About Time

I know... It's about time I posted... We've been home for 11 days now and I think I am just now catching my breath. The first 5 days home are a blurr -- gosh that jet lag and time change is a killer! Just about the time I thought I had it licked, it got me again.

The trip home was LONG... Did I say LONG? Let me say LONG again. The girls did really great all things considered. I on the other hand was over it. And just as our final plane pulled into New Orleans 30 minutes early, we sat on the tarmac for oh 30 minutes waiting for another plane to leave our gate. I thought Tony and I were going to stand up and scream! But enough of that... We are all home safe and sound.

Emma is absolutely beautiful and doing so well. She's much more verbal than Mia was which scares me to death because Mia is SO verbal now. Emma's first English words were mama (that's the same in Chinese), boo (she was playing peek-a-boo with Zach), Bye-Bye Daddy, Prissy (but say it with a B and minus the R) and last night as Tony was tickling her belly, she very clearly said "Stop It!" and laughed out loud. It was hilarious -- and the more we laughed the more she'd say it.

Here's some highlights from the past several days...

Emma got the hang of opening presents in less than 3 seconds -- much to Mia's disappointment as she was hoping to "help" her little sister open her Christmas and birthday gifts from the family. Check out the Sonya Lee Tea Set from Aunt Katie...


She immediately sat on one of the little chairs!

Emma loves music and banging on her new xylophone from Peter, Kristin, Sara and Chloe.

She's a peanut -- about the same size at 26 months as Mia was at 19 months -- so sometimes it's hard to remember she's 2 years old. Even at 2, walking in high heels seems a little much, but this little priss sure can strut her stuff.

There's not much "peace" around here... but Dad won this round!

Cousin Alex came over for Emma's first sleepover. Alex was so helpful and Emma took right to her. You can tell Alex has a little brother -- she's really good with little ones.

No it's now Halloween, but a girl should be able to dress up anytime!

Heading Home in the Morning

We are about to walk out the door to head to the U.S. Consulate for the official swearing in... Unfortunately, no cameras are allowed and if I remember correctly this is a rather non-eventful end to a very long journey. Emma won't officially be a U.S. citizen until we touch down on U.S. soil (in Minneapolis) on Friday and go through Customs there. We'll be sure to take pictures of that one.

This will be our last post before heading home. My internet expires (paying by the day/week at the hotel) in about 2 hours and we won't renew since we leave the hotel at 5:45am in the morning. Our flight departs Guangzhou Friday, January 16th at 8:30am. We fly through Tokyo, switch planes to Minneapolis, change planes again and head to New Orleans. We'll arrive in New Orleans at 4:20pm on Friday, January 16th. Crazy, huh? We travel for something like 23 hours yet, we get there the same day we leave. Who says time travel doesn't exist?

Love you all... can't wait to get home!

Yun Tai Garden

After picture taking on the Red Couches, we visited the Yun Tai Garden. It was a spectacular day -- and the grounds beautiful. Guangzhou is so similar to Louisiana climate-wise, it's uncanny. Even the landscaping is similar -- there's everything from ginger, to sweet olive to camelia's. I even saw Mexican heather and lariope as ground covers.

Isn't this a great picture of one of the groundskeepers?

This is the four of us being silly -- making funny faces like those on the totem pole.

Now this is a teapot!

The Red Couch

Today was Red Couch Picture Day. This is a tradition all families staying at the White Swan participate in. All the adopted kids don traditional Chinese clothing and get their pictures taken individually and with their group on the infamous red couches.
Here's our beauties... and the four of us!

Buddhist Temple & Qing Ping Market

Yesterday morning we visited the Buddhist Temple in Guangzhou. There's a few, but our guide, Helen, chose this one as it's famous for it's Six Banyon Trees. It was beautiful and peaceful. And barring the one obvious and most important difference between Buddhism and Christianity, their are similarities between the faiths. The Buddhists are big into incense and they light three sticks and offer those up representing three lives -- past, present and future.

There are 108 Buddhas altogether with one big Buddha whose over it all. Out of the 108 Buddhas, there is only one female Buddha.

