The Silk Market

Today we went to the Silk Market. It is about a 30 minute walk from our hotel. We ended up walking back at about 12:30 p.m., and boy was it hot. I can just imagine what it's going to be like in Jiangxi.

I'd been warned that the vendors at the Silk Market are very aggressive, which is definitely the case. I think tonight I'll be dreaming about little Chinese women grabbing me and saying "hi lady" and trying to convince me to stop and check out their stuff. Anyhow, once we caught on to bartering it was actually kind of fun. DoT bought a shirt -- supposedly Polo, but who knows. And we bought two small, soft-sided suitcases which we may use to go to the province, since the weight restrictions within China for luggage are quite low. And our big suitcases are heavy empty. We also bought two hand-painted paintings -- literally hand painted. The guy doesn't use any brushes, but only various parts of his hand. They are very nice. Then right before we were going to leave we bought stamps for both DoT and I, and two for the two girls. They have our Chinese names on them, and came in a nice velvet box with a little red ink pad. Oh, and we also bought some tea. Hopefully it will be good. :-)

We'll do more shopping tomorrow, and hopefully the places we'll go will be a bit less aggressive. We'll see.

Later today, it's the acrobats.

Hopefully tonight we can manage to stay awake until at least 9 p.m. Last night we only lasted until 6 p.m. (6 a.m. Ontario time), and then of course woke up this morning at 4:00 a.m.

Here are a few pictures we took at our hotel...



This is a shot of our room. We've been in it all of 5 minutes at this point, and already it's a bit messy!










This is the view from our hotel room window.














And this is a shot of the entry way into the Japanese restaurant in our hotel. This is one of 4 restaurants at our hotel.

We made it

Okay, first post from China. It is now 2:30 p.m. (or 2:30 a.m. in Ontario) and we just arrived at our hotel. It's very nice. Our room is being cleaned right now, so we thought we'd visit the business centre and see if we could update the blog. So far so good. We're going to try to stay up for about 5 or 6 hours yet to get us onto the right schedule.

Air Canada apparently decided that a 13.5 hour flight was just not long enough, so they loaded us onto the plane this morning and then we sat for an hour before taking off. The flight was an hour delayed and we didn't make up any time on the way here, so we got in about an hour after we were scheduled. After we cleared through all the various checkpoints, our guide Ma Rui (Mary) was waiting for us. She is great! Her English is very good, and she has a really easy manner about her. She has already arranged an extra tour for us -- tomorrow we are going to see a Chinese acrobatic show. Should be good. I've heard from other people that it is pretty entertaining.

The flight here was LONG, and I was sitting next to an annoying guy. More details on that later, maybe. We watched three movies on the way (none were great), DoT read about 100 pages of a book, and I did about 50 sudokus. And we ate three plus (gross) meals. (DoT didn't mind them.) The best one was the noodles -- which were really just like a large cup of Mr. Noodles. It hearkened me back to my university days.

Well, that's it for now. And I know all of you are unhappy because there are no pictures. We'll try to post some tomorrow or the next day. But for now we just want to get to our hotel room.

Ni hao!

Last update from Canada

This will be our last update from Canada. DoT and I are leaving Ottawa this morning to head to southern Ontario, and then will fly to Beijing on Wednesday morning. We haven't packed yet, but will be starting that as soon as I finish this blog update. We've been piling most of the stuff we'll be taking in one spot, with the exception of clothes, so hopefully the packing won't take too long. Here's a picture of everything we need to bring... looks like we may need one suitcase just for all this stuff!

Yesterday we went to visit our friend Jie who is originally from China and living here now. She fed us some really yummy Chinese buns, and talked to us about the trip. She also translated a letter I wrote to E and A's foster family that I hope to somehow get to the foster mom. I'm planning to deliver the letter, a small photo album and some self-addressed envelopes to the foster mom, in the hopes that she will send us some additional information about the girls as well as her address so that we can keep in contact with her over the years. I'd like to send her pictures and updates of how the girls are doing as they grow up.

Jie also looked at the referall information we received. One really neat thing that we learned is that their names together mean 'happiness'. The symbol on the right is the Chinese word for 'happiness' (xiyue). So, when they named the girls, the orphanage staff split the word happiness and gave a part of it to each of them. I love this.

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully the next post will be from Beijing. Take care, all!

The Nursery

Over the weekend, DoT and I finally finished getting the nursery ready. We set up the second crib, I finished the bulletin board (for those of you still trying to figure out the names of our twins, these pictures will give it away), and we put up some really cute wall stickers given to us by our friend M.



None of the pictures show the stickers very well, but they're cute little butterflies, ladybugs, and flowers of different colours and sizes.



