Guangzhou Day 1 & 2

We made it to Guangzhou yesterday afternoon and wow, it is hot and humid! After that string of rainy and cold days in Zhengzhou it was a welcome change to see the sunshine but they were not kidding when they said Guangzhou is the Florida of China. 

Our flight here was delayed a bit due to fog and smog. Visibility was pretty low so we sat in the airport for a bit waiting for that to clear. Once it did we said goodbye to our Henan reps, Yisha and Viviene. 

Matthew really liked the flight. 

He was so relaxed he had a blowout diaper just as we took off :/ of course once he pooped he was down for a nap! 

Joseph was awesome again on this flight. He asked Ronnie to show him how to order his drink on "this menu"...the emergency procedures card!

When we landed we recognized the airport from our trip to Beijing. It is a newer airport and is really pretty. 

Matthew's stomach is still not ok so he was a bit fussy by the time we got to the bus to head to the hotel. 

He pretty much cuddled my leg the entire way there.

Guangzhou is the 3rd largest city in China with 17 million people. Do you see how busy the streets are? All the time with that many people.

It is a really beautiful city with tons of flowers. Ronnie noticed on the plane how large it was. It reminded us of NYC where the high rise buildings are endless. It also seems more "western" than any of the other places we have been...but still really China. 

When we made it to the hotel it was dinner time. We were really tired (hence why I did not blog yesterday) and decided to just stay in and order pizza. This cute kid's tummy was still not ok and he had another major blowout just before the pizza arrived. 

The hotel here is really nice, but there is no line to hang clothes on. The bathroom is almost too modern for my taste and is not conducive to bathing babies in the tub safely or hand washing laundry. There are however a lot of nice conveniences like a 7-eleven right outside the door, a McDonald's right across the street. There is a kid's playroom and outside playground too. And the pool area is gorgeous!

This morning we were up early and grabbed breakfast. We decided to go on the city tour to a Buddhist temple, the Banyan Temple (we think?), the Chen Clan Academy and a jade shop. The temple was beautiful. 

People were throwing coins in this. You can see some of the incense in the air. It was burning everywhere.

Twice a month they have prayer services over fish and turtles. After the blessing the fish and turtles are driven out to the river and released back. Doing this provides a long life and guarantee there will be no hunger. Simple, right?

Can you tell he was a bit bored?

See the huge handful of incense. Everyone who was there praying held these. The smell was intense. 

The banyan trees.

Next, we went to the Chen Clan Academy. This was a house built over 5 years for the Chen Clan. Chen is the most popular last name in Guangdong province. During the cultural revolution most of these clan specific houses were destroyed. This one was saved and it is gorgeous. The intricate detail is insane. 

The front doors

And this just made me laugh. He was climbing the tree (he wasn't supposed to) so as I'm pulling my camera out to take a picture I am telling him to get down at the same time. Well he does, then realizes he can't touch the ground, and totally freaks! He was maybe 4 inches from the ground. And of course this is the only picture I managed to capture! 

Two things to note during this part of the tour. It was the first time I was treated as a celebrity. I was asked by 3 teenage girls to pose with them. There must be a people of Walmart website I am on now called white people in China. I am sure of it. See her, over there....she's not Chinese!!! 

I also wanted to share a picture of the cleanest/nicest squatty potty I have come across in all of China! Go Chen clan! It was so nice I almost forgive you for not providing toilet paper or soap ;)

We ended up stoping early on in our visit to the shop to buy a scroll for the boy's room. On it they would write Matthew's Chinese name, the date and place and a blessing. 

The details in this place were downright amazing. There was carving in everything! 

Matthew was not 100% again today. But he did get down and walk around for a few minutes. 

Back on the bus this kid gave us some funny faces. He has been having so much fun. He continues to impress us with how flexible he is! 

The last stop on our tour was to a shop where we could get good quality jade. Ronnie bought me a mother/son jade pendant. We picked up some fun little trinkets for the girls there too. And we bought Matthew his "chop". It is a stamp with his English name on top and his Chinese name (characters) below. Since he was born in the year of the dragon his chop has a dragon on top. 

When we got back to the room after the tour Matthew was so chill. He just laid on his belly on the bed. Almost falling asleep but not quite. Ronnie thought he smelled something so he asked Joseph to check Matthew's diaper. Nope, nothing according to Joseph. So we went on with getting ready for the next event of the day. Well, Joseph was partially correct. There was in fact no poop in the back of his diaper where he looked. Instead it went straight out the front up his belly and down to his toes. He had been chilling in a puddle of poo. When we realized we went into panic mode because it literally covered the bedspread. As I am trying to undress Matthew and get him to the shower Ronnie is grabbing wipes and diapers and Joseph is running around the room screaming, "Emergency! Emergency!". It was too funny! Thankfully we got Matthew to the bath, housekeeping came to switch the sheets, I managed to wash all of the clothes/blanket/toys it touched and we all lived to tell the tale. And see this happy face that came after that...

He finally gave Ronnie some smiles today and played with him! It was so good to see him make such progress. After lunch we went to the outside playground with the kids. Matthew loves the slide! 

Joseph and his friend, Andrew. 

The swing Matthew was not so sure about at first.

Thankfully Baba made it alright! 

