Rosie's Gotcha Day, June 17, 2013

Monday, June 17, 2013 arrived and we now have Rosalie.   We are now a family of four.  Here are a few pictures of the beginning of bonding.  Rosie is a happy little girl and is bonding really well.  As expected, life is busy.  More to come....

We are finally meeting!

Rosie and mommy.

Sisters!

The Big Sister-to-be

Lia assembled all the gift bags together this morning.  I had taken them apart for travelling purposes, and I thought she would love the responsibility of putting them together...and she did! We will be bringing a few of these to the orphanage tomorrow morning.  We're leaving the hotel at 8 a.m. and arrive around 9:30 at the SCH.  That means for you guys, Sunday at 9:30 p.m. EST.

Last night, we opened an attachment with Rosie opening our care package.  It was so sweet to see her looking at the Shutterfly book, pointing to Lia.  We can't wait to see how they interact...Lia is so happy about Rosie. 

Today we spent the day going to the International Church of Shanghai, and then Shanghai's Zoo.  Lia loved seeing other little kids at the zoo, and was having a ball interacting with them.  It sure looks like she is ready for taking on a sibling... 

Happy Father's Day Keith! 

Time to get some sleep and get up early to get Rosie!

Looking forward to the elephants...

but loving the giraffes the best! In the left corner are 4 giraffes...2 little girl giraffes, and a mom and dad.

What a good sport Keith is!  "I have already met my prince. I call him Daddy".

A Day in Suzhou

     Today Lia woke up at 5:30 a.m. proclaiming it's "morning time".  So of course we were up and running so we could meet our guide and 8 a.m. to go on a tour of the City of Suzhou. Suzhou is an old city of about 2 million people about one hour outside of Shanghai.  It's known for two attractions that we saw today; "Tiger Hill" and "The Lingering Garden".    

 

The 36-meter-tall Huqiu (Tiger Hill) stands outside the lumen Gate to the north west of Suzhou. It was where the King of the State of Wu( a small state in the Spring and Autumn Periods over thousands of years ago) Fu Chai, buried his father-Helu along with 3,000 swords. Legend has it that on the third day after the burial, a white tiger appeared to guard the tomb, hence the name of the hill.

     Lingering Garden (留园, Liú Yuán) is located outside the Changmen gate (阊门) of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province. It was commissioned by an official named Xu Taishi (徐泰时) in 1593. A main feature in the garden is an artificial miniature mountain called Shi Ping Peak that is modeled after Tiantai Mountain in Putao.

     In between the two tours above we had lunch with our guide and driver.  Of course they selected the items off the menu..... and "WOW" was the food good!  After lunch we went to the Suzhou N0.1 Silk Factory where they taught us how silk is made and where it comes from.  It comes from the "silk worms"... 

Yummy

     All in all a good day in China.  Lia is loving all the waitresses that we have in various restaurants we eat in.  She is a "real charmer".  We eat breakfast in the hotel restaurant and this morning as we got off the elevator she loudly exclaimed "Hello, Ni Hao" when she saw the hostesses.  The time change, nap routines, sleep is tough, but we'll get through it.  We talk about Rosalie all the time and can't wait for Monday!   

Our Pearl Jumping at the Pearl

     Zeta, our guide greeted Lia this morning with a Dragon Boat Festival souvenir. It’s a little mini lantern that says Congratulations and Good Health. Lia is quite taken with Zeta. We then went to the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Radio and TV Tower. It was misting out, since it is a rainy season right now. The tower has 3 red balls that you can go up to. At the 2nd ball, which is 259 meters up (750 feet), there is a glass floor that you can walk on. I really am pretty good about heights, but to walk on a transparent floor is really quite scary. I remember taking a psychology class and learning about babies crawling on glass. It was an experiment to see how babies would handle a glass floor that was perceptively dangerous. The babies didn’t have any fear yet, or maybe their perception was not developmentally there yet. Not sure when the fear sets in, or should I say common sense sets in...But Lia went out on it and starting jumping...eiy yie yie. Jumping. Not walking. Not crawling. Yes, jumping.

