Ladybug Adventures

Tuesday, November 15, 2005 9:36 AM CST

Subject: Shopping in Guangzhou

Today, after breakfast, we headed for the shops surrounding the White Swan Hotel to do some major shopping. Although we did do a little shopping in Beijing, we saved most of our shopping for Guangzhou where prices are much better. The list of items we have acquired is too long for us to list at this time, but we did get some great deals.

Then at 11:30 am we met with Stacy Dexter and had lunch with him. Many of our fellow CWA friends reading these posts may remember Pat and Stacy Dexter. They adopted their yougest daughter Hope from China in 2002 through CWA and they are currently missisonaries here in Guangzhou, where they have been for nearly 3 years now. This is the first time we have gotten to meet Stacy and we had a wonderful visit with him. We regret that we missed meeting his wife Pat, as she is currently visiting family in the United States.

After lunch, Lisa took Xue Zheng back to the room for a nap, while Steve went with Stacy to a local fish and reptile market. The market was located on about a 20 square acre plot and it was the most interesting/disgusting thing Steve had ever seen. Steve said the cages, crates and barrels held all types of fish, frogs, turtles, and snakes. All awaiting a buyer to take them to one of the local restaurants to become someones dinner.

At 3:00 pm we met with our group and our guide took us all to a local Buddhist Temple called the 6 Banyon Tree Temple. It was a very pretty area and was very intersting to see. We were offered the opportunity to take our children to the main building to have a Buddhist Monk bless them, which was about a 10 minutes ceremony. Needless to say, not being Buddhist, we chose not to participate in this ceramony.

From the Buddhist Temple, we were then taken to a Jade Store that is government run, but bargaining was still allowed. We were able to find a couple small pieces of jewelry that we were able to bargain and get for a decent price.

We then went to dinner at ... you guessed it.... another Chinese restaurant. The food was pretty good, but we are all getting pretty tired of Chinese food.

After dinner, we came back to the hotel, where we all went our separate ways. Most of us hit the shops again to do a little more shopping. We made a couple more purchases this evening, then we went in search of a suitcase to use to get our purchases home.

Zheng Zheng continues to do well, however, she seems to have picked up a bit of a cold, as she has a runny and stuffy nose and a bit of a rattly cough. We have given her a couple doses of a decongestant and some cough medicine and hope she doesn't get any worse until we can get her home. Please keep this in your prayers.

We would also like to once again request your prayers for our safety in light of the fact that we found out today, that there has once again been a terror alert issued. This time the terror alert is specifically for Guangzhou (where we are currently located) and specifically against government buildings, hotels, restaurants, etc. where Americans tend to meet or congregate. This makes us a bit nervous since we are in a hotel that is frequented by thousands of Americans every year, including past U.S. Presidents, etc. As well as the fact that we have our appointment at the U.S. Consulate tomorrow, which is also a possible target. Please pray that the three of us, along with the rest of our group, remain safe and healthy for our return home on Thursday (Wednesday night your time).

Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day for us, as our guide has planned a few activities for us tomorrow. And we also have to get everything packed up and ready to fly home. So this will likely be our last post from China. We will try to make another post once we get home to fill you in our last day here and the flight home.

Emilie, mommy and daddy love you very much and we will see you in 2 days.

Love in Christ,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng

Monday, November 14, 2005 8:46 AM CST

Subject: Exam Day
This morning was our first morning in the White Swan and the breakfast buffet here is absolutely wonderful. The breakfast buffet we had in Beijing was nice, but was getting a bit old after 8 days. So the White Swan Breakfast buffet has been a very nice and welcome change.

After breakfast this morning, we noticed that it was raining, so that put a damper on our shopping plans. Instead we came back to our room, gathered our dirty laundry and Steve took it to one of the shops across the street from our hotel to have it washed. They do a very good job for a very good price.

Then he took Xue Zheng downstairs to the Mattel Playroom that is in the lower level of our hotel. While they were playing Lisa spent time organizing some of the paperwork we needed to get ready for our Visa Appointment at the U.S. Consulate.

