Here are video clips of our drive through Guangzhou from Shamian Island to the Chen Ancestral Home, which is now an art museum of sorts.  The narrator is Joyce, one of our guides.

Now that we're back (phew), I finally have time to post some videos.  More to come.

Red Couch Picture Day.

Today was the day when all of the newly adopted children get dressed up in traditional Chinese garb to have their photo taken on the red couch in the lobby of the White Swan Hotel. Emily liked getting dressed up, but she wasn't too keen about the group photo. (A girl after my own heart!). She was the life of the party at the afternoon tea we attended following the photo, though. She continues to be very happy and extremely active in comparison to her compatriates who are all about the same age as she.

Tomorrow we go to the US Consulate for an oath-taking ceremony. Then on to Hong Kong via train. We spend one night in Hong Kong and then we fly back to the States on Thursday. We are definitely ready to come home and we are very much looking forward to seeing Colin and Alex!

Chinese Food

These pictures are especially for Colin and Alex. The well-traveled say there is nothing the Cantonese won't eat. After staying here for more than a week now, I think I must agree. When we last spoke to Alex he was very interested in all of the unusual food that we saw being served at various restaurants on Shamian Island. Above are photos of live sea food that is sold in a fancy Cantonese restaurant across the street from our hotel. In addition to more run of the mill items, you will find water beetles, sand worms, geoducks and silk worms for your dining pleasure.

We think Debbie's prayers must have worked because we FINALLY had a sunny day! Temperature got up to the low seventies. It was breezy with no humidity. We spent some nice time outside today.

Also today Emily had her mandatory US medical exam. She didn't love the exam, but she checked out just fine. She is a bit smaller than the other babies her age who came from the same orphanage. At 18 months she weighs just about 20 pounds and is about 26 inches long. Those of you who knew us when Alex was born will remember that he was over 25 inches long when he was born! It is going to take some getting used to for us to have a petite child in the McKay household.

Emily continues to make terrific progress. What a difference a week makes. We took her to the famous playroom in the White Swan Hotel that is sponsored by Mattel today. She was happy and curious, but she was definitely clear that Steve and I are her parents. She would walk away for a few seconds and then come racing back to check in with us. She remains wary of strangers and lights up when we pick her up. She tries to feed both of us whatever she is eating, she loves to pat my face when I am feeding or olding her and Steve is definitely her favorite playmate. To us these seem like good signs that she is starting to bond with us. I know we will have a long journey ahead on that front but right now it feels like we are headed in the right direction.

Tomorrow is a free day for us, but we will gather with all of the other families in our adoption group to take the famous red couch picture in the afternoon. This is a group photo taken on a particular red couch in the hotel with all of the children dressed in traditional Chinese garb. Should be interesting!

A Buddhist Blessing

Yet another cold, rainy day here. We went on a brief trip to a famous Buddhist temple called the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees today so that the recently adopted babies in our group could receive a Buddhist blessing. This temple was much larger than the one we stumbled across yesterday and there were many tourists visiting the Temple. There was a large courtyard and Chinese garden surrounded by several buildings, various worship spaces, again lots of incense, peanuts and water left in offering to the Buddhas. There were also several dozen monks wearing traditional garb walking around the various buildings.

After a brief time exploring, we entered a worship space for a special blessing that is routinely given to newly adopted children here. All the adults were asked to take off their shoes and kneel with our hands in a prayer position facing the goddess of mercy. We were each holding our newly adopted children. Then, a monk joined us and chanted for a couple of minutes. Finally, he sprinkled water on everyone's head with what looked like a palm frond and we were done. I'm disappointed that I couldn't simultaneously take video and participate in the blessing. I did manage a couple of still photos, though.

Emily is still happiest when we let her run around and play in our hotel room, so we are doing lots of that today. A little dull for Mom and Dad, but it is so rewarding to watch her running all around with such a big smile on her face!

Tomorrow we are taking her to get her mandatory medical exam at the US Consulate. We miss Colin and Alex very much and we can't wait to introduce them to their new little sister in just a few more days.

Rainy Saturday

Yes, it is STILL raining! Steve has decided he suffers from seasonal affective disorder because he really hates that we never see the sun. I suppose that is what growing up in Florida will do to you! We New Englanders are used to long periods without sun, so in some ways I feel right at home!

