the Buddhist Temple in Guiyang

I think...okay, I know....my favorite this thusfar has been visiting the Buddhis temple in Guiyang.  We were so sad we did not have more time on this excursion as it was the best for our entire trip.  Our guide and driver too us to Liang Park.  This park is a natural sanctuary that is capped with a very old Buddhist temple.  We drove through and out of the city and eventually hit a little (I mean little) dirt road through an old part of town (that is very much lived in).  We finally came to the sanctuary which was such a stark contrast to the rest of the city.  There was a man made resevoir which provided much of the drinking water to the city at the base of the mountain.  It was obvious that the area was untouched and was a lush area filled with incredible greenery. 

One of the special things about the park was the monkeys that were indigenous to the area.  They come out in the morning when the park is busiest with morning excercisers and tourists.  We took several photos of the monkeys as you can see! 

After visiting the monkeys, we journeyed up to the temple which was very beautiful.  I won't say much about the temple, as our time there was filled with peace and joy as well as sadness.  If you want to know what I mean, you can ask me, but I will not say here. 

I will say this, the monks were singing while we were there and no matter what tradition it is from, there is nothing more beautiful and peaceful than listening to monks sing praises to their higher power.

We are so blessed to have made this special visit.

More on Guiyang

It was probably obvious to you that I did not enjoy Guiyang City in the province of Guizhou.  However, there were a couple of high points I want to talk about.  On our third day of having Arwyn, our guide Aggie took us to Qian, a 600 year old village outside of Guiyang.  Though this is what many of us think of when we think of China - and these areas do still exist - they are being lost or rather drowned out with the progression of a much more modern society. 

I applaud China, though as they are making efforts to preserve these areas for future generations.  Qian is a very beautiful village that is a living village.  Not like Williamsburg where people pretend to be a living village.  Qian is a real village where people live how they have for the last 600 years, including farming in the traditional ways (okay, all except some of the folks drive new Audis).  We did some shopping in Qian and had a wonderful visit in the local tea shop, which was enchanting.  I am including some photos in this post of our time in Qian.

If you look behind us in the photo of the 4 of us, you can see the tiered gardens where the locals grow their food.  And, the photo that looks like a temple, with the incense, is a temple.  It is a Taoist temple where I was honored to be able to make an offering and ask for blessing on our family.  I was so grateful to be able to honor the Taoist tradition in this way for us and for Arwyn and to offer our thanks for the gift we have received.

We also visited a Buddist temple in Guiyang (see next post).  The Taoist and Buddhist temples were probably my favorite parts of the trip! I wish we could have skipped the Great Wall and other touristy things to see all of the temples in China.

Gyuiyang, Guizhou

While the thoughts are still fresh in my mind, I want to write about Guizhou (Arwyn's province), specifically the capitol city where we stayed, Guiyang.  We flew into a smallish airport on Sunday evening of last week.  Our guide, Aggie and our driver for the week, Mr. Wu, picked us up after a 3 hour delay from Beijing due to heavy fogs.  Guiyang is in the center of a ring of mountains and misty fogs often settle over the city.  That day, however, the fogs had lifted and it was sunny and around 60 degrees.  As we drove into the city we saw that the area was a natural beauty.  In fact, the province boasts the largest cave and waterfall in China.

We drove into the city and it seemed very metropolitan.  Over 1.3 MILLION people live in the city with nearly 3 million in the area immediately surrounding the city.  We went to our hotel, a new Sheraton that was built as a sort of a business destination and was built to seriously appeal to Westerners.  I won't say too much about the hotel, however, they were SO kind to us the entire week.  They went out of our way to make our stay as pleasurable as possible.  The only negatives in regards to our stay in this VERY posh hotel were the smells in the bathroom.  The bathroom was very nice but smelled like cooked cabbage.    We also were in a hotel that turns off the entire heating and cooling system in moderate weather.  Outside, the weather was around 75 degrees.  The first night we were able to use our AC which was sweet, but the next day it no longer worked.  The manager was nice enough to send up  housekeeping to open our windows (a big help, not) and bring a fan.  At least he tried! 

This was the hardest leg of the trip for me.  Beijing is very metropolitan and our agency guides were with us as was the rest of the group.  Doing everything en masse made life fun and manageable in Beijing.  Going into Guiyang was like being slingshot into a foggy dream.  I found it very difficult to navigate the city.  Very few people we encountered spoke English.  I don't mean to sound like an American who expects everyone to speak English.  I do not feel that way.  But, we were expecting to have our guide with us more than she was.  The first day we were dropped at the hotel.  We were dirty, tired and hungry and was hoping our guide would help us get acquainted with the area before leaving us.  She did not.  We were completely on our own.

