Finally some pictures!

Matt and Melissa are still having a hard time posting. So I will be doing their posting for them. I am not nearly as good at it as they are, so you will have to forgive me for that. I am probably not doing it how they want it done. But since they most likely will not see it until they get home...oh well! I figure everybody would just be happy to see some pictures.

Amanda

Friday

Hello All! We are so sorry about the sporadic blog posts. We've actually written something everyday but it's been really difficult to get them to actually post on the blog so we've decided to send them as email and have Amanda post them for us. Today (Saturday) was the first day we didn't have anything scheduled. We are killing time waiting to get Jade's passport from the provincial government. We took a taxi (my first taxi ride ever) about twelve blocks or so away looking for a shop that would make a Chinese name stamp jor us. We thought we'd found a shop that could do it but after waiting for 45 minutes we came back to pick it up and she gave us our money back. She tried to explain why she could't do it but we don't understand Chinese. That tends to be a problem in China. We did get an interesting 45 minute walk out of it. The thing I'm learning about China is that on main roads that tourists and wealthy people hangout in it's super clean - like not even a cigarette in the gutter. Shop owners are constantly cleaning their area of side walk. If you get very far off the beaten path you get into how the normal Chinese live. It's crowded, sometimes clean, sometimes dirty and chaotic. We'll add some pictures to show you all some of the things we saw. We didn't do much this afternoon. Matt's stomach isn't feeling too hot today so we're sticking close to the hotel. He started on an antibiotic so I'm hoping that helps or the rest of this trip could be really long. We saw the sun today which was a first since being in Zhenzhou. The haze ( is it pollution ?) Is so thick the sun doesn't break through. It can be hard to tell which direction your headed or if it might actually be rain clouds. I miss blue skies and sunshine. We did see a Home Depot. I wasn't expecting that. We leave tomorrow afternoon to go into southern China to finish up our appointments with the American consulate. It's been a slow day for news.Besides a stomach ache, we are the lucky ones.Matt and Melissa

More pics

My list

We are having a great time on our trip. We finally get Jade today. (we found out she's called LanLan by her foster family) That should be tramatic for all of us :-) Since we haven't left to do that yet, I thought I'd post a quick list of observations.

1. The women here have a thing for outrageous shoes.

2. The Chinese people love their pets - dogs, pigeons, crickets-which they keep in cages just like in Mulan.

3. The drivers are crazy with a capital C and the pedestrians are even crazier-they have no fear.

4. Jay walking across a five lane road is no problem, because street vendors have taken over at least two of those lanes.

5. Chinese people are as interested in seeing their historical and cultural sights as foreigners.

6. Everything is big-buildings, monuments, crowds- it's all on a grand scale.

7. The younger generation - at least - really believe that Chairman Mao and the communist government made China a better place for the Chinese people.

8. Feng Shue (sp?) is practiced in China and taken very seriously.

9. I think that Chinese people drive nicer cars than Americans.

10. The Chinese people want the world to know they aren't poor and behind the times anymore.

11. I haven't had to use a squatty potty yet but I have found out toilet paper can be really hard to find when you need it. Always carry Kleenex.

12. I haven't seen any soy sauce yet but I have seen Tabasco sauce.

13. A child with red hair in China will be treated like a celebrity. Everybody wants to touch them and have their picture taken with them.

14. Very few phone lines to be seen. EVERYONE has a cell phone. Most are nicer than mine.

15. Apartments are in short supply, but they are building thousands of high-rises that look like dominoes stacked up. Looks like a scene from a Sci-Fi movie. No wonder prices on building supplies are up world-wide.

16. They are tearing down the old cities so they can build the new one a few miles down the road.

That's just a few of our observations so far. I'm sure we'll make a few more.

Matt and Melissa

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Momma, don't let your baby grow up to be an acrobat.

Sorry I didn't write a post yesterday.  Too tired.  I'm normally  a night owl but between jet lag and being super busy I'm asleep by 8:30. Yesterday we saw Tianamen square and the Forbidden City.  We also visited  silk factory.  Tianamen square was big.  The government buildings around it are pretty and big.  We were on a pretty tight schedule so we didn't get very close to anything-just sorta walked past.  The forbidden City was not just big it was huge.  We didn't didn't get to go inside any of those buildings bit we could look inside the rooms.  It's so big that you can't take it all in and there were so many people there.  The only thing I can compare it to is Disneyland during it's busy time. Let's just say you better be moving with the flow of traffic otherwise you aren't going anywhere. 