The rest of our group showed up from Nanchang at about 12:30 pm today. All of their girls are just adorable! We thought Nikole would be very happy to meet everyone and we had been telling them what a happy little girl she is, then when it came time to meet them all, we had to wake her from her nap. Needless to say, she was less than thrilled. She was a very unhappy for the next hour or so, since she had not had enough sleep. After we joined up with them we went at 1:30 pm to go get the Visa photos taken of the girls and then we all went to lunch. After lunch we walked to the clinic for the girls to get their medical exam. The medical exam was not Nikoles favorite thing in the world, but went as well as could be expected. Because of Nikole's special need (VSD - Ventricular Septal Defect), they had two doctors lisen to her heart and they both said everything sounded fine. They also told us the currently weighs in at 28.7 pounds.

After the exam we were all free to go. Our guide asked us to be in our room shortlly after 5:00 PM so she could go over all our Visa paperwork with us. And she was also having Pizza Hut Pizza delivered to our room tonight. We will all meet up and eat as a group again tomorrow evening for supper.

All the rest of our free time was spent shopping. We have ordered a couple granite etchings, and then tonight we also bought several little silk dresses for both Emilie and Xue Zheng.

Emilie, mommy and daddy love you and miss you very much. We enjoyed talking to you on the phone again tonight.

We will be home in 3 days.

Love in Christ,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng

Sunday, November 13, 2005 8:38 AM CST

Subject: In Guangzhou

Well, we made it. We are now residing in room 1707 in the beautiful White Swan Hotel. Our room has a king size bed and beatiful view of the Pearl River. It is truly nice to be able to walk the streets around the White Swan and hear American voices. As there are several hundred other adoptive families staying in the same hotel. Where in Beijing, we were nearly the only adoptive family to be found in our hotel. Partially due to the fact that the Beijing Children's Welfare Institute does not do many adoptions.

Now a little bit about our day. We started out by meeting our guide and driver at 9:00 am this morning as we were checking out of our hotel. Our guide took us immediately to the airport and got us checked in and through security. We were expecting Xue Zheng to melt down when Annie left us at the airport, but luckily there was enough activity at the security check that she was distracted and didn't even notice Annie leaving.

We then boarded our flight for Guangzhou that left at noon. The plane was very nice, a brand new Boeing 777. We even had an inflight movie, which is not always common on Chinese flights. However, it appeared to be an old 1970's "B" movie.

Since this was Xue Zheng's first time on an airplane, we had no idea what to expect. She did amazingly well for the first hour and a half of our nearly 3 hour flight. She fell asleep about 15 minutes after takeoff, but something woke her and the melt down began. She cried, loudly for the next 25 minutes. We knew it was mostly because she was tired and it was her nap time. Being the parents of the year that we are, we had forgotten to get a towel to take on the plane with us. (the towel is Xue Zheng's comfort item when she sleeps) After walking around the plane with her, and even letting 4 of the chinese flight attendants take her to the back for a bit to calm her down, Steve finally thought to ask one of the attendants if they had a towel. Sure enough, they did, and that did the trick. She was happy and smiling by the time the plane landed.

When we landed we got our bags and left the baggage claim area to look for our guide who was to be awaiting us. To our surprise, we found no guide. We stood there turning in cicles for a couple of minutes, wondering what to do next. Then about the time panic was beginning to set it, we spotted a gentleman holding a sign with our names on it. He apologized over and over, but showed us that the board he was watching showed that our flight had not yet arrived, and that was why he was not at the exit right away.

Our guide, Elvin, brought us to the White Swan and got us checked in and our bags brought to our room. He even requested this wonderful room with the view of the Pearl River. He then asked us if we wanted to go out for dinner, or if we would prefer to have dinner from Danny's Bagel's delivered to the room. Since Xue Zheng hadn't had much of a nap today, we chose pizza from Danny's Bagels. It was wonderful. We then took a quick walk to do some window shopping and get an idea for our shopping adventures to come in the next couple of days here around the White Swan.

The rest of our group arrives tomorrow around noon and we will be going to Xue Zheng's Visa photo taken and go for her medical exam.

God bless,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng