Waterwheels and Laundry

THE SUN IS OUT TODAY!!!

We spent the morning at a park dedicated to waterwheels. The engineer is featured at the entrance (of course) and there are waterwheels large and small. WE enjoyed this day a great deal. The park was beautiful and located right on the Yellow River. At one time there were hundreds of waterwheels on the Yellow River here at Lanzhou. Afterward we had lunch in the room and Hui had a nap. Dinner was back at our favorite restaurant.

The fun thing of the day was making paper airplanes and flying them around the room. A hotly contested session of “hit the balloon in the hall” followed.

We look forward to leaving for Guangzhou tomorrow. We spend most of the day here then check out of the hotel at 2:30 PM for a 5 PM flight. We are a bit tired of waxing philosophically and just want to get on the road. We’ll save the philosophizing for later. All the best to everyone at home. We wish you were all here to share this with us, especially Matthew and Shaughn. We miss you guys a lot! See you soon!

Lanzhou Day 4-5-Five Springs Park, Zoo and Museum

These two days were a bit of a challenge. It has rained quite a bit which puts a damper on being outside. Nevertheless on Wednesday morning we made our way to Five Springs Park and the Lanzhou Zoo. A depressing day as the animals here are in pretty filthy conditions. We know that this is a different culture and respect that, but still it is difficult to see how these animals appear to be treated. Hui loved seeing the elephant and the giraffes. There were some very beautiful birds as well. We saw a panther, kangaroos, a wolf, a reluctant hippo, the requisite monkeys, and the like. After returning to the hotel and a nap, Hui, Emily, Mama and Baba played ball in the hall. She’s good at catching and at throwing. Wild sometimes, but fun. Dinner was back at the dumpling restaurant, and, believe it or not, Emily actually tried some food not familiar to her. She even admitted that she liked it. Pigeon feeding followed. The pigeons have learned what Olivia Hui looks like and come flying over to her. It is a joy to watch her giggle as they fly around her vying for the little bit of food she offers…. “Feed the birds, one Yuan a bag….. Yuan, Yuan, Yuan a bag……” The rest of the evening was spent watching the world track and field championship from Osaka, Japan. We rarely see the US athletes. And of course, all of the Chinese athletes are victorious. Come to think of it, it was a great deal like the US coverage…. Just as biased when you think about it. It gives one pause.

Thursday morning we loaded the van and headed for the provincial museum, as it was poring rain. This was an awful ride through the worst traffic we can ever remember. Three lanes become four. Pedestrians cross the street anywhere they want. Drivers change lanes without looking or seemingly caring if there is a car/bus in the way. Fortunately, we had a very skilled driver. Unfortunately, the combination of pollution, gas fumes, heat in the car, lack of ventilation and all the stop and start driving made Olivia sick. It took one hour to get to the museum. Dreadful trip but there was nothing to be done about it. We could not get out and walk because it was raining. The windows on the van had to be up because it was raining. We arrive at the museum and headed right to the washroom where Miss Hui had a little car sickness. Glad we got there. The rest of the visit went fine as Hui quickly regained her sea legs. Her favorites were the dinosaurs (of course) as well as some interactive games.

There has been a little snag with the paperwork, not on our end. This is on the SWI’s end of things involving a specific date Hui came to the SWI. It is a very minor issue but one that could hold us up in Guangzhou. Lina is working on it and believes that she will have everything completed for us so that we will not have a hold up at the consulate. Lina has been terrific. We are ready to go to Guangzhou and get the rest of this done so that we can come home to our family, our friends and OUR BEDS! We are most grateful for the excellent treatment we have received by the hotel staff, our local guides and our CHI coordinator, Lina. It is obvious that they have done this more than once.

Emily Gets A Mandarin Lesson

Hui finally got tired of us pointing to her photograph book and asking her "Who is this"...... she turned the tables with Emily by taking the book, pointing to a picture, and in Mandarin asking (WE THINK!) "Who is this?" When Emily replied in Mandarin, she shook her head as though to say, "That was awful! Try again!" The funniest moment is when Hui is saying snowman and Emily just can't quite get it right. (This part is not recorded) She said Baba something something something.... so I repeated it apparently to her satisfaction.... she looked at Emily and said...this was pretty obvious "Dad can say it correctly but not you!" then reached out and tapped Emily on the forehead. Very funny! Enjoy these moment between two sisters. Hui is now the teacher and Emily the student!

So Far Slide Show

Olivia Hui So Far

The slide show above documents our first three days in Lanzhou, including fun in the room after her arrival, the official adoption procedure, feeding the pigeons and the White Pagoda Park across the Yellow River in the mountains overlooking Lanzhou, which we did today. The day was rainy and smoggy all at the same time. Our eyes burn at times from the pollution. As you will see from the pics, visibility is poor.... but fun was had by all anyway. The park dates from the 13th century. Since Hui was born in the year of the horse and Emily was born in the year of the rooster we got pics of each sister next to a huge statue of their animal. The park starts at the edge of the river and climbs many levels until one reaches the 13th century shrine at the top of the hill. LOTS OF STEPS!

After the park we had lunch at the noodle restaurant where we ate the first day. Very crowded but a real slice of local color. Equally good this time.... 24 RMB (about $3.00) for all of us. The people stare at us quite a bit. We don't know if they are thinking "Who are those ugly people and why are they here?" or maybe "Why do they have that little Chinese girl with them?" "Who the heck do they think they are, coming to China and taking one of our Chinese Princesses home with them?" We are very sensitive to this and do hate that we are taking her from all that she knows. We assuage our guilt feelings over this by reminding ourselves that the literature says that as an orphan, she will have very little future here. Still, it is bittersweet. For her to gain (WE HOPE!) she has to lose. We know that WE have already gained a new love of our lives and that we will do anything to give her the life she deserves. I wax philosophic.

We continue to be amazed by Hui's personality and her spirit. She is, right now as I type this, giving Emily heck about something or other....... I wish we could understand her! This seems to bother her not at all.... she just chatters away! Emily just said "Thank You" to Hui for getting her a tissue, and Hui replied "You're welcome" in Mandarin....... Emily has been fantastic with Hui. It was the right decision to bring her along.
Entertainment in the afternoon while Hui takes her nap centers around watching the BBC News and CCTV 5, which seems to be their ESPN. All Chinese sports teams all the time. Right now we are watching badminton...... Yesterday it was ping pong..... boredom is a terrible thing.

(Later that day) We went for Chinese dumplings for dinner because that is what Olivia wanted to eat. They were tasty! We have a recipe for these that CHI gave us. We'll have to have a bunch over to try them... Emily wanted fried rice, so we went to a small restaurant on "restaurant row" ... very small two or three seat places.... while we were waiting for the order we noticed a group of young men walking by, one Chinese man had a blue shirt on with SLU on the front.... we said...SLU? NO! Can't be! Sure enough as they walked past there was a Billikin on the back of the shirt. John yelled out "Hey Billikins!" they turned around and were as shocked as we to find neighbors 7000 miles from home. The Chinese gentleman was born in China but has lived in the US since he was 3. His mom is from Beijing and his dad is from the south of China. There are about 100 students spending the year studying international business in China in Beijing and this group from SLU is touring the Silk Road before their term starts next week. A couple of the guys attended Chaminade and one or two live right down the street from Whitfield, where Em goes to school. As one guy said "It's the smallest world I've ever lived in!" By the way, Em's fried rice cost about 32 cents US.

Tomorrow we go to the Zoo and a local museum. The rumor is that they have camel rides. All the best to everyone back home.

She is now officially ours.

Olivia Hui is now officially ours ..... or maybe the real state of things is that we are officially hers.

We started the day with breakfast in the hotel. As we walked into the room we though.... my gosh....what does she eat for breakfast? There was a wide variety of foods available from traditional Chinese breakfast items to "British Style Potatoes." We saw that there were some steamed buns with vegetable filling... we started with that. She picked up her chopsticks and off she went. From there we tried watermelon, bacon (she liked this a lot), a bit of egg white from a hard-boiled egg, bits and pieces of a lot of different things. Orange juice was a hit. Barb and I had some eggs cooked to order, big hunks of toast (Hui liked this too) some bacon... etc. We just are not quite brave enough to try the traditional Chinese breakfast which is really interesting looking but very alien to our realm of experience. Maybe tomorrow.

After breakfast we went back to the room to brush our teeth. This was a question we had before arriving. "How would we find Hui's teeth?" All is good. We loaded up the brush and off she went brushing without any hesitation at all. It is obvious that she has done this before. We are pleased to report that her teeth look quite healthy.

Off to the Province Adoption office for the final signing of documents and paying of the notary fees. It was accomplished within an hour or so. It was obvious that both Chan (our local "guide" whom we suspect is actually much more than that) and Lina were doing a bunch of behind the scenes work. The Head Official asked us a few questions such as did we understand her heart issue and how were we prepared to handle it...could we pronounce her name? How old was she? Papers were signed and stamped with the official seals. The completed documents will be ready by tomorrow and her passport by Friday afternoon.

We got back to the hotel about 10:30 AM and decided to head over to the city square to feed the birds. Video soon. Then we went to a huge multiple level store to purchase Hui a couple pairs of pants, as we GUESSED WRONG and all the pants we brought are two sizes too large. So, we are trying on a couple of pair and then asked her which she liked. She said "I like them both." A born shopper, obviously. As we were walking through the store she made a comment.... I asked Lina what it was that she said and Lina said she said "Pretty dress." Observant. A large supermarket was located in the basement of the building where we bought a bunch of water, bananas, some meat sticks, juice boxes and potato chips (for Emmo). Diet Coke for Barb, of course. Back to the hotel room for eating then a nap for all....