Today we went to the jade factory, the Great Wall of China and the acrobatic show.  We bought some jade for Jade.  A little piece that we probably won't give her until she's quite a bit older.  It's super sweet.  I kinda wish it was mine. :-)   The Great Wall was so impressive.  I thought I might die climbing it.  My legs were shaking and my heart was beating so fast. The view was amazing.  I feel like between Matt and I, we have to e xperience China for Jade.   Who knows when or even if she will get to come back.  We need to be able to tell her about it.  So I went farther on the wall than I really wanted to.  It really was awesome and that's not an exaggeration.  We also made a quick stop at the birds nest stadium.  Apparently the big question here is what to do with it now that the Olympics are long over.  I guess they haven't come up with any good ideas.  The acrobatic show was really great. The performers could do amazing things with their bodies.  I'm sure they were all elite gymnasts at one point.  As I watched them perform the different parts of the show, I thought to myself - I bet their mothers cannot stand to watch the show.  To dangerous.  One of the girls did get dropped.l. I wanted to give her a hug and make sure she was alright.  That is the story behind the title of this post.   I'm to tired to write more but I know what I'm gonna write about so check back soon. 

Melissa

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Great Wall, Jade factory, and Acrobat show

Sorry about the lack of pictures. We've been trying, but due to China/Google disputes, it has been very difficult to send things out. We will send more posts once we have a better work around.

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Melissa and Matt's wild ride

At long last the flight is done. We took a shuttle to the terminal and all I can say is "Wow!" That is one big building. I didn't realize this, but we were the last ones to arrive. We were met by a young man named Ming who shuttles us off to a mini van and we jump in and head into the city. The driver doesn't speak any English, but for his lack of conversation he makes up for with driving gusto. He loves to gives the van two second bursts of speed, followed by a couple seconds of coasting. This constant lurching makes me feel like we are in a washing machine before the spin cycle. Melissa is really  tired and snoozes for a while; I guess the rocking back and forth of the van is soothing...or she is exhausted. As we make our way into the city, I am struck by how large it is. Modern, too.

Now I have driven in some wild places. In Serbia, for an example, I have riden on a bus with no seats and just my toes on the bottom step and hanging on for dear life out the door while the bus rambled through the streets and eventually broke down in the middle of the freeway. In Croatia, sidewalks are considered the slow lane. This is a different story. I have to give our driver some credit. He took it as a personal challenge to wedge that van into places a skateboard shouldn't fit and I'm fairly certain he thinks blinkers are for pansies.

Our guide, George, meets us at the hotel, gets us checked in and tells us to be ready by 9:00 for our tour tomorrow. I am looking forward to all the amazing things we will see. Speaking of amazing, I turn on the TV and find a basket ball game. I see Aaron Brooks playing for a Chinese team and think to myself, "Didn't the Suns trade Dragic and a draft pick for that guy?" Hmmm...I digress.

As I type this at almost 3:00 am, I remind myself to not get too caught up in the hustle and bustle. I really want to absorb the soul and personality of this place. We will have a big influence over Jade's perception of her birthplace and I want to have a personal connection to this great culture.

I can't help but think that WE are the Luky Ones.

Matt

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Are we there yet?

Matthew and I are currently cruising at 34,000 ft, 583 MPH, -60 degrees somewhere close to Siberia.  We've already been traveling for about twelve hours, seven of those hours have been on this plan ride to Beijing.  It turns out that the in flight movies on a Chinese airline are Chinese movies.  Who would've thought?  Since I don't understand the movies, I've been people watching. (Actually, I'm only about 6 feet away from the wall that has the movie screen on it, so I'm not seeing much. I can see Matt and he looks pretty good. :-)  Who else have I seen?  There's a man standing in the very back of the plane where there is a little bit of room by the bathrooms.  He's been doing yoga and other interesting stretches on and off for the past seven hours.  I wouldn't be surprised to see downward facing dog or salute to the sun the next time I go for a walk around the cabin. I really think he's trying to get the stewardesses attention with all of his yoga moves.  Matt and I are realizing that we needed to bring more movies and music with us.  Maybe a card game too.  16 hours of flying leaves you with a lot of free time. 

When the airplane took off from Phoenix this morning it made me sad and scared.  We were flying off to an unknown country to get a little girl that doesn't know we are coming.  I suppose if you can get cold feet before you marry somebody that you should know better than anybody, you should be allowed at least 5 minutes of cold feet for an adoption.  Right? (Just for the record I didn't have even 1 minute of cold feet before marrying Matt and I only had cold adoption feet for 5 minutes - maybe less :-) )  Now I'm ready for the plane ride to be over and the good part to start.  Hey, Matt!  Are we there yet? 

I'm still thinking we are the lucky ones.

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