Smurfy's Blog

Last night, we got dropped off at the new terminal at Wuhan Airport.  It is very modern but not big.  We checked in our bags but the agent would not issue a ticket for our son because their system showed that we didn’t pay for his lap ticket.  We told our guide that we paid his ticket through CWTS (China Women Travel Service).  Our guide called some office and the office told her that since Nathan is under 2 years old, we have to go to another booth to acquire his ticket.  While my husband stayed with Nathan and our luggages, I went with the guide to get our son’s ticket at another booth.  After I got my son’s lap ticket, we walked back to the check-in counter and finally checked in our luggages.  For Nathan’s stroller, we handed it over to the agent near the boarding area.

When we walked through security, the security guy told me to open my bag because I had water inside in Nathan’s bottle.  Our guide told me that I can go through security with water under 100ml.  It was difficult to communicate with the security guy.  Since I didn’t know if he was finished inspecting my bag, I gave him a thumbs up to say if I am OK to go.  🙂  He did allow me to bring the water bottle.  He also allowed this woman to bring her baby’s bottle with over 100 ml of milk.  If I was going through security at a US airport, for sure I would have to throw the water out.

Our flight was delayed for 20 mins which wasn’t too bad.  We waited at Gate B02.  When it was 30 mins before take off, the agents at the desk told everyone to go to Gate B06.  While we were walking over to Gate B06, the overhead speaker said that our flight is moved to Gate B07!  We and another family who adopted a child in Wuhan City decided to just follow everyone else because we didn’t know exactly which gate to go to.

Nathan’s first flight from Wuhan City to Guangzhou was terrible!  :-0  He was fine for a while but pretty much cried most of the time.  I am sure the business guy sitting at the window wanted to jump off the plane.  🙂  Good thing he wasn’t the only baby crying on the plane.  About 20 mins before we landed, he fell asleep but unfortunately woke up and cried again after we had to exit the plane.  He fell asleep again while we carried him out of the plane to the shuttle bus that took us to the luggage claim.

His first plane ride.After getting our luggages and Nathan’s stroller, we met with our guide Grace.  We also met other families whom I got to know in our adoption group via email.  It was nice to see faces behind the emails.  Our guide said that there was one family already at the Garden Hotel.  Another family in our group was still airborne and won’t arrive at Guangzhou airport until past 10pm.  So our guide with our driver dropped us off first then they went back to the airport to greet the other family.  It was a very long night for her she said.  The two other families we finally met on the morning of Dec 04 are the Groat Family who adopted Shanna (9 yrs old) and Angela & James who adopted a 3 year old girl named Samantha.  Also, I saw the other families we saw in Wuhan City but since they are from another adoption agency, they were not in our group.

Guangzhou is definitely a much better place than Wuhan City because it is more modern and less dusty.  This city has lots and lots of apartment buildings.  I guess this is typical for big cities in China.  I noticed that most apartment buildings in Guangzhou have bars on the windows.  I wondered why.

The Garden Hotel was about 30 mins from the Guangzhou airport.  The hotel is very beautiful just like what people said in adoption group that I am a member of.  It reminds me of a Vegas style hotel.

While Nelson was watching Nathan in the hotel room, I had time to take pictures of the hotel.

Exterior front of the hotel

This is the building where our room is (room#1632)This is the check-in/out counter

On the same floor as the check-in/out counter, there are high end storesA lounge and very fancy wooden staircaseFirst floor of the hotel

View of 1st floor taken from the 2nd floorThe way to the health spa, gym, pool and salon on 4th floorSeriously, I do not know what this guy does not understand.  Clearly, the sign says ‘NO CLIMBING!!’

Waterfall near the Cascade Lounge (lower left) where we have our complimentary breakfast

Where is the door?  It kinda looks like they just added a door knob on the wallThe hallway on the 16th floorOnce we got into our room, we were happy that we got a suite.  Garden Hotel has special discounts for families adopting in China.

We have a good place to store Nathan’s stroller

It is actually nice to have this huge glass window in the bathtub/shower area so that while I am taking a shower, I can look through the window to see what Nathan is doing.

The best part of the shower is the waterfall shower head.

The room supplied the room with a rubber duck, baby bath liquid soap and baby powder.  Honestly, the duck looks kinda scary.

Hey, it’s me!  Hello Everyone back home!The housekeeper supplies the room with fresh fruits and flowers.When I was snooping around the desk area looking for postcards of the hotel, I was surprised to find office supplies.  I wonder if the hotel will charge us if I take everything!Our view from the hotel room

This morning, my group went to have our children get their visa photos and physical medical exam.  When we got there, we saw even more other families from different adoption agencies.

This is the line for the visa photo.  Few buildings down is the medical office.

Our group waiting at the medical office.  Nathan getting his physical checkup!I censored a certain part.  🙂Nathan didn’t cry at all during his medical exam which made things easier for the nurses and doctor.