Tomorrow is Matthew's medical exam. Hopefully it goes fairly smooth. His diarrhea is definitely getting more frequent but we have him on medicine that will hopefully kick in soon. He and I are running out of pants that are poo free so it kinda has to ;) He made so much progress with Ronnie today though. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Milestones

No pictures to post because we are headed out the door in just a little bit for the airport but I wanted to write down something that happened last night. So around 8pm, just as we were finishing up bath time, Ronnie came up to the room from the lobby where he was settling our bill to let us know Matthew's passport had arrived! He said the orphanage director and his wife were downstairs and wanted to see Kang Hua. So we headed downstairs, boys in their PJs and all and said hello. Our guide Yisha was with them so it was great to get some translation in. I wish we could have asked more but it didn't seem that she wanted to translate too much personal messages for us. The orphanage director's wife reached for Matthew right away and he happily went to her arms. She kissed him and hugged him tight. You could tell she had been missing him tons. She was asking him for kisses and he obliged and then turned to me with his arms outstretched. He was reaching for me! Yisha was thrilled he wanted to come back to me. She said that was a great sign and I think explained that to the director and his wife ;) The director held Matthew for a minute or so afterward and then he reached for me again. Again Yisha seemed thrilled! Of course my heart melted a bit....I love this kid! The orphanage director's wife held Matthew one more time. Cuddling him close and speaking to him as if she was giving him life instructions. He reached for me again. You could tell she was happy and sad that he was wanting to come back to my arms. They said goodbye and took quite a while to leave the hotel. They just kept stopping and looking back at him. Even when they got outside they stopped outside of the windows and watched back in on us in the lobby. 

What a blessing that Matthew was so cared for in that orphanage. We are forever grateful to them for living him so much! 

No Kung Fu

We finished Halloween off right last night. Matthew woke up from his nap happy last night. We could tell he was feeling better so we went to dinner with some friends. He actually got down and played with Joseph and wanted to eat again so we were hoping this meant he was feeling better. 

Joseph insisted on showing us he knew how to have tea...get ready for some tea parties Anna and Lucy :)

After dinner we headed back to the room to change into costumes and do some hotel room reverse trick-or-treating (handing out candy to people as we knocked on their doors). Since at least half of our group got sick with a stomach bug yesterday our hotel room knocking was limited to only a few doors. Joseph did manage to sneak in an extra knock on the door of another family here with us who know how to make balloon animals! He asked for a red sword :) 

By this point of the night Matthew was over it. He didn't want to get down or smile so this is the only picture we have of him in his costume. He was a hockey player!

Our little UPS man didn't care he was missing out on lots more candy or "real" trick-or-treating. He had so much fun!

All went well overnight until very early in the morning when we knew Joseph wasn't feeling well. At one point he called out to me from the bathroom, "mommy, I'm going to throw out"...thankfully he never threw up but we decided to cancel out tour of the Kung Fu palace just in case. No one wants to tell a 4 year old to hold it until we can get to a squatty potty ;) Matthew was seemingly "back to normal" this morning though when he woke up! We even got our first smiles in a day and a half and I was able to put him down for a greater length of time than I had been the day before. 

Joseph and him have been playing so well today too. Matthew smiles a lot for Joseph! And Joseph never ceases to amaze us as that sweet big brother! He has done it with each of his sisters so far and now to watch him play and take care of Matthew. I can tell our interactions with him have also been helping Matthew see we aren't scary people afterall too ;) 

I found Joseph rubbing Matthew's cheek trying to make him feel better today. 

We also accomplished this today...he wasn't thrilled with it but he took it :)

Of course there were more selfies today...

And this...

So in Matthew's paperwork it said he took 2 naps a day. I can attest that this is true :) Joseph tried laying with him to fall asleep. I asked to take a picture and these were the faces I was given! 

Thankfully, Mathew fell asleep fairly quickly.

When he woke up from his morning nap he was still happy. So we went out to lunch at the noodle place again. He even was ok sitting in a high chair!

Joseph pretending he is the person hand making the noodles :)

More selfies...

Hey man, what's up?!

Oh , your hungry?

Open your mouth.

After lunch we went on a little walk. It's been cold and nonstop raining here the last 2 days so we were happy to see a small break in the rain. Ronnie showed me the 4-eleven...not even kidding, that's what it's called. And it really does have about half of what you would find in a 7- eleven ;)

So these are the sidewalks I mentioned. They are a mix of pedestrians and bikes and scooters and motorcycles. 

I'm not sure what this building is but it was really pretty.

After the 4-eleven we turned around and headed to the bakery we passed by on the way to Walmart. We picked up the yummiest looking cake. It looked like a ho-ho covered in frosting and chocolate sprinkles but it tasted no where near the same. We had been told in our cultural classes that their idea of sweets is way less sweet than our American standard. This was the perfect example. If I could have poured a packet of sugar on it it still wouldn't have been sweet enough for me! 

We headed back to the hotel to play some more before this afternoons nap. 

My sweet boys, playing together!

While I was writing this post our guide, Viviene, came to tell us Matthew's passport is ON IT'S WAY!! I guess Matthew's orphanage director went to the post office today and waited there for the mail to show up. He picked up the passport once it did and is on a bus here right now to deliver it! Viviene explained that if he would not have gone to the post office to be there for mail delivery today, it would have just sat there all weekend and not been delivered to the orphanage until Monday! So Praise God for working this out in time! We can even travel to Guangzhou now with it instead of the adoption certificate! 

Tomorrow we leave Zhengzhou for Guangzhou. It will be Matthew's 1st flight! Let's hope he loves flying as much as the rest of us do!

FaceTime with the girls!

FaceTime has been a bit of a challenge since getting here due to the time change and how busy we have been. So this morning when we finally weren't rushing out the door to get somewhere we could enjoy some talk time with the girls! Anna and Lucy sang Matthew a song. Anna sang "you are my sunshine" and Lucy sang, "twinkle, twinkle little star". We miss them so much. One week left and we will be on a plane home to hold them! I cannot wait!