    

     I went out on my 4 limbs. I had to crawl. People were walking on it very easily. Some were doing great photo shoots; lying on their backs, in a pose of pretend fear. I finally got to that point of being goofy. Not “goofy challenging”, but “goofy take the picture fast please”. It was hard to look down or walk off of it. Crawling would suffice, but I managed to boldly walk off and kept my dignity. We walked around the observation floor and found where where Jiangxi, Nanchang is located. Of course we were very happy to take a serious photo, since that’s where we adopted Lia. We were filled with great memories. The Shanghai skyline is very beautiful.

     We then went to the Jade Buddha Temple. People were burning incense, praying, singing, and bowing to the North, South, East and West Gods. Surrounding the temples were many beautiful lanterns with red ribbons tied onto them. Where the reclining Buddha was, we found a calligrapher who painted Rosie’s name on a scroll. We chose to have him write what we hope for Rosie. He wrote happiness, good health, smiles every day, and smart. Lia has a simular scroll that we had bought in Nanchang.

     Since we were then quite hungry, we went out to a restaurant close to the hotel. After we ordered, the waiter brought something totally different than what we had expected. It ended up to be pretty good, and Lia ate a lot of it. The other entree was absolutely horrible. To me, it seemed as if it was a cow’s tongue. Not that I ever ate a tongue, but it sure seemed to have a very odd and tough texture, and the flavor was not appealing. Keith and I reminisced about Nanchang. Whenever we went out of the hotel to eat, it was so appealing, and we enjoyed the food tremendously. We need to find our niche, and fast! We’re not MacDonald’s people but yet we don’t want to eat pigeon or shark (which was actually on the menu). I’ve been really enjoying my traditional pot of Jasmine tea though.

     Tomorrow we will be going to the Asian City of Suzhou.

Ni Hao Shanghai!

Good bye New York..... Hello Shanghai!
We got picked up Wednesday, 6/12 at 3 a.m.  As we were putting Lia in the car seat, she surprisingly woke up and screamed, "We're going to get Rosie!".  During the whole flight, we didn't see the darkness of night.  We arrived Thursday at 2 p.m. which was really 2 a.m. Thursday morn New York time.

Lia was quite charged up when we finally got off the plane  in Shanghai! Check out the Big Sister shirt.

 Everything went super well. 

Baggage claim sign says Newark to Shanghai, flight 835.

Lia couldn't keep her eyes open during dinner, and crashed.  She's now wide awake at 10:15. 

Tomorrow we are touring Shanghai.  Our guide is taking us to the Pearl TV Tower...On Monday, we meet Rosie at 9:30 at the SCH!

Here's an updated photo of Rosie taken a few hours ago. It's so neat to know that she is anticipating our arrival.  We'll be there on Monday; 5 days from when this photo was taken.

We sent Rosie a care package with a Shutterfly book that we put together, so she knows a lot about Lia.  Can't imagine what it will be like when they meet.  Our agency taught us a amazing technique to help with bonding called "mirroring", and I think Lia and Rosie will mirror each other naturally...

3 More Days Until We Travel!

We just got our itinerary yesterday!  Since we have already done Beijing sightseeing, we thought we'd rather go directly to Shanghai and tour in that region.  We're actually quite thrilled that the adoption will take place where we fly into, since it cuts down on the amount of hotel changes.  It will be less stressful for Lia.  Which means less stressful for all of us!
Thoughout our visit in Shanghai, we'll be doing paperwork mostly every morning.  On Friday, we'll be touring Shanghai, including the Bund.  On Saturday, we'll be going to Suzhou and visit Tiger Hill and Su Garden.   I think Chinese gardens will be perfect for Lia!  Sunday is a free-for-all day.  Monday is the day that we meet Rosie!  Wednesday will surely be very interesting; we'll all be going to visit Rosie's orphanage.
We travel to Guangzhou on Friday, and then have the medical exam the next day.  It will be fun to be back in Guangzhou and do things that we wish we had more time for, like the City Zoo and Baiyuan Mountain Park.  Since our Visa appointment is late in the week (Thursday), the trip is extended a bit longer than when we adopted Lia.  More time for us to sightsee!