After a long day in the morning and few hours in afternoon, he took his usual nap.At 3pm, I went downstairs to meet with our guide Grace.  She assisted my group on how to fill-in our documents that we need to give to the American Consulate.  I gave her documents that we received from Wuhan City as well.  Filling out the documents was overwhelming because there were so many!  Since Nelson was watching Nathan in the room, Grace needed Nelson’s signature for one of the documents.  So she went with me back upstairs for his signature.

In our hotel room, Nelson was watching some ridiculous fighting competition.  It was a one-legged fight.  These two guys have two normal legs but they choose a sport where they only fight with one!And the crowd cheers!…. Woo hoo… Hooray!!!Nelson was reading The Guide for Fire Evacuation.  I couldn’t stop laughing after he showed me the illustrations.  In short, if there is a fire, hang yourself!  🙂

We leave Wuhan tonight at 6:40pm and fly to Guangzhou which is less than 2 hrs flight.  Today we will go to some office to get papers notarized.  At the office, we should also receive his birth certificate, abandonment decree and adoption decree.  We will head to the registration office as well to pick up his passport.  We need to provide his birth certificate, abandonment decree and adoption decree to the American consulate in Guangzhou.  Once we arrive at Guangzhou, we will meet with a new guide and driver.  Then head to the Garden Hotel.  Some families who are also adopting children from different provinces in China have already arrived at the Garden Hotel.  I read their blog about the Garden Hotel and they said that the hotel is really beautiful.  We can’t wait to see it for ourselves.  One family we talk to on occasion will also fly to Guangzhou tonight with their adopted 20 months old daughter.

Today is Nathan’s last day in his home city.  He may not be back here until he is older.  As soon as he understands us, we will eventually tell him that he is adopted.  Our adoption agency and the adoption community feels that we should tell our children that they are adopted.  I guess being honest is the best way to go.  Plus I would not want our son to find out that he is adopted by someone else.  We would rather tell him ourselves.  The adoption community gave us pointers on how we should tell our children.  One recommendation would be to create an album or scrapbook with pictures of the child and child’s home town.  Plus bring some items back from their home town.  Then every year, show this album  on their anniversary date (Gotcha Day).  Plus there are books out there that talks about this subject.

On Gotcha Day (Nov 29), his orphanage gave us his album.  They included pictures of when he was much younger and before he got his lip repaired.  I will show him this album as well when that time comes for us to tell him that he is adopted.  His orphanage gave us lots of other things like a bag of snacks and fruit, pictures of the orphanage and his immunization booklet.  The orphanage got a new facility about 10 years ago.  Back in 1928, the orphanage was called Wuchang Garden Hill Baby Nursery.  In 1951, it was renamed to Wuhan Infant School.  Currently, it is called Wuhan Children’s Welfare Institution.  If we wanted to visit his orphanage, we can not just drive over there and go inside.  We would have to apply or sign some papers to go there.  We didn’t see his orphanage up close but we did see it while we were at the top of the Yellow Crane Tower.  The building kinda reminds me of the Grand Floridian in Orlando Disneyworld due to the white paint and red rooftop. 

These are pictures of him when we first met him on Gotcha Day.
I thought he was abandoned at the orphanage.  But he was actually abandoned in front of this children’s hospital.

After having a big breakfast, we walked to the nearby park for Nathan’s last stroll in Wuhan City.  He actually doesn’t mind having his pictures taken.  He doesn’t smile often for pictures but he doesn’t make a fuss about it.

On our way back from the park, I decided to check out some bakery.  The store has cakes, buns, egg custards and other stuff.  I bought this 4 pack buns for 5 Yuan which is less than $1 US.  We will save it for our snack later.

It is almost time for me to feed our son’s lunch.  It is past 12pm.  At 2pm, we get picked up by our guide.  One of the things I find cute in Nathan is that he knows how to clean his mouth.  If he feels something on his mouth, he uses his whole right arm to wipe his mouth.

So far, his diaper change is 4 – 5 times a day.  When changing his diaper, he normally lays still and allows us to clean him, put his diaper on and re-dress him.  But once in a while he would move around.  If he poops, we usually just give him a nice bath instead of using the baby wipes.  He really loves his bath.  When he is inside the baby tub, he loves to splash water everywhere.

He sleeps pretty good in the middle of the night though.  I would hear him cry for a bit then falls back to sleep quickly.  But he is very active while sleeping.  We lay him down one way in his crib and in the next morning he is facing the other way.  At first I thought he was awake whenever I hear him move around in his crib, but his eyes are still closed.  Plus, it is nice he can sleep through the night in the dark.  There is no need for us to have a night light on.  Plus I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night with a night light on anyway unless I have nightmares.  🙂

Did I mention he cries a lot?  🙂  When he cries and to get our attention, he claps his hands.  And I do hear him say ‘ma ma’.  Not sure if he is actually calling me ‘ma ma’ because that is what he mumbles all the time.  Whenever he sees the cars, he says ‘ma ma ma’.  When he sees other things, he goes ‘ma ma ma’.