Today we traveled to the local Starbucks (a short walk from our hotel) for breakfast. We dashed in side just before a huge thunderstorm. The Starbucks is popular with the Americans and Europeans who are staying here. Steve thinks he could make a fortune if he opened up a Dunkin Donuts franchise near by.

We went on a brief outing to the whole sale jade and pearl market this afternoon. There are probably 500-1,000 little jewelry shops jammed into a small area in the center of Guangzhou. Each shop sells exactly the same items. Hard to believe they can all stay in business! We decided the jewelry market was a little too crowded, so we took a stroll outside. While walking outdoors, we noticed the scent of incense. We followed our noses and stumbled across the neatest Buddhist Temple. According to the signs a temple has been located on this site for 1,500 years. It burns down periodically and has to be rebuilt. I wonder if the fires have anything to do with all of the incense sticks that visitors light and leave there? The most recent re-building occurred in the 1990s. The temple was built in honor of an Indian monk who brought zen Buddhism to China some time around 500 AD. There were dozens of Chinese worshippers there when we arrived. They make offerings to the Buddha of peanuts, water and incense. One person told us that the smoke from the incense takes your wishes up to the Buddha and this is why so many visitors like to burn incense at the temple. Inside the temple there were 500 large golden statues, each in a different pose. We had great fun exploring the temple while the rest of our group was shopping.

As for Emily, she is doing great. She loves to toddle all over our room exploring everything she can reach. She seems very much like a typical toddler. She has very strong likes and dislikes, and she is not at all afraid to let you know what they are! She laughs hysterically at things she enjoys and complains loudly when she is unhappy. We learned from a Guangzhou native that little girls with strong personalities like hers are called "spicy girls" in China. It is funny that the orphanage described her as shy, she doesn't seem that way at all to us! She is a terrific sleeper, but is a bit of a fussy eater. She has discovered Cheerios and can't seem to get enough of those. She also enjoys some Cantonese dishes (steamed eggs, rice noodles with beef). The food she seems to like the best looks like what we would consider Vietnamese. I suppose that is because she lived so much closer to the border with Vietnam, the cuisines have probably blended a bit. Fortunately, we have many delicious Vietnamese restaurants at home so we should be able to replicate some of her favorites. She is very content to play in our room for hours with her various toys. She will race around playing with one item after another. One of her favorite games is to throw the ball to me, come and grab it from me, then throw it to Steve. She happily plays this game for hours. While she walks a ton in our room, she absolutely refuses to take one step if we leave the room. She does that famous baby back-bend arch and starts to throw a temper tantrum if we try to put her down. I am guessing this may have something to do with feeling safe and comfortable in our room and much less certain when we leave the room.

Tomorrow we are off to take the babies to a famous local Buddhist temple to receive a special blessing from the monks there.

The Chen ancestral home

The Chen are one of the largest families in southern China (know anyone named Chen? yup). In 1894 they build a large home, which has become a museum of folk arts - mostly carvings. It's very elaborate, impressive stuff. We visited on Friday, because it was a good thing to do on a rainy day.

This was also the day Emily decided to reveal to us that should could run around the room, throw the ball, and bring us things. Delightful, and tiring.

Of course, chopsticks!

We had a terrific Thursday. Very easy and quiet. Emily is getting more relaxed and is showing us more of her personality every day.

We knew she could walk (we had seen pictures of her standing at the orphanage), but she was refusing to do it for us. Yesterday when she was sitting on a blanket playing with her toys, she started tossing them just out of her reach. She then began standing and walking to pick them up. I think this is a sign that she is becoming more comfortable with her environment since prior to yesterday she really just wanted to be held all of the time by one of us.

The other great discovery we made yesterday is that she will take almost any solid food as long as we feed it to her with chopsticks! We had been struggling to get her to eat from a spoon for a few days. Last night, when we were eating at a local Cantonese restaurant, Emily was sitting on Steve's lap and paying close attention to him eating with chopsticks. He decided to try to feed her with the chopsticks and he had great success. She ate just about everything he let her try. I know this probably should have been obvious to us, but somehow it hadn't occurred to us that she would not have been used to getting solid food on a spoon. We are definitely going to have to improve our chopsticks skills before we get home!