There are male and female monks -- they live at seperate temples. Becoming a monk is a personal choice; and even children can decide to become monks and go and live at the temple for training and education. Monks live on donations only... lay people make monetary and food contributions on which the monks rely entirely. In preparation for Chinese New Year, volunteers and lay people were everywhere cleaning the temple, airing out cushions, scrubbing the floors. Due to all the work going on, there were no services but there were plenty of folks there lighting incense and praying individually.

Afterwards, we walked through the Qing Ping market which is just across the water from Shamian Island where we are staying. It's an open air market with hundreds of vendors selling all kinds of stuff... from mushrooms, to herbs, to medicinal teas to mushrooms, to live animals... for adoption purposes only!

Those are deer tendons... complete with toes still intact!

It was really neat to see... a bit confusing because there is stall after stall after stall with each vendor selling the same thing, but apparently they all do a significant amount of business as all Chinese pharmacies buy here as well as buyers from other parts of China. Mia wanted to buy a puppy so bad... thank goodness customs won't allow it as I think that was the only thing that saved us!

Late yesterday afternoon, I took an excursion with Suzy and Cathy. We took a cab to an electronics mart where we racked up on games and dvds. We took the subway back to Carrefour for luggage to bring all our treasures home on Friday. Then jumped back on the subway and headed to the hotel. It was neat to see and be a part of the "real China" without a guide. Needless to say, the three of stuck out in the crowd!

For dinner, the four Tulli's ate at the Italian restaurant La Dolce Vita on the island. It was surprisingly delicious! Emma ate her first Italian spaghetti -- LOVED it AND mastered a fork all in the same meal!

Tony and I enjoyed TWO bottles of wine -- okay, they were half bottles :) -- but they were delicious!

Here's Mia being a goof-ball... gotta love her!!!!

Liu Yuan Park

Today's outing was to Liu Yuan Park -- a public park that cost 5 yuan to get in. That's less than $1pp. It's beautifully landscaped and surprisingly the plants used in Guangzhou for landscaping are very similar to those at home. Due to the tropical climate, we see lots of ginger, Chinese palms, boganvilla, agapanthas... One really interesting thing here is the Banyan tree. It's roots grow down from the limbs and into the ground. It's really cool.

There was also a small section for the kids that had rides and children's activities. The girls had a great time riding the train and the carousel.

Mia had fun playing in a ball pit with a slide. Fun is fun no matter which language you speak.

Afterwards, we had another wonderful dinner -- tonight was typical Cantonese and as always, Helen ordered... we just sat back and enjoyed it all. This restaurant was right next to the park. They featured fish and seafood and had tanks with live lobster, crabs, lobster, eel and different fish -- customers made their selections from the tank and a guy stood in the center and prepared the fish right in front of you before sending it to the kitchen. We are talking FRESH FISH!

Two Artists at Work

Our two little artists drew these over the weekend...

Emma did a great job on her first picture -- she prefers markers to crayons.

Notice the Chinese characters in Mia's drawing. She copied them off the Pizza Hut take-out menu in our room and spent over 30 minutes trying to get them exact.

Chen Family Temple

Whenever we meet our group for an outing, we meet on the first floor by the 'red couches'. It's a group meeting spot with an exit to the buses and is usually crowded with families like ours all heading out to an official visit or sightseeing adventure.

Here's pictures of the girls playing while we wait for our group to gather. We are a small group -- just two families and our guide, Helen.

Yesterday we went to the Chen Family Temple. Here you can see traditional Chinese art and artists at work -- ranging from painting on scrolls to carving chops and bone jewelry to embroidery. It was a beautiful place... and so interesting to see all the various art forms and artists at work.

Conveniently, you are able to purchase some of these treasures too! :) The Chinese are masters at retail and impulse purchasing. Here's a funny story... I ordered a chop made with Emma's Chinese name (Qian Qiao Qing) carved on it. I placed the order and when I came back to pick it up, our guide, Helen, came with me. She and the artist talked as he got up to put my chop in a pretty box with the special red ink they were able to sell me as an add on... and he said something in Chinese and walked away. I told Helen, I don't need a bag... and she looked at me bewildered and asked, "You understand Chinese?" and I said, "No, but I understand retail." She laughed. The world really isn't all that different.