For breakfast this morning, they finally served fried rice!  I have been wondering when they will have fried rice.  Also they served my favorite congee (preserved duck eggs).  So far this week, they served fish congee, shrimp congee and chicken congee.  They have plain congee.  The plain congee is literally plain… tasteless.

It has been 4 days since we met Nathan.  After spending time with him, I am finding that he is very very very picky eater.  Also, he cries too much.

Based on his referral documents, it says that he is a good eater.  However, after spending time with him, we are finding that he really isn’t because he is picky at what he eats.  He may be used to eating congee, eggs, steam buns, etc for his meal but we can’t keep ordering him congee, eggs or steam buns from a restaurant.  We want him to try other foods as well like the Gerber baby food I brought from home.  Even if we try to have him eat his congee for dinner or lunch, he won’t eat it next time.  So I figured that he is just a very picky eater.  I am also finding that he will only eat the first food he eats.  If I give him Gerber food then congee afterwards, he won’t eat the congee.  If I give him the congee first then Gerber food second, he will not eat the Gerber food.  At times, if I give him his milk formula first, he will not eat anything else.  So we try not to give him his milk until he is finished with his food.

I have been trying to find ways on how to feed him food that he isn’t used to eating.  One early method that we tried with him was that we pretended to eat his food.  When he saw that, he wanted to try some too.  But Nathan learns quickly though.  When he sees us pretending to eat his food, he doesn’t bother to reach for his baby food anymore.  I tried another method.  At times, Nathan doesn’t like to eat from the spoon.  He thinks it is probably nasty food or something.  I was thinking that most little kids will grab anything and put it into their mouth.  So I put his Gerber baby food on his fingers.  When I did that, he actually ate what was on his fingers.  I continued this method until he accepted the food from the spoon.  I just wonder how long this ‘finger food’ method will last.

His referral documents never mentioned that he cries a lot…. when I say a lot, I mean like 4 or 5 times a day.  Of course he’ll cry when he is hungry.  But most times he cries because he can’t get things that he wants such as soda or eating utensils like a knife.  Of course we won’t allow him to drink our soda or let him play with a knife.  If he doesn’t get those things, he will throw a fit!  When he throws a fit, we have to distract him from those things.  For instance, if he throws a fit in our hotel room, we take him to the window to look at the view.  He especially just love looking outside the window watching the buses and cars pass by.  Good thing is that he doesn’t cry when we go on our short tour because he gets distracted with other things.

I think his caretaker may have spoiled him.  The caretaker must have just given him anything he wanted to make him stop crying.  We want to teach our son that he just can’t have everything.  He is only 13 months now but hopefully he will understand what ‘No’ means.  Since he has been used to being cared by someone else, trying to care for our son our own way will definitely not be easy.  We just have to be patient with him.

Of course there are good sides of him.  For one thing, I like it when he doesn’t need us around to fall asleep.  I don’t need to lay next to him so he can sleep.  Like I mentioned before, he does his rolling maneuver until he falls asleep.  I guess rocking himself helps him fall asleep.  But before he falls asleep, his body has a mind of its own.  He eyes would get sleepy but his body is still in play mode.  His would kick his legs up, raise his arm or close and open his hands.  Also I can tell he tries to keep himself from falling asleep at times because he would like pull his hair or scratch his ears while his eyes are dozing off.

He learns things quickly.  This morning at the restaurant, he noticed that my husband or I get up from the table and get food at the buffet.  So he wanted to do the same thing.  He got one of the small plates on our table and when my husband put him down, he was walking towards the buffet section.  When we show him something, he will actually do the same thing.  I was stacking up empty containers in our hotel room.  When he saw me doing that, he tried to do the same thing.

He makes an effort to talk to us or anyone.  Even though he mumbles very loud, at least I would prefer him to do that rather than not hear him talk at all.

I am glad he knows how to walk!  Since I thought he would be a crawler, I didn’t bring his shoes from home.  Instead I got him pants made for crawling.  Luckily, his orphanage gave him shoes.

Overall, he is a happy little boy.  He loves to smile a lot.  He especially smiles when we play peek-a-boo.

Picture of him laying on the blanket.

At times he loves to walk, but once he gets to his stroller, he doesn’t want to walk.