We did manage on the next day, after getting Arwyn, to get out and get to Wal-Mart....okay - we stopped shopping at WM years ago and I we only eat at McD's a couple of times a year.  Since being in China I have eaten McD's 3 times and shopped at Wal-Mart (a horendous experience!).  In Guiyang there is no air conditioning.  Coupled with the large number of people crowded into the shops and restaurants, I felt like I would pass out each time we went into a building.  We finally found a very posh 6 story department store near the hotel (also unbearably hot) but in the basement there was a very nice grocery store (reminded us of Whole Foods) which was VERY air conditioned.  We went there a couple of times for refuge!!!

Let's talk about the food.  In Beijing, we had a fabulous breakfast buffet.  For lunch, we went with the group and our guides ordered our food for us.  They did a great job ordering for such a large group of people.  We also had a nice buffet in Guiyang, but had a very difficult time eating outside of that.  Okay,  Noah and I had a difficult time eating.  Nathan was fine anywhere.  We ate several times for lunch in the hotel and ate dinner mostly in the room with room service.  We ventured out once to the Chinese restaurant next door which was okay but not great as we did know what to order.  On the last day we finally ate a cheap local restaurant with our guide and it was DELICIOUS.  And, the 4 of us plus our guide and driver all ate lunch for around $12.00.  This was what we were wanting the entire time, but could make her understand that we needed her help.  Her English was excellent, but there is an assumption that wanted to eat at the finer local restaurants, which were more like $30 per meal. 

Oh well.....We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel with a most delicious Turkey!  We were very impressed.  Apparently it is very fashionable to celebrate Thanksgiving here in China and the restaurant was full with double the staff.  We know that because we were fortunate to get to know the restaurant staff during the course of our stay.  But, how could we not, with Arwyn Croy - Ambassador to China - with us.  She appears to be attaching well to us and does not attempt to go to other adults, but she is more than happy to smile, wave and blow kisses at all passersby. 

The culture here is very different from the culture of Beijing and VERY different from Guangzhou, where we are now.  I won't go into details as I do not want to seem disrepectful, but it is obvious that poverty is much more extreme in Guiyang and the average person is much less educated.  This is not in reference to lack of English in the province.  This is in respect to the habits of the people on the street and more.  It was also obvious that Westerners rarely visit this city.  We gathered that by the stares of MANY of the people.  We got a few stares in Beijing, but nothing obvious and few here in Guangzhou, but no one really pays attention to us.  In Guiyang we had people stare hard at us and had children look and laugh and stare wide eyed. 

Well, not a very well written blog post, but my thoughts on Guiyang nonetheless.  I am having more difficulty putting my thoughts in order now as we near the end of the trip.  We are travel weary and ready to come home.  I'll post more as I want to share a few more things about Guiyang. 

Peace Out.  Dana.

 

Let's Talk About Arwyn

Hey Ya'll.  Well I'm remiss in my posting duties!  Tonight we are in Guangzhou, Guangdong in the SouthEastern part of China.  I am hanging in the Starbucks listening to Louie Armstrong and really missing home but glad to be here and thankful for Nathan, Noah and Arwyn.  We arrived in GZ on Friday night around 8:30 after a short flight from Guiyang.  I want to tell you about Arwyn, or at least a little bit about her, tonight.

I'll start with our first meeting.  Last Monday, after 3.5 years of waiting, the director of the  Tongren Social Welfare Institute along with one of the teachers, walked into the Guizhou Center for Adoption Affairs with a confused but smiling little girl who instantly won our hearts.  She was introduced to us and pretty much came right to us (which concerned me just a little - but now I think all is well).  Right away the paperwork started and our guide and the adoption center folks worked on that while we all got acquainted.  Arwyn right away seemed as if she was beginning a grand adventure and was happy to be with us. 

I remembered the picture album we sent to her and asked for it.  Luckily the orphanage director remembered it and gave it to her (it is often forgotten so I was thankful for this.)  We began looking at it with her and gave her a couple of more things to occupy her while we worked on our portion of the paperwork.  She was so pleasant the entire time and looked so big (thanks to the many layers of WOOL she was in.  Of course, it was VERY cold that morning, so I was glad she was dressed warmly.) 

We then had the opportunity to ask questions of the teacher about her and her habits and what she likes and doesn't like.  They seemed very fond of her and her of them, which is a good thing.  I have to tell you, Arwyn is SO healthy compared to so many children that come from orphanages and foster care - I don't mean just in terms of China, but the US, parts of Africa, Asia, all over.  The care of the children in the orphanges in China is SO much better now than it was 5 years ago even, thanks in part to the donations made by adoptive families. 