Olivia Hui is a very sweet girl and we think probably full of herself. There are little hints, coming more frequently, that she is NOT the quiet, shy little girl portrayed in her profile. THANK GOD. Right now she is hunkered down with the other girls in a slumber party. She keeps pressing her talking doll non-stop. She and Em seem to be connecting really well. They are already playing "sister" games. Really fun to watch.

We are meeting Lina at 5 for dinner back at the noodle restaurant. Lina seems to think that Hui will like that a lot. Very tasty and very traditional Chinese fare.

In the pics, Hui is making her official handprint in red ink on the adoption document. In the second, she is feeding the pigeons. Lots of laughter.

More later.

Olivia Hui Day 3 Lanzhou The Big Day

Hui

WE HAVE HER!

And is she ever beautiful!

We received Olivia Hui at 2:30 PM from her two aunties. They stayed with us for about 30 minutes then as we went to Lina's room to "get something” they very quietly left our room. There were a lot of tears from a beautiful little Chinese princess for about 10 minutes. We even had a bit of a bloody nose she was crying so hard. It really broke our hearts but we knew she would need to cry. We know we are not done with this but 10 minutes seems pretty short for now. After we spent about 30 more minutes of getting to know each other we loaded up the van and went to have her passport photo taken. After that we were dropped off at a park where Hui fed some pigeons. There were many children and their parents enjoying the early evening. A big hit is her doll. She says several words in both Chinese and English like: I Love You, Hello, Goodbye, and How are you. Hui started saying BOTH English and Mandarin. Then, later in the room, she and Emily were playing with Emily's camera taking funny pictures and Barb said "Take one of Mamma" and Hui said "Take one of Mama," Good grief!

So, we are now in the 24-hour "Harmonious Period" where we have her with us to see if this is what we want to do..... I can tell you that we are hooked.

Arrival in Lanzhou

Here we are in Lanzhou. The flight here was fine. They passed out scratch off tickets for money on the plane as a game. A little girl seated next to our coordinator, Lina, won 100 Yuan.... a little more than $12. Maybe American or Continental could pick up on that. Apparently, one could win as much as 20,000 Yuan. That is actually some serious cash. It is overcast and a bit rainy. We had an amazing lunch of traditional Chinese noodles in a beef broth with some chili oil thrown in for good measure. A very local restaurant. I could not help but think of Mac Hinson, as he is the one who would have loved the heat of the chilies. We see Hui in about an hour. They are letting her rest right now.

There are five families from Denmark with children here at the hotel. They have been here a day or two. We saw one couple downstairs with their (looked like) three year old or so. She did not look convinced.....

The room is small but very nice. Lanzhou is an industrial town of about 3 million according to our local guide "Chan". He seems very cool and experienced. We also have a driver for the week as well as Lina. We feel very well taken care of. Emily made the comment that she now knows what it means to be a minority. Boy, are we.

Lanzhou is a city that is long (45 K) and narrow (7 K) and located in the Yellow river valley between two mountain ranges. Not high mountains at all .... kind of like the Ozarks. These are shots out of our window on the 12th floor.

More later.... film at 11.

Olivis Hui Day Two Beijing

OK....Well..... Up at 5 AM; breakfast at about 6:30. Tried to make the video camera work.... still can't view the blog (it just won't open here.... I can add posts etc, but it will not open.... interesting) So, I have no idea if anyone is seeing anything. If you do see this, shoot me an e-mail on my school account.

At any rate, a big day. We met Dennis and Lina, loaded the bus (there are 30 of us at last count) and departed for Tiananmen Square. This is located right outside the gate to the Forbidden City. We had a great lecture from Dennis regarding the square then we walked through the FC. History under out feet.... amazing. Lina is terrific. What an amazing smile. I think she is happy all the time. It will be fun to be with her full time starting tomorrow. She is very experienced at this sort of thing.

After the walk through the Forbidden City we loaded the bus and went to a great restaurant for lunch.... DUCK! Wonderful. The walls were full of pictures of all of the famous people who have eaten at this restaurant. A who's who of the famous. Now they have had us... they can close the place because how could they do better? After lunch we visited CHI's Beijing offices for an orientation meeting. Lina said that we are leaving the hotel at 6:00 AM to catch an 8:15 AM flight to Lanzhou. We arrive in Lanzhou at 10:30 then have about an hour ride to the city and our hotel. We are scheduled to meet Hui at 2:30 PM. She should be there by now as Lina said that she talked to the director earlier in the week and he said that they were leaving for Lanzhou early Saturday morning. We know she must be scared but hopefully excited to meet us. We are scared and excited to start this new chapter in our lives. Emily has been terrific. She is going to make Hui's transition much easier, we think. So..... that's tomorrow....