For our tour today, we visited the Yellow Crane Tower.  The story behind this is that there was this old man begging for food from this restaurant owner.  Since the restaurant owner was a generous person, she allowed him to eat at the restaurant for several months for free.  Since the beggar could not pay her, he decided to draw this yellow crane (bird) and that crane will fly on the walls.  Because of the yellow crane, the restaurant owner became very rich.  Townspeople came flocking to her restaurant.  After years later, the old man returned to the restaurant and asked the owner if she finally got paid for all the free food he got from her.  The owner said yes.  Then the old man made the crane come out of the wall and he flew away with the crane.  The restaurant owner used the money she made to have this Yellow Crane Tower built.  Here are some pictures:

After our tour, our guide and I sat down a bit to chat.  I have been using my iPhone to take pictures.  She asked me if I usually keep all of my pictures on my iPhone.  I showed her lots of pictures from my phone.  I showed her pictures of our family back home, places we traveled, our house, etc.  When I showed her a picture of Nelson and his brother riding Splash Mountain in Disneyland, she told me that Nelson and his brother look alike.  Since I remember her telling me she doesn’t have a boyfriend, I told her that his brother is a FREE man.  I was joking with her and asked her if she wants to meet him.  She was giggling about it.  So I told her I will take her picture and show it to Nelson’s brother.  This is the picture I took of her.Then Nelson took a picture of both of us.  Not sure why I made the ‘V’ sign.  heheheWhen we came back to our hotel, Nelson asked where is a good place to buy noodles.  I went back to our hotel room with Nathan while our guide escorted Nelson to this noodle place.  Nelson came back with noodle with some weird thick sauce, soup with potstickers and baby bok choy and spicy won ton soup.  Nelson said it cost only $3 US.I just had to take this picture before I publish this blog.  I just realized that my husband and his son are sleeping the same way!

Before we meet with our guide, we take advantage of the complimentary breakfast.  Past few days, the dining room served the same food.  But this morning, they had two new items: egg roll and hot cakes.  They probably had hot cakes in previous days but I guess I didn’t care for it then or hadn’t noticed it because I was too busy stuffing myself with their other breakfast items.

After breakfast, we went back to the room until it was time to meet with our guide.  In the room, Nelson decided to call Neftali who is taking care of our cat Smeagol at home.  Hey Neftali, if you are reading this, can you also clean our bathrooms?  🙂  Back in Nelson’s office, Ling is taking care of his fishes.  Wow, Nelson got people working for him.  Don’t worry guys, Nelson will take you guys out to a nice lunch when he gets back.  🙂

My husband and I actually skipped dinner the past few nights because we are working with Nathan’s schedule.  After we feed him his dinner, he normally plays a little then lays down in his crib or on the extra blankets we placed on the stained carpet.  Once he lays down, he gets himself situated by rolling over to his right then back to his left then roll to his right side again.  He would do this rolling maneuver until he falls asleep.  So once he sleeps, we don’t want to wake up him.  Even though my husband and I skip dinner, we haven’t been too hungry at all.  Probably because we have been busy with Nathan that we didn’t feel too hungry at night.  Also, once Nathan sleeps after dinner, my husband and I actually go to sleep too.  We sleep whenever he takes a nap.  So far, Nathan takes a nap around 11am then after 2pm.  But since we went on a sightseeing this morning with our guide until past 12pm, he skipped his nap and got cranky after we got dropped off back to our hotel.

I mentioned stained carpet in our hotel room because our room 1620, 1720 and other rooms on the 16th and 17th floors are only reserved for families adopting a child in Wuhan City because these rooms are bigger than other rooms in the hotel.  So I guess this explains the stained carpet.  The stain looks like old juice spills or something worst like baby poop! Previous families who stayed in the room have definitely left their mark.  Now we will leave our own mark in the room.  I forgot to clean the muddy wheels on Nathan’s stroller.  When we walked into the room, I didn’t noticed that I created mud tracks on the carpet!  🙂

Luckily, our housekeeper hadn’t cleaned our room yet after we returned from our sightseeing.  So we went downstairs to get a late lunch and ate our lunch in the hotel lounge while our room was being cleaned.  At the lounge, there is a nearby bar.  My husband decided to try the long island ice tea.  When he was ready to order, this young woman wearing a santa clause outfit asked for his order.  Since she couldn’t understand English, this woman asked her other friend who spoke little English.  After her friend got the order, my husband noticed that the person at the bar was looking at the ingredients for the long island ice tea!  I guess not too many people order this drink.  So it took about 10mins to make his drink.  When he got the drink, I asked Nelson if he ordered coke because the drink looked more like coke to me than a long island ice tea.  When he tried it, he did taste the alcohol but didn’t really taste like the long island ice tea he orders back home.

For our sightseeing, we first visited Hubei Provincial Museum.  The big highlight of the museum was the Tomb of the  Marquis Yi which dates back more than 2000 years ago.  Our guide told us that when this guy Yi died at age 42 or 43, his concubines and pets had to die as well by hanging or poisoning!  The youngest concubine was only 13 years old!  The oldest was 26 yrs old.  The museum had 4 floors I think.  We didn’t go to every floor.  Our son sat in his stroller most of the time.  But he wasn’t quiet.  He mumbled very loud.  You can hear his echo throughout the museum!  He was the loudest person in there.  We try to keep him quiet without success.