We have folks in our travel group whose first children came malnourished, had scalps covered in boils, were covered in bugbites.  Not to say that does not still happen here....you still here of a few orphanages that do not provide adequate care for the children....but out of the 10 families in our travel group, all 10 children seem well cared for (they came from 8 different orphanages)

Back to Arwyn!  She has the most incredible spirit and she loves us so much.  The days have been fairly easy with her.  We have been wearing her in the sling quite a bit ( not small feat as the girl is heavy!).  Yesterday we finally bought an umbrella stroller as we are getting tired of  carrying girlfriend everywhere, though she loves it!!!!  Actually, we are still wearing her part of the time as we understand the importance of touching her and caring for her to facilitate our bonding. 

She is picking up English very well. She is really lacking in her Chinese.  We thought this was due to her cleft issues, and largely are.  However, what we have realized is because of her cleft the orphanage workers more than likely allowed her speech to develop on its own without correcting her pronunciation.  Judging by the English words she is already saying, I am guessing that once she is in speech therapy, the mechanics will come easily. 

Arwyn is so independent.  She is not used to adults doing everything for her.  Part of me wants to be sure to not curb that independent spirit but I also want her to know that we are here to love and help her.  We have put on her shoes almost everytime they were needed and I dress and undress her, but she can do that and more on her own.  I can tell you that she can do things that Noah could not do until he was 5 - all due to having to do everything herself.  She also is a clean freak, which Nathan is thrilled about.  If anyting is out of place, she immediately puts it back.

She is one of the silliest children that Nathan and I have ever seen.  She has these faces she makes at us.  Though I felt like we were doing great as a  family and one on one bonding with her, it was not until the past 2 days that things really clicked.  While waiting for our luggage on Friday night (I had her in the sling), she was making faces at me.  She had been making these faces at us all week, but we had no idea what she was doing.  I finally started making them back at here and she laughed hysterically.  She had been waiting all week for that reaction!  She and I stood making these faces over and over again for 10 minutes while waiting for Nathan and Noah to get the bags.  We both laughed and laughed.  People around us were staring and laughing as well!

Then, yesterday, we were finally able to get her down for a nap (thank God!).  She was so rested and last night was the first night she went to bed with no fears and no tears.  We made a huge breakthrough on that one.

We are both so amazed that this kid has not been with us forever.  I think that most of us adoptive parents have many fears surrounding our adoptions.  Are we making good decision?  Will we be good parents?  Will we meet their needs?  Will we be able to attach???????  Every fear melted away when that little girl walked in the room.  We are so happy with her and she seems to be happy with us.  Noah loves her and she him.  In fact, Noah was probably the first thing she said after "mama" and "baba." 

Well, I'm exhausted and want to get back to my book - The Lost Symbol.  I'll try to post more in the next couple of days.  I want to share my thoughts on Guiyang here as well while they are still in my mind.

Have a great night....see you in 8 days.  (Someone make me some sweet tea.....PLEASE!)

Introducing....Chelsea Arwyn Yuqian Croy

A few photos of our girl!

More Photos

Ni Hao Ya'll.  Here are a few photos from Day 2 in Beijing.  They are mostly of the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.  There is one of Nathan and Noah in Tiennamen Square (notice Chairman Mao's picture).  Finally, there is one of the mountains we flew over into Arwyn's province.    The children with Noah are the children of the other parents in our travel group.  If Noah looks unhappy in a couple of the photos, don't get alarmed.  He is pretending to be the Emperor.  Please keep us in you thoughts today as today is the day we get Arwyn.  I am visualizing an easy transition for her over the next few days that are full of love and without fear. 

Day 3

Well, here we are once again waiting for a plane.  I'm beginning to see a pattern.  I'm several chapters into The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown and Nathan and Noah are playing travel checkers so I thought I would take this opportunity to blog. Our plane to Guiyang is delayed due to heavy fog.  Luckily, the Beijing airport is very nice and modern.  In fact, we are in Terminal 3 which is a magnificent structure built to accommodate the heavy plane traffic from the 2008 Olympics.  Of course, that would indicate that there is not normally heavy plane traffic.  Let me assure you, there is heavy plane traffic at all hours of the day.  This airport is not the 3rd largest airport in the world and is built to represent a turtle when viewed from the outside.  It is all glass and steel and has every modern convenience imaginable, including all Western potties! 

I want to find a way to convey to you some of my thoughts thus far of China.  First of all, there are many minorities in China.  Very many cultures and peoples melted together into one, much like the US.  Of course, in China, there are similarities in appearance, unlike the US where we have many different complexions, hair color and eye color.  As a Westerner, I have walked through life having largely two ideas of what China is like.  The first is a bit romanticized and looks like a movie set in ancient China.  The next is a much less positive view of China set in post Mao times where the colors of grey and green dominate everything.  The reality???? Amazingly, somewhere in between. 