My sister P gave us the bear holding the balloons. And the little doll sitting on top of the shelves in this picture, was given to us by a friend at a shower on Saturday night. It's the only doll I've ever seen that is a Chinese baby. To the right of the doll is a little toy telephone -- another shower gift which, as I understand it, every kid needs. :-)

The list of things to do and buy is starting to shrink, finally. Good thing too, since this is our last week of work, and then we'll be heading to southern Ontario and flying out for Beijing next Wednesday. The pile of stuff we have started putting together, to pack for China, is getting ever larger though, and we're now starting to worry that we'll be able to fit it all into two suitcases.

Our China "vacation"

Hee. I know it's not going to be a vacation, but if it weren't for the fact that we're getting two baby girls it could be. Our agency has planned lots of sightseeing in the two weeks we're in China, and DoT and I hope to take advantage of as much of it as we can.

So, here's our itinerary:

June 28 - 29: Fly from Toronto to Beijing. Our travel guide will meet us at the airport and take us to the International Hotel.

June 30 - July 1: Other families in our travel group, including C & M, will arrive in Beijing. We'll try to take in some of the Beijing sights we won't be seeing later in our visit (e.g., the Summer Palace).

July 2: Fly from Beijing to Nanchang, in Jiangxi province, and check in at the Gloria Plaza Hotel. In the afternoon we will meet the babies in the hotel and sign the adoption agreement!!!

July 3: Go to the Civil Affairs office for registration, notarization and applying for passports for the babies.

July 4: Visit Leping, where the girls are from. It will take around 3-3.5 hours, one-way, to get to the city, so probably only one of us will go, and the other will stay in Beijing with the babies.

July 5: Visit the Temple of Teng Wang Ge.

July 6: Visit the resort for Ba Da ShanRen.

July 7: Pick up the babies' passports. Fly from Nanchang to Beijing and go back to the International Hotel.

July 8: Medical exams and photos of the babies.

July 9: Sightseeing -- the Great Wall.

July 10: Go to the Canadian Embassy for our visa appointment.

July 11: Visit Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City.

July 12: Rest day, or shopping.

July 13: Go on a Hutong Tour, pick up the visas, and go out for dinner (Beijing Duck, previously known as Peking Duck) with the group in the evening.

July 14: Fly to Toronto

It's getting close, and very exciting!!

The palest ink is better than the best memory

After the last couple of weeks of creating lists, stroking things off the list, consolidating lists and then creating more lists, I thought the above Chinese proverb was appropriate for today's blog title.

I found a website that has popular Chinese proverbs, and the one in the title jumped out at me. Some of the proverbs were already familiar to me, like the one that says "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. " Some others really appealed to me, and a couple I just found funny (and confusing). Here's my top ten list....

After three days without reading, talk becomes flavorless.

A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood

Crows everywhere are equally black.

Do not employ handsome servants.

Donkey's lips do not fit onto a horse's mouth.

A fall into a ditch makes you wiser.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

He who hurries can not walk with dignity.

Never do anything standing that you can do sitting, or anything sitting that you can do lying down.

Of all the thirty-six alternatives, running away is best.

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.

Okay, so my top ten list has 11 entries. Did you even notice? Visit http://www.chinese-symbols.com/ (you'll find a link to the proverbs on the left side of that page) and let me know which are your favourites. Also at that site you can find your English name written in Chinese. Here are the symbols for DoT and I.

DoT:







Me:







Neat, eh?

Well, that's it for today. Next up, our in-China itinerary. We should be getting it any day now. We'll let you know what it looks like as soon as we know.

Shopping, Shopping and More Shopping!

Hi all, we have finally started collecting all the items we are supposed to be taking with us to China. It is a pretty long list and I wonder if we really need to bring a weed whacker and post hole digger?? We bought diapers (not sure what these will be used for but it can't be good), cold medicines, thermometers (you stick it where?), fever meds and wipes of all kinds. Something tells me we should be wearing plastic bags as our clothing of choice...







Here is a picture of one of the two quilts K's mom quilted for us (the back of each one is a different colour - one yellow and one blue). She had to hustle a bit on the second one after realizing we were getting twins but still managed to get it done in lots of time (and they look great). Our nephews who are 9 and 6 also helped grandma on the project! Thanks J and M!!








The Chinese symbol to the left is "rooster" which is significant because the girls were born in the Year of the Rooster. So was I (just not the same year...)



Our Chinese friend Jie found us an English map of Jiangxi province. We will be staying in a hotel in the capital city of Nanchang while we spend the first week there (some paperwork and some sight-seeing). The girls are from Leping, which is to the east of Nanchang and slightly north. We may get to go back to Leping to see the orphanage if the travel guide organizes that for us. It is hard to find Leping on most maps since it is so small compared to other Chinese cities - it has only 750,000 people!!

See a picture of the map below. HINT: look under cat.