When we were walking around the museum, people were watching us.  Everyone in the museum spoke Chinese (Mandarin) but our guide talked to us in English.  I don’t know if their staring problem was because we were talking in English or they were curious about our son.  There was one old woman who just looked dead straight at my son without saying anything.  I thought that was rude.  So I turned his stroller the other way and walked away from her.  This wasn’t the first time people looked at my son.  While I was watching Nelson take pictures of our hotel room yesterday after having lunch, this guy on the phone just grab the stroller and turned it to look at my son!  Plus he had a cigarette in his mouth.  Don’t people know how to say ‘excuse me may I look at your son?’

Our guide told us that she overheard old grannies talk about our son.  These grannies also had their grandchildren with them.  The grannies says something like ‘is that boy (referring to our son) cold’?  In Wuhan City, all the little babies are in multi-layers of clothing.  They look like a big balloon that will float away or something.  For us, we feel our son is wearing enough.  He has a long sleeve shirt, sweat pants with socks, shoes, jacket and a hat.  For me and Nelson, we just wear our shirt without a jacket because we weren’t cold at all.  Matter of fact, we always feel warm.  I sweat wearing my thin jacket.

Also, Nelson and I noticed that these infants wearing a balloon outfit have this slit opening between their pants.  Their private part and butts are exposed!  Our guide said that instead of diapers, most kids will wear these open slit pants and use the bathroom this way.  I asked our guide, where do they use the bathroom?  She said just anywhere!  So these grannies think that my son is cold?  I am sure their grandkids exposed tiny butt is freezing!  Our guide told me that when she was young, she wore this outfit too.

After the museum, we went to the East Lake.  I liked this tour more than the museum.  It is a big lake where people can rent a bike, boat, have a picnic or simply just lounge around.  Also this area is very big for wedding pictures.  We saw a shuttle bus that drove about 8 couples dressed in wedding outfits.  Our guide said that the couples take pictures 3 months before their wedding so they can have time to prepare their new home and wedding plans.  In the park, we took a short cut through some muddy area.  So this was how the stroller got muddy wheels after our tour.  Our guide has been very nice to us and very helpful overall.  She studied English in the University.

Hubei Provincial Museum

East Lake

Nathan admiring a dandelion (I think that is what it’s called)

Nathan was actually quiet the whole time sitting on his stroller.  I guess he just enjoyed the view.  The spot on his forehead is his birth mark.  Depending on the lighting, at times his birth mark is very faint and at times his birth mark is obvious.  He has two small birth marks on his back.  According to our adoption agency, these birth marks are common for children born in China.  

How can the grannies say that my son is cold?  He is covered from top to bottom!  Should I make him wear a sleeping bag?  🙂

Before we got picked up by our guide this morning, we  had breakfast at the hotel.  In the dining room, we also saw other families who adopted from China.  There is one family who adopted a 3 year old girl and the other family adopted a young boy.  I think he is almost the  same age as our son.  Both children also has cleft lip.

We arrived at the registration office around 9:30am.  At the registration office, we met with the Director of the Wuhan orphanage as well as the lady who worked at the registration office.  This lady took care of the documents that we needed to sign.  We even provided our fingerprint and footprint of our son.  Afterwards, we took a family picture.

The other families we saw at our hotel and another family arrived at the registration office. They also signed documents and provided fingerprints as well as take family pictures.

Our time at the registration office didn’t take too long.  We got back to our hotel room around 11am.  By the time we got back, Nathan was playing for a bit then started to get tired.  Until now, he is still taking a nap.  After he wakes up, we will walk somewhere to have lunch.

Our son loves to talk… well mainly mumble.  When he talks, he can get very loud!  He would say something like ‘na, na, nana, NANA!’

He likes to copy what we do too.  While he was playing inside his crib last night, my husband and I decided to close our eyes in bed and see if he will start crying or try to get our attention.  Instead, he got very quiet and stopped playing.  He would look at my husband then look back at me.  After 15 mins or so, he also decided to lay down in his crib and fall asleep.

He drools a lot.  We are not sure if his excessive drooling is caused by his unrepaired cleft palate or drooling is a normal thing for him.  He drools a lot especially when he eats.  I guess it just takes more time for him to chew and swallow his food and drink his milk.

Since our son’s passport will not be ready until Friday, tomorrow and Thursday will mainly be sightseeing.

At 9:20, we met with our guide downstairs from our hotel lobby.  The ride to the registration office took about 30 mins.  Once we got to the registration office, my husband and I were looking for a little boy crawling on his knees in the playroom on the 3rd floor.  Our guide told us, there he is!  My husband and I looked around and we didn’t see any little boy crawling anywhere.  We saw an older boy about 2 to 3 years old and a young infant female riding on one of the mini seesaw.  Our guide said he is the one in the yellow suit running around!  My husband and I were amazed that our 13 month old boy was already running!  The director of the Wuhan orphanage said that he has been walking since he was 11 months old.