Another interesting thing about Emily is that she really loves carrying a hand towel from the bathroom with her wherever she goes. She occasionally rubs it on her face and likes to have it in arms' reach at all times. I couldn't figure out why she was crying every night after I dried her off with a towel and then took the towel away. Yesterday I let her keep a hand towel with her all day and she was very content. I wonder if the orphanage gives the babies towels to play with or keep in their cribs?

We spent much of yesterday afternoon strolling around the island and taking some pictures. There are many interesting bronze statues around the island and the vegetation is lush. It reminds me a little bit of Charleston, South Carolina with the green, mossy trees and the wrought iron fence work. There is a school near our hotel and we have seen the children come outside each day to play on the playground. They wear matching nylon sweatsuits and march in and out in two neat lines while singing a particular song.

Last night we had a fun dinner at a local Cantonese restaurant. Our guides had pre-ordered the food for us, so there was nothing too wild on the menu. We had delicious ginger beef, some steamed bread, fried rice, a couple of different chicken dishes, steamed egg custard and some delicous green beans. The last dish was a speciality of the house, roasted pigeon! It was served complete with the head and beak on the plate. Steve said it was delicious, but I decided to just take a picture instead. On our way out, we walked around the front of the restaurant where we saw tanks of various live sea food for sale: grouper, water beetles, geo ducks (look sort of like huge clams with gigantic necks), snakes, gigantic shrimp, crabs, eels and sand worms. Many customers were purchasing the live food and taking it home in big plastic bags full of water (sort of like what you might take a pet fish home in, only much bigger).

Today is another rainy day. We are going on an outing to a local folk museum this morning. Later in the week we will be visiting a botanical garden and some other local sights of interest if the weather improves.

Please visit www.picasaweb.google.com/sjmckay1 for more photos and a nice slide show with captions.

One busy day and one rainy day

It's Thursday afternoon and Emily is napping peacefully in the other room. Yesterday turned out to be a very busy and exhausting day. We are grateful to have a quiet, rainy day today.

Our Holt Guide took us to the Friendship Store in Guangzhou yesterday to purchase baby supplies and groceries. The Friendship Store is like nothing I have ever seen. It's like Home Depot, Macy's and Whole Foods all rolled into one. It has nine floors connected by escalators. Each floor sells different things (lawnmowers, housewares, electronics, groceries, baby supplies, pharmacy, etc.). It is absolutely gigantic and has lots of high end merchandise (Gucci, Louis Vitton). All three of us went along on the shopping trip, but that turned out to be a bit of a mistake, since it took much longer than we expected and poor Emily was a bit overwhelmed by it all. It turns out that she still requires two long naps each day (I had been counting on only an afternoon nap). After fussing for a while, she finally fell asleep in my arms. But, she was cranky for much of the rest of the day because I messed up her nap schedule. Unfortunately, we had to wake her up early from her afternoon nap, too, to go and get her Chinese passport. We have also discovered that Emily is not much of a morning person. She takes a LONG time to wake up. The picture here of her sleeping was taken while I was getting her dressed for the day. She slept for 12 hours over night and then woke up around 7:30 am. I tried to get her dressed at 7:45 am and she fell asleep while I was dressing her!

It is 11 am as I write this post and the sky is pitch black outside. The blue sky never seems to show through the smog, but during the day it is generally a light gray color. Today they are predicting heavy rains. There is absolutely no evidence that it is daytime right now. Our hotel is located on Shamian Island in the middle of the Pearl River. When I look outside our window I can see lots of small ships sailing by even in the midst of this storm.

Emily was such a joy this morning. We finally had success getting her to drink soy milk mixed with a little formula this morning (she had been refusing to drink anything for most of the day yesterday). I was starting to get worried that she would become dehydrated. After trying many different beverages and many different sippy cups and straws, I finally found one that she liked. Whew! After she finished drinking she sat on my lap and we read the Very Hungry Caterpillar over and over together for about an hour. She was fascinated by it. She loves the pictures and poking her fingers in the little holes inside the book. The only baby I ever knew who could sit still that long reading the same book over and over again is Emily's big brother, Colin!

