a picture of the baby with them, us included. Both of them were extremely helpful and we would have been truly lost there without them.

The outgoing area of the airport was just as sparse as the incoming area, with lost of blank white walls. The only difference was the 'gift' area, which was offering up some paltry nick-nacks. H started taking pictures of everything, I think because she suddenly wished that we'd been taking pictures every second while we were in Nanchang for the baby's sake, and that this was it, we were about to leave. She was even taking pictures of the gift shop and the informational signs pointing to things like drinking fountains and bathrooms. "What if the baby wants to know how to say 'drinking water'?" she told me. Little things like that make me love her all the more.

While we were in part glad that we were about to escape the nasty heat of Nanchang, mainly we were sad to go, feeling like we'd barely scratched the surface of the place. I think we both decided to ourselves then that we knew we had to go back there eventually. And we had to bring the kids with us; not just Laurana but the older ones too, so they could experience a little their sister's homeland and see for themselves what an amazing, beautiful, freaky and sad place China is.

Late afternoon, and we were in the plane. We spent what ended up being a little over an hour flight watching the cartoon bird steal sick bags and throw out tampons (see above) and talking with the other families around us. It was a quick and clean flight, and then we found ourselves in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.

Shortly after landing and obtaining our luggage, we met with our new set of guides, 'Richard' and 'James' (a different one). They helped us get situated and mounted up for our hour-long trip from the airport to central Guangzhou. Along the way, Richard explained to us that Southern China is mainly Cantonese-speaking, so he gave us some of the basics to use around town (though they proved mainly unnecessary, as the area of Guangzhou we were in was so touristy and Western-leaning - leftovers from British occupation - that English proved more than enough to get us by) and some of the history of the area.

We rode into the city, and soon enough we were coming upon apartment housing typical of the outskirts of any urban area. And then there were more apartments. And more apartments. And more. Time went by and I started getting the sense of what living in a massively populated area is like. For about 30 minutes along the highway, we could see little but housing. Millions and millions of people. It was a little overwhelming.

Into the Swan

It was getting dark by the time we finally reached the White Swan. It wasn't unbearably hot out, but the cool of the inside was still welcome. We could tell right away that our stay at the Swan was going to be a nice one. The main walkways were dotted with artwork and sculpture. Huge chunks of jade were transformed into war galleys, dragons, gardens, and all else. In the center of the main hall was a two-story tall waterfall. And outside, we knew that there was a very nice pool waiting for us the next day.

The room we got was simple but comfortable. It was strange being in a room that looked so much like the ones we saw in the National Geographic special. I think it was even the same picture on the wall near the door. We had a view overlooking the Pearl River, and the city was still lit up for visitors. Party boats and ferries shone in neon on the water. A bridge upriver a ways could barely be made out through the persistent haze in the air. The baby seemed to enjoy the view as much as we did.

We were hungry, however, as it was well into the evening, and we went with the quick and easy option of going with the restaurant that focused on 'American' style foods. Mainly I was just dying for a soda with actual ice in it, as we were told that ice was mainly okay in Guangzhou as most restaurants used filtered water. I really missed ice. The french fries that came with my club sandwich (which for some reason involved cabbage and egg, but it was still good) were a nice little distraction, as well. We were by no means done with Asian cuisine, though.

After dinner, we settled into our room to get situated and get the baby to bed. She had trouble falling asleep that first night, as I recall. I think another sudden change in location wasn't doing it for her. Can't blame her, having to move twice inside a week, with another long move to come in another. Considering the radical life change she was going through, she was holding up wonderfully.

The next morning brought us to our complimentary breakfast in the main buffet area (there's two). It was mainly American foods, or what I'd associate as such. Common fruits, pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, etc. To be honest, I can't recall if there were any genuine Asian items available. Laurana picked this morning to acquiesce to trying a high chair again (we'd been taking turns holding her during meals to this point), this time with measured success. I think she realized that there was more freedom in getting one's own seat. 

And there were plenty of high chairs to be had; since the White Swan was the hotel closest to the American consulate in China, it was the main depot for outgoing adoptive families (thus the nickname, the White Swan Express). I hear that the consulate will be moving in the next year or two, which is seriously going to kill the White Swan's business. All around the breakfast area were Chinese girls and their adopting parents. I think we/they made up about 90 percent of the attendance there. It was actually odd to see anyone sitting in there that didn't have a baby. The room had a nice view of the river, so we got to watch barges and boats go by as we ate.

Our first full day involved getting our Very Important Paperwork done. This is the point where, if you haven't brought the right documentation with you from the get go, you're pretty much screwed. Fortunately for us (or for anyone else in the group) that wasn't a problem. It took about a half hour to go through, slowly and meticulously to make sure to get everything right. Richard, who was running the fill-out-forms show, knew exactly what we needed for every step, including jargon that was pleasing to the consulate folk and that we otherwise wouldn't have known about using without them. But hey, that's what they were there for, and thank goodness for that. I wouldn't have wanted to deal with that on our own.

The other main part of our first full day in Guangzhou was Picture Day, where we get our babies all dolled up for the famous Picture on the Red Couch, which I understand is a White Swan/adoption tradition. We got a group shot of all the families together - which was no small order, considering that there were fifteen altogether and only two I think that had only one parent present, so it was a full picture. Then we did a balancing act akin to spinning plates, where we took pictures of the babies that roomed together in the orphanage, basically in groups of five, all precariously balanced on their undernourished butts and wondering what the heck was going on. We managed not to have any screaming breakdowns or dangerous tumbles. A couple of the dads, playing Stupid American, got chastised by the staff for standing on one of the nearby tables to get a better shot. That would have been rude even in America, but really - do you want to risk getting kicked out of the hotel while you still have a week left on the other side of the planet with a newly adopted baby in tow? Granted, it's hard to think clearly after two full weeks of New Parent stress, but still, standing on the furniture is pretty dang unclassy.

Something Like a Check-Up

Next morning, all the families bundled up our babies and took a ten-minute walk to a local medical facility, which, more than anything (especially considering the close proximity to the White Swan) seemed like a Baby Processing Center. It was a rudimentary check up, consisting of a hearing and sight check, vitals, height and weight and a check for obvious, outward signs of any illnesses. Not that the people there didn't know what they were doing, but so little was administered that it really seemed like a waste of time, but necessary for the adoption process to get a sign off that the baby was, for all intents and purposes, okay.