His yellow suit made him look like he was going to go skiing somewhere.  All the layers and layers of clothes they put on him made him look bigger than he actually is.  During winter time in China, our guide said that the parents with young infants always add layers and layers of clothes.  But the weather in Wuhan is actually warm for us.  When I felt our son’s head, back and hand, he was sweating!… and of course his sweat may have to do with him running around all over the place.

My husband and I tried to introduce ourselves to him but whenever we do, he runs off  and just keeps on running and running like Forrest Gump.  He just doesn’t stop running.  🙂  He was making me and my husband sweat running after him.

While we were there, I asked questions like how often he eats, does he sleep normally on his back, stomach or side, what does he like to eat, was he fed this morning, how do people call him, etc.  Our guide translated my questions to one of the caretakers at the registration office.  Currently, he likes to be called Fanfan.  But we need to get him used to being called Nathan.

While driving back to the hotel room, he actually fell asleep on my lap in the van.  When we got to the hotel room, I placed him in his crib.  He slept for about 30 mins in the room.  Once he woke up, the room was very unfamiliar to him.  When he noticed he was in a different place, that is when he started crying!  Good thing our guide helped us on how to keep him calm.

Since he was sweating in those multiple layers of clothing, I decided to give him a bath.  First I took out his hat.  Secondly, I removed his buttoned sweater.  Thirdly, I removed another sweater.  Fourthly,  I removed his shirt.  Next, I removed his padded pants with an opening between the pants.  Then I removed another pants!  Once I removed the last pants, I noticed that his diapers looked weird.  It reminded me of what the sumo wrestler wears.  It was a diaper in the middle but on the side of the diaper it was a rope that was tied in a knot to keep the diaper from slipping off.

Once I got all his clothes out, we gave him a nice bath.  He was still crying at first but once in a while he would stop and look at our funny faces that me, my husband and our guide were showing him  🙂  So yeah we all cramped ourselves in the tiny bathroom to help him calm down.

After his bath, I did my first diaper change!  It wasn’t hard at all.  He is an active baby but he didn’t make it difficult for me to change his diaper.  Then I put him in a new clean sweat pants and clean shirt I brought from home.  Even when I removed his old clothes and put him in clean clothes, it wasn’t difficult at all.  I thought I would have a hard time doing that.

Once he was all clean and wore his clean clothes, he was walking everywhere.  He is such as curious baby.  He can play and entertain himself.  When he picks up something that he shouldn’t be holding or when he attempts to go inside the bathroom, he would actually listen to me when I say No.  When I walked into the bathroom cleaning his bib, he would actually just stand outside the bathroom and smile.  Then he runs off and play elsewhere.

He loved this cookie puff snacks I also brought from home.  He loved it so much that he wouldn’t stop eating it.  I tried to give him something else like pureed banana with rice cereal but he wasn’t interested.  But at least he drank his milk formula.

After our guide left us alone with our baby, he was still just walking and curiously looking at the things inside the room.  The hotel even supplied us toys that he can play with and his favorite so far is the rattle because it makes a noise.  Those toys really kept him busy for a long while.

My husband and I started to get hungry a bit.  But we wanted to buy a stroller first so that we don’t have to keep holding him.  He weighs about 21 lbs and I couldn’t hold him long while we walked on the street.  Our guide gave us directions to this mall which was walking distance.  The mall actually was quite nice.  On the 7th floor, they sold baby items.  We decided to just get a cheap stroller here.  After we bought the stroller, he wanted to actually go in it.  I was glad he didn’t make a fuss when we strapped him into the stroller.  He just loved riding in it.  Again, he was very curious about everything… about the people, toys, elevator, etc.  We just had McDonalds there for late lunch.

After we came back to our room, the place became unfamiliar with him again.  He got quiet.  I was like ‘oh oh, he will cry again.’  I gave him his milk again and he drank more of it.  But he was still quiet.  He was sitting on my husband’s lap and didn’t mind when my husband was hugging him.  But again, our son was still quiet.  Then after 15 mins in the room, he started to cry.  I thought perhaps his diaper was wet.  I checked his diaper and he needed a change.  So yes today it was my second diaper change!  I will make my husband change his son’s diaper next time.  🙂

Even though I changed his diaper, he was still crying.  I can tell he was sleepy though.  So I carried him and rocked him a bit and he fell asleep!  He sleeps pretty quickly.

Here are some pictures.

I took more pictures of our hotel room this morning.  The mattress we have in our room is very firm and the padding is very thin.  At first I thought they forgot to place the mattresses onto the bed.  But they are actually mattresses!  Since we were very tired last night, the firmness of the bed didn’t matter at all.  Also, we have a few pillows that are very heavy and firm!  It feels like they weigh about 5 lbs.  I have no idea what is inside these pillows.

City view from our hotel room.

Our hotel provides complimentary breakfast up to 10am.  Breakfast meaning not your usual eggs, bacon, sausage, cereal or hot cakes.  The breakfast here is congee (fish fillet or plain), noodles, steamed vegetables, dim sum, some beef, etc.