Our Holt guides in China are terrific. They are Chinese natives who speak excellent English. Holt has an office located inside our hotel. The guides really seem to know how to deal with any issue the adoptive families throw at them. They navigate all of the bureaucratic stuff associated with the Chinese adoption like nothing and they deal very well with lots of anxious first-time parents. They often give us interesting commentary about what we see around the city as we drive from place to place on the bus with the other adoptive families. We learned yesterday that Guangzhou is the fourth largest city in China, that the people who are Guangzhou natives speak a dialect of Chinese that is very difficult for people from other parts of China to speak or understand, that Guangzhou was the capital of China during the Ching Dynasty, and that for periods of time no Chinese people were permitted to live on Shamian Island (where our hotel is located) because it was under French and British rule.

Tonight we will go to a traditional Cantonese restaurant with our guides and the other adoptive families. I am grateful that the guides will be with us tonight. Steve and I have had some "surprises" in our food the past few days (fish tails, pig livers, etc.). Neither one of us are picky eaters, but I have to admit I am very glad that I packed some crackers and peanut butter in our suitcase before we left home!

some pictures of Emily

As I write this at 8:50pm local time, Emily seems to be asleep (despite assurances from the orphanage that all the kids go to bed at 10:30 pm every night).

We got her today at 3pm at the Guangzhou Civil Affairs Office. Chaos, with at least 35 families in a big room waiting to meet their children. And a weird moment where you can see your child in another room but can't go in to get her yet. Lots of crying . . . by parents : ). Kids are mostly overwhelmed, and they fluctuate between stony silence and extreme unhappiness.

Emily was carried to us by the director of her orphanage, who traveled eight hours by bus with her, a few nannies and 5 other babies of approximately the same age. She is beautiful and sweet. We are thrilled to be her parents.

Emily is doing quite well. Her transition has not been terribly traumatic. She cries periodically, but we are able to console her easily. She is eating solid food, but she does not yet feed herself. She received solid food and formula at the orphanage, but we're avoiding formula now as no western brands are available. She can stand unassisted, and takes a few wobbly steps, but for now she much prefers to be held, mostly by Ellen. She does not make many sounds yet beyond crying and the occasional giggle (but see below). She enjoys very basic games like peek-a-boo and patty cake and drop-the-item-and-watch-Dad-pick-it-up. She may have a little cold, but there is no fever.

Her attention span is excellent. She played with one toy with Ellen for 40 minutes straight. She is also attentive when read to (we spent a long time on The Very Hungry Caterpillar tonight). She watched a half hour of Elmo's greatest hits in rapt attention (I swear I heard her say "Elmo" toward the end. That would be her first English word. Ellen is not so sure.)

It is now 9pm local time, and she is surely asleep. Woohooo! Here's hoping for more of that. Can't wait to get to know her better tomorrow. We wanted to post some pictures tonight, but the camera is in the room where Emily is sleeping and I don't want to risk waking her up. Tomorrow we will apply for her Chinese passport, but otherwise we will have lots of free time.

Waiting for Emily

We spent Sunday morning in Hong Kong and then traveled to Guangzhou by train in the afternoon. Since we aren't quite over our jet lag yet (we are usually awake for the day by 3:30 am) we actually spent a lot of time out and about in Hong Kong before we left. We went to a famous Dim Sum restaurant called Luk Yu very early in the morning. We were their first customers of the day! We took the Hong Kong subway to Dim Sum and we were very proud that we navigated our way around successfully in the early morning dark. The food was delicious, but we weren't entirely sure what we were eating. The only thing I recognized for sure were the steamed pork buns. None of the servers spoke any English. They walked around the restaurant carrying trays and singing about the food on their trays. They stop at your table and show you what they have. We pointed at what we wanted to try and they served it to us. The restaurant is a real 1930s style tea house complete with lots dark wood and spittoons next to every table. The restaurant has so many "regular" customers that most of the tables are usually reserved.

After Dim Sum, we went shopping in the area around our hotel and then took the 2 hour train ride to Guangzhou. We passed through many cities complete with hundreds of fairly new high rise apartment buildings. It reminded us of a speech we attended last fall during which Tony Blair noted that the industrialization of China is causing millions of Chinese to move from their rural farms to the cities to work in factories. Most of the apartment buildings we passed were less than 10 years old. We also passed some subsistence farms and noted the very difficult living arrangements for the farmers. The farmers we saw live in small cinderblock homes (about 20 feet square) located right in the middle of their 1/2 acre plot of farm land.