Our day out was followed by another wonderful dinner -- all ordered by Helen and all scrumptious. We eat good around here... and cheap. 120 yuan for our family of 4... that's less than $20 US.

Dim Sum... and Then Some More

Yesterday was Medical Exam day... We walked to the clinic for a quick screening -- basic ENT exam, height, weight... that type of stuff. On the way, we saw these cutie-patooties... a class of pre-schoolers all out for a stroll.

There's a school two blocks from our hotel and when we walk around we hear the kids playing inside -- they go to school here from 7:45am until 6:00pm! They break for a month for Chinese New Year and two months during the summer.

We passed the medical exam with flying colors and had them listen to the cough that Emma has had for a couple of weeks. No chest congestion, just a minor cold/cough and funky nose which we are treating with saline nose spray and some Benedryl. All else checked out fine... and Mom was right... she's 21.3 lbs. About the same size as Mia on her Gotcha! Day but 6 months older! Emma is a petite little thing with even 12 month pants falling off her cute little hiney!

Apparently, the doctors at this clinic have a funny sense of humor... this sign was posted inside the section for internationally adopted children... all of which are screaming their heads off at the site of 12 doctors walking around in white lab coats, surgical masks and those shiny silver light things on their heads.
After the medical exam, we took a tea and snack break at where else but the local Starbucks! It was GREAT and felt just like home. Later in the afternoon, we went to the Swan Room -- a play room at the hotel sponsored by Mattel. Big open space with lots of A/C and toys for the kids. After being cramped up in your hotel room or shopping or making official visits, this is a great place to play and hang out.

And YES, they are dressed like twinkies! A mom can only get away with this for a little while and dang it, I'm going to do it. :)

We’ve had a wonderful day today… went shopping this morning, then a big family style lunch with our group and guide, followed by napping and more playing...

Earlier today, we went to the Pearl Market. I was in heaven – and Tony bought all his girls some beautiful treasures. Mom gets hers now… the girls will get theirs when they are 16. One of the benefits of being older, I guess. :)

And no ladies, those are not bags of Mardi Gras beads... those are the real deal!

The look of wonder on Emma’s face is amazing when she sees stuff she’s never seen before… Like today on the escalator, it was like “WOW”… her eyes were large, and she got this cute little grin. It made my heart full. And she gets her little tongue going just inside her lips going back and forth… she’s quite coy at times which is precious!

We had lunch with our group today and our guide ordered for us and we all ate family style. We've been trying to watch Emma's diet for reasons I won't go into here :) but I couldn’t tell her ‘no’ when she saw all the little dim sum treats pass by on the Lazy Susan. She ate all sorts of stuff and LOVED it! Shrimp dumplings, spring rolls, a BBQ pork stuffed little treat, some green yummy veggie, rice… She passed on the congee and went straight for the good stuff! She knows what she likes and will let you know when she doesn’t. It’s so cute the way she waves her little hand ‘no’ when she doesn’t want something and how her little leg starts swinging when she’s happy (mainly about food :)).

Mia is really loving being a big sister. She has been so helpful, getting things for us, kissing her baby sister on the head, helping with the stroller… We keep telling her how proud we are of her. I am SO glad she is with us. I can’t imagine being here without her. It’s been a wonderful experience for her, being back in China. But let me tell you what, she is an AMERICAN GIRL! She’s been walking around chanting her cheer… “Open the barn door, kick out the hay… We’re those girls from the USA. Swim like a fish, hop like a frog… Watch those boys, SMACK (picture her kissing here), Hot Dog!” Throw in some attitude and hiney swaying and you’ll have it.

We are finally done with all the official stuff… Only one more visit several days from now at the Embassy. So now we actually get to do fun stuff and relax. We all need it! Tomorrow is the zoo, and we have several parks and temples we’ll be going to over the next several days. Yay!