This is their dining room in the hotel.

Hotel lobby/entrance/lounge area.

After having a huge breakfast, we did some walking to explore the city a bit.  The sky in Wuhan seems like it never clears!  The smog here is really bad.  There were two occasions when I had to cough because something went inside my throat.  It just seems like there is dust everywhere.  Even last night, the smog was very visible.

On the streets, there are so many people.  Like I mentioned previously, everyone shares the road.  The pedestrian walkway is shared by people walking as well as people on their scooters.  I noticed that the babies here are not inside a baby car seat.  The mom or dad just hold their baby on their lap while the vehicle is in motion.  Even parents ride their scooters with their young ones sitting or standing in front of their parents.  The entire family on one scooter wore no helmets.  When we have our baby tomorrow, most likely he will be sitting on my lap inside our driver’s van.

This city seems very old.  There is one tall building about 15 stories high that is left abandoned and empty.  The apartment next to our hotel looks like it will almost crumble.  We walked up on some pedestrian bridge to go to another street.  The stairs on the bridge are coming off.  The stairs looks like it was made from some soft material and not concrete.  While we were standing on the bridge to take some pictures, I definitely felt the bridge shake as cars passed by underneath.

This morning, I saw a few people doing their exercise on the top roof of their apartment.  Also on the roof, I saw one person hanging their clothes up to dry and a guy with his son playing some game.  On the streets, I noticed many people eat their food while walking and saw old ladies sweeping the streets.

The streets of Wuhan has a lot of small retail shops and eating places.  The area where our hotel is located doesn’t have stores that we saw in Hong Kong such as The Body Shop, HM, Zara, Chanel, etc.  I haven’t seen Starbucks yet!  But of course we saw two McDonalds.  Most food shops sold nuts.  I guess nuts is very popular here.  Even our hotel provided nuts as part of the complimentary breakfast.

While we were walking, I noticed something moving inside some bushes. When I looked closer, I saw 4 rats!  One of them was munching on something.  My curious husband looked closer at the rats to see what else they were doing.  All I wanted to do was go back to our hotel room!  I thought that we’ve explored the city enough.

Last night we asked our guide whether she would visit USA.  She said maybe but she would never live anywhere else but Wuhan City.  She mentioned that her parents and grandparents have lived in Wuhan for many years.

After we came back to our hotel room, my husband did a video call with his family back in San Francisco.  We showed them our hotel room and pretty much talked about our trip so far.  I called my mom using Google Voice.  While my husband was talking to his family, I was preparing our son’s food and other things we will need when we see him tomorrow.  I pre-measured his milk formula as well as his rice cereal and put them into these pre-measured bowls with 3 – 4 compartments.  I also boiled water and will pour the water into his bottles after the water cools.  For his snack, I bought these Gerber cookie puffs and poured them into a small container.  Good thing we have a fridge in the room.  I placed his teether thing inside the fridge since I heard that the cold teether is good for baby’s gums.

On the bed, I gathered other things so that I don’t forget to bring them tomorrow.  He has his froggy changing pad, toy cloth booklet, diapers, plastic zip lock bags that my sister-in-law Veronica gave me to use for dirty diapers, pacifier wipes, baby wipes and documents we need to bring to the registration office.  I will carry all of his items inside my backpack.  Today is our last day as two.  Tomorrow on Gotcha Day, we will be three!

My husband and I are still in West Coast time.  In afternoon, we pretty much slept until 9pm.  It is 11:23pm right now in Wuhan City while it is 7:23 am back home.  For dinner, we went to the restaurant on the second floor of our hotel.  The restaurant is actually open for 24hrs.  The only customers the restaurant had was just me and my husband.  My husband ordered spaghetti with clams and I got something smaller like their won ton soup.  My won ton soup was pretty good.  Our dinner cost 180 Yuan (rmb) or about $27 US!  Our guide will be with us Monday – Friday starting tomorrow.  Hopefully she will take us to good eating places with reasonable prices.

We finally arrived in the city where our son was born!  When we got to the airport, I looked out the window.  The airport looked very deserted and outdated!  After we passed immigration and picked up our luggages, I was looking for our guide.  But I couldn’t find a guy with a sign with our last name on it.  When I looked around a bit more, I saw this short, young woman holding a sign.  At first I couldn’t read the name clearly because she handwritten some name on the piece of paper with a pen and not a marker.  Plus my eyes couldn’t focus too well because I was already sleepy at the time.  So I moved a little closer to her and I saw the name Nelson R.  When I tried to focus on her handwritten sign, I finally saw Siu on the paper.  At first, I was thinking ‘who is Nelson R.?’

When I realized she was our guide, we introduced ourselves and she introduced herself as Joy.  We asked her where is Grant whom we thought was going to meet us at the airport.  She said Grant is her boss and her boss assigned her to us as our guide during our stay in Wuhan.  Outside the airport, we met our driver.  I think his name is Mr. Wong.  When we got into the van, the driver was playing the wedding march song… ‘here comes the bride… all dressed in white…’  I thought it was funny.  Then I looked around the van and saw this stuffed pig toy dangling next to a window.  I thought perhaps that this van could be his family’s van.