After the orientation we reboarded the bus and drove to the Great Wall. WOW. 'Nuff said.

We drove past the Olympic stadium on the way back to the hotel. They will have to push hard to make it in time for the games a year from now.... but... I guess labor and unions are not an issue here. Beautiful new buildings right next to squalid poverty.

There are people everywhere. Multiply New York City by five and you just about have it. Our eyes burn from the smog. We are looking forward to moving on to Lanzhou tomorrow. We hope the internet works there. The good news is that Emily got MacDonald’s for dinner tonight. Barb just went to bed about 7. We are close behind. As we go to bed you are all waking up and hopefully reading this. Keep us in your thoughts!

Video-Travel

Just a note:
The entire blogspot desktop is in Chinese. We have no idea what it looks like with the completed page as we make it and Oliviahui.blogspot.com is not opening up...... We are just punching buttons from memory. CRAZY!

Short night. It's 5:30 AMish here on Saturday morning. I am going to try to load a video or two if I can get this up and running.

Well, here we are. Our good friend a colleague, Mac Hinson, drove us to the airport for a 10:15 AM flight to Detroit. The plane was delayed (what a way to start) but we had a three hour layover built into the schedule.... so no worries. We made the connection just fine. Northwest Flight 11 left Detroit on time at 3:30 PM. The flight was LONG and BORING. Three movies, three meals, three sore rears and some dozing thrown in for good measure, we arrived in Tokyo an hour early. WOW! The Northwest lounge was stocked with sushi, so Emily was VERY happy. The flight to Beijing was on time as well. We met our guide, Dennis, after a short delay and hopped the bus to our hotel.

So, here we are, halfway around the world from home. Tomorrow we see the Beijing sights... Emily wants to get a shirt that says "I Climbed The Great Wall"... we'll see about that. We are tired but wide awake. This was expected.

To all our friends and loved ones at home... thank you all for your support and love as we make this amazing Journey to a beautiful little girl. We promise we will share her with you.

More tomorrow.

Olivia Hui Hunter Bell

We'll be there soon, Hui! Try not to be too scared as you leave your home to meet your forever family!

It's Monday

Three days to go until we get on an airplane. We are making our lists and checking them twice. Our piles are large. Hui's bag is packed and ready to go. We are guessing at her size but think we are pretty close based on the measurements we have been given. If not, well, we'll be visiting some clothing stores! Not much left to say except COME ON THURSDAY!

Not as well as we thought

We received news that Hui is having some issues relating to her surgery. Her body is "spitting stiches" and a couple of the spots on her chest have becaome infected. Fortunately, CHI has just last week completed another adoption in Lanzhou. Their coordinator on the ground in Lanzhou, Lina, spoke directly with Director Yan and had photos forwarded to us of the sores on her chest. We called Children's Hospital in St. Louis and made an appointment for her with the pediatric cardiology department the day after we return home from China, and e-mailed the photos to them so that they can see what is going on. The cardiology folks have consulted with a thorasic surgeon. We also reminded them that since we will be one day back from China, Olivia will speak NO English. Hopefully they will have a Mandarin speaking person available to tell Hui what is going on. We do not think this is serious but we need to have it checked right away as there may be secondary infection in her heart. Think positive thoughts! We need to get Olivia out of China and into a place where she can be cared for. Children's is a state of the art facility. Dang.... we really never wanted to see the inside of that hospital.

Here We Go!

We have received final approval for travel, our visas are all done, the airline tickets are purchased and all we need do is complete our imunizations, pack, make sure we have all the documents we need, get all the medical supplies etc.... "All we need to do...." Wow. A ton of stuff left. We bought a beautiful yellow dress with pretty flowers yesterday guessing at Hui's size. She is 40 inches tall.... we drew a line on the wall at that height and held the dress up to where we think it will go... PERFECT!. Pretty silly, we know, but fantisizing is a pleasant passtime. It is two weeks from today that we will depart. The travel time is almost unbelieveable... we will leave St. Louis at 10:30 AM, connect in Detroit then Tokyo, arriving Beijing on Friday at 9PM ish (8 AM Friday morning St. Louis time.). Almost 22 hours of travel. Good grief. We plan to bring several books for the trip over (and Barb's sudukos of course) as well as a backpack chock full of fun stuff for Hui for the return trip. Maybe she'll sleep?

We continue to believe that this is a blessed trip. It has all gone so perfectly. All the parts coming together in just the right time. We are humbled and honored to have a part in this. We know that Hui will bring much joy to our lives and that we are the lucky ones for having found her. We hope to be worthy of her.