The people of China seem both very solemn and very joyful all at the same time.  We have seen so many smiles and so much laughter from the people, but there is an air of harshness that hangs over life here.  I am not sure why.  It has not been so long that China has been largely industrialized and in the larger cities there are many people that have migrated here from rural areas in recent times.   Life is definitely harder here than many Americans are used to.  To be clear, many Americans do not live in cushy suburban or urban areas and I realize that.  But it is obvious here by the cramped living quarters, laundry hanging in the windows of even the tallest apartment buildings, the still many people who not only travel to work on a bicycle but use thier bicycles to conduct work....that life here is harder than in the US.

Many of the younger people - most really - have embraced the modern times.  Cell phones, lap tops, very hip clothing - these things dominate the younger culture.  Many of the older folk that lived through uncertain times still wear the Mao jackets in the color of Army green and have a very tired look in their eyes. 

Among all of that is the dominate color of red.  Of course, Westerners immediately associate that with Communism, but it isn't so.  Red and yellow were the imperial colors and are still used today.  It is so fascinating to see a country who is working so hard to modernize and throw off all ideas of superstition and religion to embrace these ancient symbols and colors in such a profound way.  I don't even know how to fully put into words my thoughts on this.  I am thrilled to see the continued use of the principles such as are seen in the art of feng shui and am saddened at the same time to know that many of China's youth are throwing out the traditions and superstitions that have long since guided this ancient country.

We are so fortunate that our adoption agency employs such incredible coordinators/guides.  Our guide Cindy is a history and culture buff and was such a fount of information.  She answered so many questions candidly.  She is a native of Beijing and has an obvious love of her culture.  In addition to working for CHI, she is a local guide and worked during the Olympics as a guide for the athletes and their families.

Speaking of the Olympics.  We drove by the stadium and it was very interesting.  Immediately upon entering the Beijing airport I was struck by the fact that everything was not only in Chinese but also in English.  I had been under the impression that very little English was in the airport - anywhere really.   I wondered how much impact the Olympics had on Beijing.  Apparent it had a huge impact.  We saw few store fronts, malls, restaurants, etc. that did not have English signs while on our whirlwind tour of the city.  The airport was easy to navigate thanks to the signs as well.  In preparation of the Olympics and the unveiling of the new China to the world, much transformation took place.  Much of the city was razed to make way for new hotels and skyscrapers.  The city streets were cleaned up (okay, I cannot imagine how they looked before if this is the cleaned up version), pollution cut (see previous statement about the "before"), roads where created, Western style toilets added (I'll post separately on the squatty potties).  Ultimately I am sure these changes were for the better.  From what I understand, the last 6 years have brought great change to the citizens of this capital city.

Well, that is all I have for now.  Noah wanted to send a shout out and you can read that below.  I am uploading some photos of our 2nd full day in China that  include the Forbidden City, Tiannamen Square and the Great Wall.  Oh, Noah fell asleep yesterday around 5:00 again and slept for several hours.  I am hoping that today will bring more of a settling in as we will spend the next 6 days with Arwyn in Guiyang, Guizhou.  We miss you all and will see you soon.  Hugs.

Noah's commentary:

We are going to see on Saturday my friends that I saw the last few days.  Their names are Avery, Julia, Emma and Jade.  They are all 6 years old and were all adopted from China.  They are the children of 4 other sets of parents in our travel group.  My favorite thing I saw was everything.  We went underground so we could get to the Tiennamen Square.  And, I went on the Great Wall of China.  I climbed many steps.  It was freezing cold.  And there was snow everywhere (but it was melting) except for the airport.  And, our plane was delayed in Newark. 

Day 2

Hi All.  It is 4:47AM in China and I have been awake since 12:30, yes, AM.  We've all been up for a few hours.  Apparently my stirrings woke up the sleeping King and Prince!  Actually, Noah had been asleep since 5PM yesterday so, he was scheduled to wake up.  Today, we will all try hard to stay up later so that we can sleep better.  We are packing our bags and heading to Guiyang which is the capital city of Arwyn's province.

Once we arrive and get settled, I'll send another post with photos of our Great Wall tour yesterday.  I have so many thoughts to share about China and have been journaling for Arwyn.  I will try to share some of them here after we get settled.

For family wanting to know where we have been staying in Beijing, here is a link to our hotel so you can see:

http://www.radissonblu.com/hotel-beijing

For now, keep us in your thoughts as we hop to the next city where we will receive a great gift tomorrow from the country of China.  We will be thinking of you all as Thanksgiving approaches.  We have so much to be thankful for during this season of gratitude.

"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul." - Henry Ward Beecher