On the way to our hotel, she briefly gave us a history of Wuhan.  The ride from Wuhan airport to our hotel took about 30 to 45 mins.  Traffic in Wuhan is crazy!  You got scooters, bicycles and vehicles fighting for the road!  I think that the traffic in Hong Kong is more in control than in Wuhan.

When we arrived at our hotel, our guide told us where to go for food and shopping since Nov 28 will be our free day.  I asked her how do we cross the street because I didn’t find any pedestrian walkway.  She said we can use the underground tunnel to go from one street to the next.

She was the one who checked us in into our hotel.  All she needed was our passports.  Afterwards, she gave us her phone number and told us to meet her at 9:15 am at the hotel lobby on Nov 29 so that we can get to the registration office by 10am.  Nov 29 will be the day we finally meet our son!

Once we got into our hotel room, we found a crib in there all set up with pillow and blanket!  In the bathroom, there was a children’s potty as well as a children’s tub.  I was like “wow!” this hotel has accomodated us with baby things pretty well.  I don’t think our son will need the potty yet but we will definitely use the baby tub.

We arrived Hong Kong before 7am.  Since we have a connecting flight to Wuhan City which is a 2hrs plane ride from Hong Kong, there was no need to claim our luggages.  Once we got off the plane, we went through the immigration to show them our passports and sign some immigration form.  Then we went to the ATM to get some HK dollars.  Afterwards, we purchased a Same Day Return ticket from Hong Kong International Airport to Hong Kong island which cost $100 HK.

Finding the Airport Express train wasn’t difficult at all.  They have a ticket counter to purchase a train ticket or you can use a ticket machine to buy your ticket.  Every 10 mins, the Airport Express arrived.  Unlike the Bart in SF Bay Area, the train was actually nice, clean and quiet.  Nelson and I could hear each others’ conversation.

There were two stops before getting to Hong Kong  island.  First stop was at Tsing Yi.  Second stop was Kowloon.

Once we arrived in Hong Kong, we discovered that the station is connected to a gigantic mall called IFC.  Then that mall is connected to hotels and to another big mall.  Instead of walking on the street with lots of traffic, there’s this long overpass where people can walk from one building to the next.  This shopping district has a lot of high end stores like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Prada, De Beers, etc.

We did walk to other parts of the city such as their old Chinatown place which is like SF Chinatown and their Central Pier which is almost like SF Ferry Building.  We took most of the city view pictures from the Central Pier.  While we were walking around the city, I was looking for a place that sells postcards.  It took a while to find a store that sells postcards then finally I found one from this place called Marketplace.  It was 4 postcards for $8 HK.

Hong Kong has lots of tall buildings.  Even their apartments or condos are high-risers.  While walking towards the pier, we noticed some huge construction site.  I guess they will build more tall buildings there.

After walking around the city, we went back to the IFC Mall for tea time!  We bought Jasmin tea and macarons from Le Gouter Bernardaud.  For tea and 3 macarons, it cost about $136 HK!  We stayed at this place for a while to rest and take advantage of their free Wi Fi.  Then we took the Airport Express back to the Hong Kong International Airport.

Currently, I am writing this from the HK airport.  Our flight to Wuhan is at 6:20pm.  The boarding routine on the plane (serviced by Dragon Air) for Wuhan City was done in an old fashion way where we took a shuttle that took us to the plane then got off the shuttle and boarded the plane from the outside via staircase.  Dinner was served on this flight.  I had chicken pasta but I actually didn’t eat it.  I only ate the bread.  I was just too exhausted to do anything else but sleep during the almost 2 hrs flight for Wuhan City.  I didn’t realized that the plane took off already and landed!  Only time I woke up was when the flight attendant was speaking to me in Cantonese asking me if I wanted beef or chicken for dinner.

Here are some pictures we took today.

This was taken in Hong Kong station.

Our first breakfast in Hong Kong was at McDonalds inside IFC mall! Nelson got the grilled chicken soup with pasta and I got my usual hot cakes with sausage and hashbrowns.  The chicken soup with pasta was actually pretty good.  Our breakfast cost $6.75 US!

We found a good bakery that sells fresh baked cocktail bun!  It cost $6 HK.  

City pictures of Hong Kong.A narrow double decker bus.This is the city of Kowloon.

For many years, I’ve only dreamed of this day of going to China to pick up our baby. Now I no longer have to dream about it! We are actually at the airport waiting until we board the plane and finally flying to China! The flight to Hong Kong will be 14 hrs!! Cathay Pacific will serve dinner and breakfast. Hopefully I will be able to sleep but I am too excited to sleep!

The picture below was taken at the charging area at Gate A6 where we charged our iPhones and laptop.