We checked into the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou after we arrived. This hotel is quite near the US Consulate and, as a result, nearly every American family who adopts from China stays here. It is located on Shamian Island in the Pearl River, an area that was settled by the French in the 19th Century. As a result, the architecture is an interesting combination of European and Chinese. It's really quite lovely.

We got a nice surprise shortly after we arrived. Emily's orphanage sent us some updated photos and information about her. She definitely looks a little bigger and has some more hair. We are scheduled to meet her in person in just a little over an hour! There are six families who are adopting children from her orphanage, the Suixi County Social Welfare Institute, today. Our guide told us it takes about 8 hours to drive from her orphanage to Guangzhou. I am sure that most of these babies are going to be exhausted by the time they meet their parents. I have a feeling we will all be in for a long night...

We will post some photos of our Gotcha Day experience either later tonight or tomorrow.

A great day in Hong Kong!

We arrived in Hong Kong today around 2 am EST. The flight was fine (except for the guy sitting behind us who sounded like he had the Bubonic Plague!).

We are staying in a lovely hotel called the Kowloon Shangrila. It is across Hong Kong harbour from the financial district. We spent most of the afternoon and evening walking along the harbour and sight seeing. Hong Kong is immaculately clean. The people are very friendly. It is a busy, cosmopolitan place. We saw lots and lots of fancy shops and tons of American eateries (Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, Morton's Steakhouse, tons of Starbucks).

There are lovely mountains all around Hong Kong, but they are very hard to see during the day because of the smog. The weather was very comfortable, about 73 degrees and very breezy. Most of the natives were bundled up in winter clothes! Steve and I stood out a bit in our short sleeves.

One funny thing near our hotel is the Avenue of the Stars. Just like in Hollywood, famous Chinese movie stars have their own stars and handprints along the boulevard. The only ones we recognized were Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. We also saw a photo of Yo Yo Ma, but I don't think he had a star. There were lots of street musicians and tons of people singing karaoke outdoors. Steve and I agreed that the street musicians in Harvard Square are MUCH better. Steve wants to quit his job and become a street musician here. He thinks he would be so much better than the people performing here that he would earn a fortune. I am dubious... Attached are some photos that I took today. I wish I had taken a photo of a woman who was selling roasted purple and orange potatoes and quail eggs from a street card. Lots of the natives were eating the food and seemed to be enjoying it.

We are off to Guangzhou by train tomorrow afternoon. We learned just before we left that Gotcha Day won't be until Monday afternoon. By the time all of you wake up on Monday we should have Emily in our arms!

P.S. See http:// picasaweb.google.com/sjmckay1 for more pictures

Introducing Emily Josephine McKay

Here she is!  Sui Jia Min, soon to be Emily Josephine McKay!  We can't wait to meet her.  

Our last weekend without Emily

We thought it would be fun to do one last "big-kid" event with the boys before we leave for China.  So, we decided to take them to the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia for the weekend.  The Great Wolf Lodge is an indoor water park full of slides and wave pools and other fun things to do in your bathing suit.  Our good friends Lena, Peter, Erik and Emma drove all the way down from Pennsylvania to join us.  We played at the water park yesterday, watched a magic show in the lobby and spent the night at the hotel.  And, Libby, Tom, Tommy and Joseph met us for breakfast this morning.  I took a couple of pictures of the kids this morning before they ran off to play in the  water park.  Steve and I are trying SO hard not to get sick that neither one of us went in the water all weekend.  Instead, we both drank Airborne and stayed dry!  I figure the LAST thing we need is to get sick while we are in China.

Ironically, the Great Wolf Lodge was full of families with adopted Chinese girls this weekend.  It turns out that a national group called "Our Chinese Daughters" was having some sort of a get together there this weekend.  I spoke with a couple of the families.  There had to be at least 75 Chinese adoptees there.  I think that must be some kind of good omen for us.  Don't you?

It's hard to believe that one week from now Emily will be with us!

Itinerary

2/27 9:15 am JFK to Hong Kong Cathay Pacific flight 851

2/28 2:25 pm arrive Hong Kong

to Guangzhou via train

arrive at White Swan hotel

3/11  to Hong Kong via train

3/12 9:45 am Hong Kong to JFK Cathy Pacific Fligh 830

        1:10 pm EST arrive JFK